initial commit of ebook 13720HEADmain

9 files changed, 64048 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/13720-0.txt b/old/13720-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6cd7813
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/13720-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11763 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, by Herman Melville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Mardi: and A Voyage Thither
+       Vol. I (of II)
+
+Author: Herman Melville
+
+Release Date: October 12, 2004 [eBook #13720]
+[Most recently updated: June 14, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Geoff Palmer
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER ***
+
+
+
+
+MARDI:
+AND A VOYAGE THITHER
+
+By Herman Melville
+
+In Two Volumes
+
+Vol. I
+
+1864
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATED
+TO
+My Brother,
+ALLAN MELVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ PREFACE
+ MARDI
+ CHAPTER I — Foot in Stirrup
+ CHAPTER II — A Calm
+ CHAPTER III — A King for a Comrade
+ CHAPTER IV — A Chat in the Clouds
+ CHAPTER V — Seats secured and Portmanteaus packed
+ CHAPTER VI — Eight Bells
+ CHAPTER VII — A Pause
+ CHAPTER VIII — They push off, Velis et Remis
+ CHAPTER IX — The Watery World is all before Them
+ CHAPTER X — They arrange their Canopies And Lounges, and try to Make Things comfortable
+ CHAPTER XI — Jarl afflicted with the Lockjaw
+ CHAPTER XII — More about being in an open Boat
+ CHAPTER XIII — Of the Chondropterygii, and other uncouth Hordes infesting the South Seas
+ CHAPTER XIV — Jarl’s Misgivings
+ CHAPTER XV — A Stitch in time saves Nine
+ CHAPTER XVI — They are Becalmed
+ CHAPTER XVII — In high Spirits, they push on for the Terra Incognita
+ CHAPTER XVIII — My Lord Shark and his Pages
+ CHAPTER XIX — Who goes there?
+ CHAPTER XX — Noises and Portents
+ CHAPTER XXI — Man ho!
+ CHAPTER XXII — What befel the Brigantine at the Pearl Shell Islands
+ CHAPTER XXIII — Sailing from the Island they pillage the Cabin
+ CHAPTER XXIV — Dedicated to the College of Physicians and Surgeons
+ CHAPTER XXV — Peril A Peace-Maker
+ CHAPTER XXVI — Containing a Pennyweight Of Philosophy
+ CHAPTER XXVII — In which the past History of the Parki is concluded
+ CHAPTER XXVIII — Suspicions laid, and something about the Calmuc
+ CHAPTER XXIX — What they lighted upon in further searching the Craft, and the Resolution they came to
+ CHAPTER XXX — Hints for a full length of Samoa
+ CHAPTER XXXI — Rovings Alow and Aloft
+ CHAPTER XXXII — Xiphius Platypterus
+ CHAPTER XXXIII — Otard
+ CHAPTER XXXIV — How they steered on their Way
+ CHAPTER XXXV — Ah, Annatoo!
+ CHAPTER XXXVI — The Parki gives up the Ghost
+ CHAPTER XXXVII — Once more they take to the Chamois
+ CHAPTER XXXVIII — The Sea on Fire
+ CHAPTER XXXIX — They fall in with Strangers
+ CHAPTER XL — Sire and Sons
+ CHAPTER XLI — A Fray
+ CHAPTER XLII — Remorse
+ CHAPTER XLIII — The Tent entered
+ CHAPTER XLIV — Away!
+ CHAPTER XLV — Reminiscences
+ CHAPTER XLVI — The Chamois with a roving Commission
+ CHAPTER XLVII — Yillah, Jarl, and Samoa
+ CHAPTER XLVIII — Something under the Surface
+ CHAPTER XLIX — Yillah
+ CHAPTER L — Yillah in Ardair
+ CHAPTER LI — The Dream begins to fade
+ CHAPTER LII — World ho!
+ CHAPTER LIII — The Chamois Ashore
+ CHAPTER LIV — A Gentleman from the Sun
+ CHAPTER LV — Tiffin in a Temple
+ CHAPTER LVI — King Media a Host
+ CHAPTER LVII — Taji takes Counsel with himself
+ CHAPTER LVIII — Mardi by Night and Yillah by Day
+ CHAPTER LIX — Their Morning Meal
+ CHAPTER LX — Belshazzar on the Bench
+ CHAPTER LXI — An Incognito
+ CHAPTER LXII — Taji retires from the World
+ CHAPTER LXIII — Odo and its Lord
+ CHAPTER LXIV — Yillah a Phantom
+ CHAPTER LXV — Taji makes three Acquaintances
+ CHAPTER LXVI — With a fair Wind, at Sunrise they sail
+ CHAPTER LXVII — Little King Peepi
+ CHAPTER LXVIII — How Teeth were regarded in Valapee
+ CHAPTER LXIX — The Company discourse, and Braid-Beard rehearses a Legend
+ CHAPTER LXX — The Minstrel leads off with a Paddle-Song; and a Message is received from Abroad
+ CHAPTER LXXI — They land upon the Island of Juam
+ CHAPTER LXXII — A Book from the Chronicles of Mohi
+ CHAPTER LXXIII — Something more of the Prince
+ CHAPTER LXXIV — Advancing deeper into the Vale, they encounter Donjalolo
+ CHAPTER LXXV — Time and Temples
+ CHAPTER LXXVI — A pleasant Place for a Lounge
+ CHAPTER LXXVII — The House of the Afternoon
+ CHAPTER LXXVIII — Babbalanja solus
+ CHAPTER LXXIX — The Center of many Circumferences
+ CHAPTER LXXX — Donjalolo in the Bosom of his Family
+ CHAPTER LXXXI — Wherein Babbalanja relates the Adventure of one Karkeke in the Land of Shades
+ CHAPTER LXXXII — How Donjalolo, sent Agents to the Surrounding Isles; with the Result
+ CHAPTER LXXXIII — They visit the Tributary Islets
+ CHAPTER LXXXIV — Taji sits down to Dinner with five-And-Twenty Kings, and a royal Time they have
+ CHAPTER LXXXV — After Dinner
+ CHAPTER LXXXVI — Of those Scamps the Plujii
+ CHAPTER LXXXVII — Nora-Bamma
+ CHAPTER LXXXVIII — In a Calm, Hautia’s Heralds approach
+ CHAPTER LXXXIX — Braid-Beard rehearses the Origin of the Isle of Rogues
+ CHAPTER XC — Rare Sport at Ohonoo
+ CHAPTER XCI — Of King Uhia and his Subjects
+ CHAPTER XCII — The God Keevi and the Precipice of Mondo
+ CHAPTER XCIII — Babbalanja steps in between Mohi and Yoomy; and Yoomy relates a Legend
+ CHAPTER XCIV — Of that jolly old Lord, Borabolla; and that jolly Island of his, Mondoldo; and of the Fish-Ponds, and the Hereafters of Fish
+ CHAPTER XCV — That jolly old Lord Borabolla laughs on both Sides of his Face
+ CHAPTER XCVI — Samoa a Surgeon
+ CHAPTER XCVII — Faith and Knowledge
+ CHAPTER XCVIII — The Tale of a Traveler
+ CHAPTER XCIX — “Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee”
+ CHAPTER C — The Pursuer himself is pursued
+ CHAPTER CI — The Iris
+ CHAPTER CII — They depart from Mondoldo
+ CHAPTER CIII — As they sail
+ CHAPTER CIV — Wherein Babbalanja broaches a diabolical Theory, and in his Own Person proves it
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the
+Pacific, which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the
+thought occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian
+adventure, and publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction might
+not, possibly, be received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of
+my previous experience.
+
+This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in Mardi. New
+York, January, 1849.
+
+
+
+
+MARDI
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+Foot In Stirrup
+
+
+We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor
+swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the
+breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out
+spreads the canvas—alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many
+a stun’ sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea
+with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.
+
+But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
+
+We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from
+the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn’s island,
+where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped
+ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for
+the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
+
+And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the
+Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there
+met.
+
+Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the
+Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or
+sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds.
+
+But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the
+sea-gull, straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of the
+trade winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai
+are fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so.
+First, in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste to the
+south; and there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they stand for
+the main: then, making their easting, up helm, and away down the coast,
+toward the Line.
+
+This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a
+weary one it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous;
+thank fate, never since.
+
+But bravo! in two weeks’ time, an event. Out of the gray of the
+morning, and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of
+the sea; standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft,
+and creamy breakers frothing round its base.—We turned aside, and, at
+length, when day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass, we spied two
+or three hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and
+presently, a signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. Well
+knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three
+noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to
+comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred
+in not sending a boat off with his card.
+
+A few days more and we “took the trades.” Like favors snappishly
+conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp
+squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat
+old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward.
+
+In good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few
+leagues west of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing
+across the Line, to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey. For
+some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in
+Peru, run in veins through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and
+week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal
+intersection of the self-same Line; till we were almost ready to swear
+that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary
+locality.
+
+At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way
+straight along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right,
+and peering left, but seeing naught.
+
+It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of
+that bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to
+the adventures herein recounted.
+
+But hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. The
+sailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped
+at the islands included. Nevertheless, they were not precisely to my
+mind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle
+sympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then
+overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and
+livelier auspices the tarry knaves might have developed qualities more
+attractive. Had we sprung a leak, been “stove” by a whale, or been
+blessed with some despot of a captain against whom to stir up some
+spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might have proved limber lads,
+and men of mettle. But as it was, there was naught to strike fire from
+their steel.
+
+There were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board
+very hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood
+upon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do
+him justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular;
+was sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand at the helm.
+But what of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy? Not a bit. His
+library was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and Hamilton Moore.
+
+And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation
+from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions
+of long-drawn yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan
+sung by our full forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.
+
+Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly
+dull. Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have borne;
+but in every other respect. The days went slowly round and round,
+endless and uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time- pieces; How
+many centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the
+ship’s dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred forever be the
+Arcturion’s fore-hatch—alas! sea-moss is over it now—and rusty forever
+the bolts that held together that old sea hearth-stone, about which we
+so often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost and leaden hours, I will rail
+at ye while life lasts.
+
+Well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel’s stories
+were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed
+into each other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad’s songs were sung
+till the echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the
+sails. My poor patience was clean gone.
+
+But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line
+in high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.
+
+But whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of
+sun-strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far
+worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory
+concerning the damned and the comets;—hurried from equinoctial heats to
+arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our
+skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he
+was bent upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor’-West Coast and in
+the Bay of Kamschatska.
+
+To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this
+juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say:
+that Right whaling on the Nor’-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs,
+the sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest
+logs on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned
+bullocks to the knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling, I say,
+compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern
+and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank
+Greenland icebergs to zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively
+quarry bounds before you through leafy glades.
+
+Now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to
+measure the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit
+contravention of the agreement between us. That agreement needs not to
+be detailed. And having shipped but for a single cruise, I had embarked
+aboard his craft as one might put foot in stirrup for a day’s following
+of the hounds. And here, Heaven help me, he was going to carry me off
+to the Pole! And on such a vile errand too! For there was something
+degrading in it. Your true whaleman glories in keeping his harpoon
+unspotted by blood of aught but Cachalot. By my halidome, it touched
+the knighthood of a tar. Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
+
+“Captain,” said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the wheel
+one day, “It’s very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory. I
+shipped to go elsewhere.”
+
+“Yes, and so did I,” was his reply. “But it can’t be helped. Sperm
+whales are not to be had. We’ve been out now three years, and something
+or other must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and her hold a
+gulf to look into. But cheer up my boy; once in the Bay of Kamschatka,
+and we’ll be all afloat with what we want, though it be none of the
+best.”
+
+Worse and worse! The oleaginous prospect extended into an immensity of
+Macassar. “Sir,” said I, “I did not ship for it; put me ashore
+somewhere, I beseech.” He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a
+moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the
+sea-captain, to the prejudice of the more kindly nature of the man.
+
+But not so. Taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand on the
+wheel, and said, “Right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must. Putting
+you ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till this ship is
+full to the combings of her hatchways. However, you may leave her if
+you can.” And so saying he entered his cabin, like Julius Caesar into
+his tent.
+
+He may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear
+like a bravado. It savored of the turnkey’s compliments to the prisoner
+in Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.
+
+“Leave the ship if I can!” Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore
+was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For
+on board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows,
+whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open
+boat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a long yarn
+about being the only survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to the water’s
+edge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they were keepers
+of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some ugly craft
+still afloat and hearty, and stolen away from her, off soundings. Among
+seamen in the Pacific such adventures not seldom occur. Nor are they
+accounted great wonders. They are but incidents, not events, in the
+career of the brethren of the order of South Sea rovers. For what
+matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a good whale-boat be
+under foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas before? And herein
+lies the difference between the Atlantic and Pacific:—that once within
+the Tropics, the bold sailor who has a mind to quit his ship round Cape
+Horn, waits not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty harbor.
+
+Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I resolved
+to weigh well the chances. It’s worth noticing, this way we all have of
+pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a
+bagatelle.
+
+My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or
+wrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to split no hairs
+on this point, let me say, that were I placed in the same situation
+again, I would repeat the thing I did then. The captain well knew that
+he was going to detain me unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was
+he himself who threw out the very hint, which I merely adopted, with
+many thanks to him.
+
+In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my
+allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day,
+serene and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and away,
+away, illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were was
+perhaps the most unfrequented and least known portion of these seas.
+Westward, however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid down
+upon the charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land. But
+soon these regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged
+for cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging.
+
+I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship,
+silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
+
+In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon
+high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and
+minarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast
+Alhambra. Vistas seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all
+over the towers of this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds.
+Watching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and
+was lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in with it; for directly,
+as in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows laving a beach
+of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the
+lulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together.
+
+Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up
+aloft. But coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so, that
+thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a
+frenzy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+A Calm
+
+
+Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of
+the ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in
+me my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this
+phenomenon of the sea. Those impressions may merit a page.
+
+To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his
+abdomen, but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the
+eternal fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him.
+
+At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of
+existence where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself in
+his coat, to see whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to test
+the reality of the glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by way of
+experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. If a reader of
+books, Priestley on Necessity occurs to him; and he believes in that
+old Sir Anthony Absolute to the very last chapter. His faith in Malte
+Brun, however, begins to fail; for the geography, which from boyhood he
+had implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating
+all over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. That over
+against America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm, and he grows
+madly skeptical.
+
+To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what
+they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the
+earth’s surface.
+
+The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar;
+for no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be
+lighted upon in the watery waste.
+
+At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain’s competency
+to navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted
+into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting
+lull, introductory to a positive vacuity.
+
+Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning his
+soul.
+
+The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange
+and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for
+the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in
+him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations.
+The hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid
+to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum.
+
+But more than all else is the consciousness of his utter helplessness.
+Succor or sympathy there is none. Penitence for embarking avails not.
+The final satisfaction of despairing may not be his with a relish. Vain
+the idea of idling out the calm. He may sleep if he can, or purposely
+delude himself into a crazy fancy, that he is merely at leisure. All
+this he may compass; but he may not lounge; for to lounge is to be
+idle; to be idle implies an absence of any thing to do; whereas there
+is a calm to be endured: enough to attend to, Heaven knows.
+
+His physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes a
+fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. Even his
+undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of volition,
+become as naught. For of what use? He wills to go: to get away from the
+calm: as ashore he would avoid the plague. But he can not; and how
+foolish to revolve expedients. It is more hopeless than a bad marriage
+in a land where there is no Doctors’ Commons. He has taken the ship to
+wife, for better or for worse, for calm or for gale; and she is not to
+be shuffled off. With yards akimbo, she says unto him scornfully, as
+the old beldam said to the little dwarf:—“Help yourself”
+
+And all this, and more than this, is a calm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+A King For A Comrade
+
+
+At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than sixty
+degrees to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a desirable
+longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic destination:
+around us one wide sea.
+
+But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and
+south an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but
+little known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go almost
+every where. Beginning at the southerly termination of this great
+chain, it comprises the islands loosely known as Ellice’s group; then,
+the Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and Mulgrave clusters. These
+islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral formation, low
+and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. The language of the
+people was said to be very similar to that or the Navigator’s islands,
+from which, their ancestors are supposed to have emigrated.
+
+And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of the
+islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all; and
+that our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a reliable
+Trade-wind. The distance, though great, was merely an extension of
+water; so much blankness to be sailed over; and in a craft, too, that
+properly managed has been known to outlive great ships in a gale. For
+this much is true of a whale-boat, the cunningest thing in its way ever
+fabricated by man.
+
+Upon one of the Kingsmill islands, then, I determined to plant my foot,
+come what come would. And I was equally determined that one of the
+ship’s boats should float me thither. But I had no idea of being
+without a companion. It would be a weary watch to keep all by myself,
+with naught but the horizon in sight.
+
+Now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one
+could tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and
+defective. “Man and boy,” said honest Jarl, “I have lived ever since I
+can remember.” And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To
+ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it
+is so hard to die, ere the world itself is departed.
+
+Jarl hailed from the isle of Skye, one of the constellated Hebrides.
+Hence, they often called him the Skyeman. And though he was far from
+being piratical of soul, he was yet an old Norseman to behold. His
+hands were brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm
+roaring round the old peak of Mull; and his long yellow hair waved
+round his head like a sunset. My life for it, Jarl, thy ancestors were
+Vikings, who many a time sailed over the salt German sea and the
+Baltic; who wedded their Brynhildas in Jutland; and are now quaffing
+mead in the halls of Valhalla, and beating time with their cans to the
+hymns of the Scalds. Ah! how the old Sagas run through me!
+
+Yet Jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless
+mariner on the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he
+led. But so it has been, and forever will be. What yeoman shall swear
+that he is not descended from Alfred? what dunce, that he is not sprung
+of old Homer? King Noah, God bless him! fathered us all. Then hold up
+your heads, oh ye Helots, blood potential flows through your veins. All
+of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels
+for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of God did verily wed
+with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve. Thus all
+generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the
+hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones and
+principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout space;
+the nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one and all,
+brothers in essence—oh, be we then brothers indeed! All things form but
+one whole; the universe a Judea, and God Jehovah its head. Then no more
+let us start with affright. In a theocracy, what is to fear? Let us
+compose ourselves to death as fagged horsemen sleep in the saddle. Let
+us welcome even ghosts when they rise. Away with our stares and
+grimaces. The New Zealander’s tattooing is not a prodigy; nor the
+Chinaman’s ways an enigma. No custom is strange; no creed is absurd; no
+foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. In heaven, at last, our
+good, old, white-haired father Adam will greet all alike, and sociality
+forever prevail. Christian shall join hands between Gentile and Jew;
+grim Dante forget his Infernos, and shake sides with fat Rabelais; and
+monk Luther, over a flagon of old nectar, talk over old times with Pope
+Leo. Then, shall we sit by the sages, who of yore gave laws to the
+Medes and Persians in the sun; by the cavalry captains in Perseus, who
+cried, “To horse!” when waked by their Last Trump sounding to the
+charge; by the old hunters, who eternities ago, hunted the moose in
+Orion; by the minstrels, who sang in the Milky Way when Jesus our
+Saviour was born. Then shall we list to no shallow gossip of Magellans
+and Drakes; but give ear to the voyagers who have circumnavigated the
+Ecliptic; who rounded the Polar Star as Cape Horn. Then shall the
+Stagirite and Kant be forgotten, and another folio than theirs be
+turned over for wisdom; even the folio now spread with horoscopes as
+yet undeciphered, the heaven of heavens on high.
+
+Now, in old Jarl’s lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal tar
+is too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with seamen
+of all tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo-Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and Danes,
+wear away in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink your
+clan; down goes your nation; you speak a world’s language, jovially
+jabbering in the Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.
+
+True to his calling, the Skyeman was very illiterate; witless of
+Salamanca, Heidelberg, or Brazen-Nose; in Delhi, had never turned over
+the books of the Brahmins. For geography, in which sailors should be
+adepts, since they are forever turning over and over the great globe of
+globes, poor Jarl was deplorably lacking. According to his view of the
+matter, this terraqueous world had been formed in the manner of a tart;
+the land being a mere marginal crust, within which rolled the watery
+world proper. Such seemed my good Viking’s theory of cosmography. As
+for other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full as much as
+Chrysostom.
+
+Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the secret
+operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings
+of Spinoza’s.
+
+Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and
+but seldom will speak for himself.
+
+Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for he
+loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.
+
+It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive a
+very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an
+attachment so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless originating
+in that heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as they grow aged;
+impelling them to fasten upon some chance object of regard. But however
+it was, my Viking, thy unbidden affection was the noblest homage ever
+paid me. And frankly, I am more inclined to think well of myself, as in
+some way deserving thy devotion, than from the rounded compliments of
+more cultivated minds.
+
+Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they
+are. No school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of
+one man with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You wear
+your character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain all endeavors
+to assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you possess.
+Incognitos, however desirable, are out of the question. And thus aboard
+of all ships in which I have sailed, I have invariably been known by a
+sort of thawing-room title. Not,—let me hurry to say,—that I put hand
+in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a
+Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better than my vocation; and
+mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a hand, as
+the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine upbraid me
+with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of
+main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that ever howled.
+
+Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly
+was. It was because of something in me that could not be hidden;
+stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise
+incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions to
+Belles-Lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.
+
+But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Arcturion’s
+crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a “nob.”
+But Jarl seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one of the
+House of Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles Edward
+the Pretender, who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a vagrant. At
+any rate, his loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my laundress and
+tailor; a most expert one, too; and when at meal-times my turn came
+round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered
+for me among the “kids” in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity.
+Many’s the good lump of “duff” for which I was indebted to my good
+Viking’s good care of me. And like Sesostris I was served by a monarch.
+Yet in some degree the obligation was mutual. For be it known that, in
+sea-parlance, we were _chummies._
+
+Now this _chummying_ among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting
+between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a
+Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership of
+chests and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual
+championship of the absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses remind
+me of sundry lazy, ne’er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable
+chummies; chummies, who at meal times were last at the “kids,” when
+their unfortunate partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who
+affected awkwardness at the needle, and conscientious scruples about
+dabbling in the suds; so that chummy the simple was made to do all the
+work of the firm, while chummy the cunning played the sleeping partner
+in his hammock. Out upon such chummies!
+
+But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning.
+Never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan
+charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the
+frightful gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which
+thou calledst “ducks;”—Didst thou not expressly declare, that all these
+things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint
+thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of a whale? Nay; could I even
+wrest from thy willful hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it
+steaming in an unsavory pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated
+cask? Full well thou knowest, Jarl, that these things are true; and I
+am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking desire to reap advantage
+from thy great good nature.
+
+Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and
+my Viking alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+A Chat In The Clouds
+
+
+The Skyeman seemed so earnest and upright a seaman, that to tell the
+plain truth, in spite of his love for me, I had many misgivings as to
+his readiness to unite in an undertaking which apparently savored of a
+moral dereliction. But all things considered, I deemed my own
+resolution quite venial; and as for inducing another to join me, it
+seemed a precaution so indispensable, as to outweigh all other
+considerations.
+
+Therefore I resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special
+purpose paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air,
+he happened to be perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on the
+lookout for whales never seen.
+
+Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a
+time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the
+Channel in a balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have a
+fellow feeling for the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up
+there, smoking our dwarfish “dudeens,” any sea-gull passing by might
+have taken us for Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing
+their after-dinner Bagdads, bound to Calais, via Heaven, from Dover.
+Honest Jarl, I acquainted with all: my conversation with the captain,
+the hint implied in his last words, my firm resolve to quit the ship in
+one of her boats, and the facility with which I thought the thing could
+be done. Then I threw out many inducements, in the shape of pleasant
+anticipations of bearing right down before the wind upon the sunny
+isles under our lee.
+
+He listened attentively; but so long remained silent that I almost
+fancied there was something in Jarl which would prove too much for me
+and my eloquence.
+
+At last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he
+had never known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case
+the runaways had never afterwards been heard of. He entreated me to
+renounce my determination, not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to
+the ship, and go home in her like a man. Verily, my Viking talked to me
+like my uncle.
+
+But to all this I turned a deaf ear; affirming that my mind was made
+up; and that as he refused to accompany me, and I fancied no one else
+for a comrade, I would go stark alone rather than not at all. Upon
+this, seeing my resolution immovable, he bluntly swore that he would
+follow me through thick and thin.
+
+Thanks, Jarl! thou wert one of those devoted fellows who will wrestle
+hard to convince one loved of error; but failing, forthwith change
+their wrestling to a sympathetic hug.
+
+But now his elderly prudence came into play. Casting his eye over the
+boundless expanse below, he inquired how far off were the islands in
+question.
+
+“A thousand miles and no less.”
+
+“With a fair trade breeze, then, and a boat sail, that is a good twelve
+days’ passage, but calms and currents may make it a month, perhaps
+more.” So saying, he shook his old head, and his yellow hair streamed.
+
+But trying my best to chase away these misgivings, he at last gave them
+over. He assured me I might count upon him to his uttermost keel.
+
+My Viking secured, I felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered how
+the enterprise might best be accomplished.
+
+There was no time to be lost. Every hour was carrying us farther and
+farther from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our route
+to the westward. So, with all possible dispatch, I matured my plans,
+and communicated them to Jarl, who gave several old hints—having
+ulterior probabilities in view—which were not neglected.
+
+Strange to relate, it was not till my Viking, with a rueful face,
+reminded me of the fact, that I bethought me of a circumstance somewhat
+alarming at the first blush. We must push off without chart or
+quadrant; though, as will shortly be seen, a compass was by no means
+out of the question. The chart, to be sure, I did not so much lay to
+heart; but a quadrant was more than desirable. Still, it was by no
+means indispensable. For this reason. When we started, our latitude
+would be exactly known; and whether, on our voyage westward, we drifted
+north or south therefrom, we could not, by any possibility, get so far
+out of our reckoning, as to fail in striking some one of a long chain
+of islands, which, for many degrees, on both sides of the equator,
+stretched right across our track.
+
+For much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage we
+daily knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the
+place we desired to reach. So what could be plainer than this: that if
+westward we patiently held on our way, we must eventually achieve our
+destination?
+
+As for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they intimidated
+us not. In a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an
+indifferent look-out would preclude all danger on that score. At all
+events, the thing seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old Jarl’s
+superstitious reverence for nautical instruments, and the philosophical
+objections which might have been urged by a pedantic disciple of
+Mercator.
+
+Very often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most
+startling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no
+alarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun—“Be thou, old pilot, our
+guide!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed
+
+
+But thoughts of sextants and quadrants were the least of our cares.
+
+Right from under the very arches of the eyebrows of thirty men—captain,
+mates, and crew—a boat was to be abstracted; they knowing nothing of
+the event, until all knowledge would prove unavailing.
+
+Hark ye:
+
+At sea, the boats of a South Sea-man (generally four in number, spare
+ones omitted,) are suspended by tackles, hooked above, to curved
+timbers called “davits,” vertically fixed to the ship’s sides.
+
+Now, no fair one with golden locks is more assiduously waited upon, or
+more delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale- boat
+by her crew. And out of its element, it seems fragile enough to justify
+the utmost solicitude. For truly, like a fine lady, the fine whale-boat
+is most delicate when idle, though little coy at a pinch.
+
+Besides the “davits,” the following supports are provided Two small
+cranes are swung under the keel, on which the latter rests, preventing
+the settling of the boat’s middle, while hanging suspended by the bow
+and stern. A broad, braided, hempen band, usually worked in a tasteful
+pattern, is also passed round both gunwales; and secured to the ship’s
+bulwarks, firmly lashes the craft to its place. Being elevated above
+the ship’s rail, the boats are in plain sight from all parts of the
+deck.
+
+Now, one of these boats was to be made way with. No facile matter,
+truly. Harder than for any dashing young Janizary to run off with a
+sultana from the Grand Turk’s seraglio. Still, the thing could be done,
+for, by Jove, it had been.
+
+What say you to slyly loosing every thing by day; and when night comes,
+cast off the band and swing in the cranes? But how lower the tackles,
+even in the darkest night, without a creaking more fearful than the
+death rattle? Easily avoided. Anoint the ropes, and they will travel
+deftly through the subtle windings of the blocks.
+
+But though I had heard of this plan being pursued, there was a degree
+of risk in it, after all, which I was far from fancying. Another plan
+was hit upon; still bolder; and hence more safe. What it was, in the
+right place will be seen.
+
+In selecting my craft for this good voyage, I would fain have traversed
+the deck, and eyed the boats like a cornet choosing his steed from out
+a goodly stud. But this was denied me. And the “bow boat” was,
+perforce, singled out, as the most remote from the quarter-deck, that
+region of sharp eyes and relentless purposes.
+
+Then, our larder was to be thought of; also, an abundant supply of
+water; concerning which last I determined to take good heed. There were
+but two to be taken care of; but I resolved to lay in sufficient store
+of both meat and drink for four; at the same time that the supplemental
+twain thus provided for were but imaginary. And if it came to the last
+dead pinch, of which we had no fear, however, I was food for no man but
+Jarl.
+
+Little time was lost in catering for our mess. Biscuit and salt beef
+were our sole resource; and, thanks to the generosity of the
+Arcturion’s owners, our ship’s company had a plentiful supply. Casks of
+both, with heads knocked out, were at the service of all. In bags which
+we made for the purpose, a sufficiency of the biscuit was readily
+stored away, and secreted in a corner of easy access. The salt beef was
+more difficult to obtain; but, little by little, we managed to smuggle
+out of the cask enough to answer our purpose.
+
+As for water, most luckily a day or two previous several “breakers” of
+it had been hoisted from below for the present use of the ship’s
+company.
+
+These “breakers” are casks, long and slender, but very strong. Of
+various diameters, they are made on purpose to stow into spaces
+intervening between the immense butts in a ship’s hold.
+
+The largest we could find was selected, first carefully examining it to
+detect any leak. On some pretense or other, we then rolled them all
+over to that side of the vessel where our boat was suspended, the
+selected breaker being placed in their middle.
+
+Our compendious wardrobes were snugly packed into bundles and laid
+aside for the present. And at last, by due caution, we had every thing
+arranged preliminary to the final start. Let me say, though, perhaps to
+the credit of Jarl, that whenever the most strategy was necessary, he
+seemed ill at ease, and for the most part left the matter to me. It was
+well that he did; for as it was, by his untimely straight-forwardness,
+he once or twice came near spoiling every thing. Indeed, on one
+occasion he was so unseasonably blunt, that curiously enough, I had
+almost suspected him of taking that odd sort of interest in one’s
+welfare, which leads a philanthropist, all other methods failing, to
+frustrate a project deemed bad; by pretending clumsily to favor it. But
+no inuendoes; Jarl was a Viking, frank as his fathers; though not so
+much of a bucanier.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+Eight Bells
+
+
+The moon must be monstrous coy, or some things fall out opportunely, or
+else almanacs are consulted by nocturnal adventurers; but so it is,
+that when Cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds are
+done. Though true it may be, that of moonlight nights, jewelers’
+caskets and maidens’ hearts have been burglariously broken into—and
+rifled, for aught Copernicus can tell.
+
+The gentle planet was in her final quarter, and upon her slender horn I
+hung my hopes of withdrawing from the ship undetected.
+
+Now, making a tranquil passage across the ocean, we kept at this time
+what are called among whalemen “boatscrew-watches.” That is, instead of
+the sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck
+every four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat’s
+crew, the “headsman” (always one of the mates) excepted. To the
+officers, this plan gives uninterrupted repose—“all-night-in,” as they
+call it, and of course greatly lightens the duties of the crew.
+
+The harpooneers head the boats’ crews, and are responsible for the ship
+during the continuance of their watches.
+
+Now, my Viking being a stalwart seaman, pulled the midship oar of the
+boat of which I was bowsman. Hence, we were in the same watch; to
+which, also, three others belonged, including Mark, the harpooner. One
+of these seamen, however, being an invalid, there were only two left
+for us to manage.
+
+Voyaging in these seas, you may glide along for weeks without starting
+tack or sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and constant are
+the Trades. At night, the watch seldom trouble themselves with keeping
+much of a look-out; especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy
+in these lonely waters. In some ships, for weeks in and weeks out, you
+are puzzled to tell when your nightly turn on deck really comes round;
+so little heed is given to the standing of watches, where in the
+license of presumed safety, nearly every one nods without fear.
+
+But remiss as you may be in the boats-crew-watch of a heedless
+whaleman, the man who heads it is bound to maintain his post on the
+quarter-deck until regularly relieved. Yet drowsiness being incidental
+to all natures, even to Napoleon, beside his own sentry napping in the
+snowy bivouac; so, often, in snowy moonlight, or ebon eclipse, dozed
+Mark, our harpooneer. Lethe be his portion this blessed night, thought
+I, as during the morning which preceded our enterprise, I eyed the man
+who might possibly cross my plans.
+
+But let me come closer to this part of my story. During what are called
+at sea the “dog-watches” (between four o’clock and eight in the
+evening), sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits even
+flow far into the first of the long “night-watches;” but upon its
+expiration at “eight bells” (midnight), silence begins to reign; if you
+hear a voice it is no cherub’s: all exclamations are oaths.
+
+At eight bells, the mariners on deck, now relieved from their cares,
+crawl out from their sleepy retreats in old monkey jackets, or coils of
+rigging, and hie to their hammocks, almost without interrupting their
+dreams: while the sluggards below lazily drag themselves up the ladder
+to resume their slumbers in the open air.
+
+For these reasons then, the moonless sea midnight was just the time to
+escape. Hence, we suffered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting for
+the night, when the star board-quarter-boats’-watch, to which we
+belonged, would be summoned on deck at the eventful eight of the bell.
+
+But twenty-four hours soon glide away; and “Starboleens ahoy; eight
+bells there below;” at last started me from a troubled doze.
+
+I sprang from my hammock, and would have lighted my pipe. But the
+forecastle lamp had gone out. An old sea-dog was talking about sharks
+in his sleep. Jarl and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way
+into their trowsers. And little was heard but the humming of the still
+sails aloft; the dash of the waves against the bow; and the deep
+breathing of the dreaming sailors around.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+A Pause
+
+
+Good old Arcturion! Maternal craft; that rocked me so often in thy
+heart of oak, I grieve to tell how I deserted thee on the broad deep.
+So far from home, with such a motley crew, so many islanders, whose
+heathen babble echoing through thy Christian hull, must have grated
+harshly on every carline.
+
+Old ship! where sails thy lone ghost now? For of the stout Arcturion no
+word was ever heard, from the dark hour we pushed from her fated
+planks. In what time of tempest, to what seagull’s scream, the drowning
+eddies did their work, knows no mortal man. Sunk she silently,
+helplessly, into the calm depths of that summer sea, assassinated by
+the ruthless blade of the swordfish? Such things have been. Or was hers
+a better fate? Stricken down while gallantly battling with the blast;
+her storm-sails set; helm manned; and every sailor at his post; as sunk
+the Hornet, her men at quarters, in some distant gale.
+
+But surmises are idle. A very old craft, she may have foundered; or
+laid her bones upon some treacherous reef; but as with many a far
+rover, her fate is a mystery.
+
+Pray Heaven, the spirit of that lost vessel roaming abroad through the
+troubled mists of midnight gales—as old mariners believe of missing
+ships—may never haunt my future path upon the waves. Peacefully may she
+rest at the bottom of the sea; and sweetly sleep my shipmates in the
+lowest watery zone, where prowling sharks come not, nor billows roll.
+
+By quitting the Arcturion when we did, Jarl and I unconsciously eluded
+a sailor’s grave. We hear of providential deliverances. Was this one?
+But life is sweet to all, death comes as hard. And for myself I am
+almost tempted to hang my head, that I escaped the fate of my
+shipmates; something like him who blushed to have escaped the fell
+carnage at Thermopylae.
+
+Though I can not repress a shudder when I think of that old ship’s end,
+it is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our deserting her
+could have been in any way instrumental in her loss. Nevertheless, I
+would to heaven the Arcturion still floated; that it was given me once
+more to tread her familiar decks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+They Push Off, Velis Et Remis
+
+
+And now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand
+miles from land, we embarked upon this western voyage.
+
+It was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the
+helm now coming on was of course to be avoided. On some plausible
+pretense, I induced our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving
+myself untrammeled, and at the same time satisfactorily disposing of
+him. For being a rather fat fellow, an enormous consumer of “duff,” and
+with good reason supposed to be the son of a farmer, I made no doubt,
+he would pursue his old course and fall to nodding over the wheel. As
+for the leader of the watch—our harpooner—he fell heir to the nest of
+old jackets, under the lee of the mizzen-mast, left nice and warm by
+his predecessor.
+
+The night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no trace
+of a moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at night
+near the Line, half shrouded the stars from view.
+
+Waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch
+had gone below, I motioned to Jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our
+feet. He then descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft toward
+the quarter-deck. All was still. Thrice did I pass my hand full before
+the face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right between him
+and the light of the binnacle.
+
+Mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. I feared to approach
+him. He lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more delay. Risks
+must be run, when time presses. And our ears were a pointer’s to catch
+a sound.
+
+To work we went, without hurry, but swiftly and silently. Our various
+stores were dragged from their lurking-places, and placed in the boat,
+which hung from the ship’s lee side, the side depressed in the water,
+an indispensable requisite to an attempt at escape. And though at
+sundown the boat was to windward, yet, as we had foreseen, the vessel
+having been tacked during the first watch, brought it to leeward.
+
+Endeavoring to manhandle our clumsy breaker, and lift it into the boat,
+we found, that by reason of the intervention of the shrouds, it could
+not be done without, risking a jar; besides straining the craft in
+lowering. An expedient, however, though at the eleventh hour, was hit
+upon. Fastening a long rope to the breaker, which was perfectly tight,
+we cautiously dropped it overboard; paying out enough line, to insure
+its towing astern of the ship, so as not to strike against the copper.
+The other end of the line we then secured to the boat’s stern.
+
+Fortunately, this was the last thing to be done; for the breaker,
+acting as a clog to the vessel’s way in the water, so affected her
+steering as to fling her perceptibly into the wind. And by causing the
+helm to work, this must soon rouse the lubber there stationed, if not
+already awake. But our dropping overboard the breaker greatly aided us
+in this respect: it diminished the ship’s headway; which owing to the
+light breeze had not been very great at any time during the night. Had
+it been so, all hope of escaping without first arresting the vessel’s
+progress, would have been little short of madness. As it was, the sole
+daring of the deed that night achieved, consisted in our lowering away
+while the ship yet clove the brine, though but moderately.
+
+All was now ready: the cranes swung in, the lashings adrift, and the
+boat fairly suspended; when, seizing the ends of the tackle ropes, we
+silently stepped into it, one at each end. The dead weight of the
+breaker astern now dragged the craft horizontally through the air, so
+that her tackle ropes strained hard. She quivered like a dolphin.
+Nevertheless, had we not feared her loud splash upon striking the wave,
+we might have quitted the ship almost as silently as the breath the
+body. But this was out of the question, and our plans were laid
+accordingly.
+
+“All ready, Jarl?”
+
+“Ready.”
+
+“A man overboard!” I shouted at the top of my compass; and like
+lightning the cords slid through our blistering hands, and with a
+tremendous shock the boat bounded on the sea’s back. One mad sheer and
+plunge, one terrible strain on the tackles as we sunk in the trough of
+the waves, tugged upon by the towing breaker, and our knives severed
+the tackle ropes—we hazarded not unhooking the blocks—our oars were
+out, and the good boat headed round, with prow to leeward.
+
+“Man overboard!” was now shouted from stem to stern. And directly we
+heard the confused tramping and shouting of the sailors, as they rushed
+from their dreams into the almost inscrutable darkness.
+
+“Man overboard! Man overboard!” My heart smote me as the human cry of
+horror came out of the black vaulted night.
+
+“Down helm!” was soon heard from the chief mate. “Back the main-yard!
+Quick to the boats! How’s this? One down already? Well done! Hold on,
+then, those other boats!”
+
+Meanwhile several seamen were shouting as they strained at the braces.
+
+“Cut! cut all! Lower away! lower away!” impatiently cried the sailors,
+who already had leaped into the boats.
+
+“Heave the ship to, and hold fast every thing,” cried the captain,
+apparently just springing to the deck. “One boat’s enough. Steward;
+show a light there from the mizzen-top. Boat ahoy!—Have you got that
+man?”
+
+No reply. The voice came out of a cloud; the ship dimly showing like a
+ghost. We had desisted from rowing, and hand over hand were now hauling
+in upon the rope attached to the breaker, which we soon lifted into the
+boat, instantly resuming our oars.
+
+“Pull! pull, men! and save him!” again shouted the captain.
+
+“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Jarl instinctively, “pulling as hard as ever we
+can, sir.”
+
+And pull we did, till nothing could be heard from the ship but a
+confused tumult; and, ever and anon, the hoarse shout of the captain,
+too distant to be understood.
+
+We now set our sail to a light air; and right into the darkness, and
+dead to leeward, we rowed and sailed till morning dawned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+The Watery World Is All Before Them
+
+
+At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land!
+
+Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a speck
+to windward broke the even line of the horizon. It was the ship wending
+her way north-eastward.
+
+Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters as
+that which the Arcturion’s crew must have imputed to the night past
+(did not the skipper suspect the truth) I would have regarded that
+little speck with many compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it was, did
+I feel in any very serene humor. For the consciousness of being deemed
+dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality.
+One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass.
+Even Jarl’s glance seemed so queer, that I begged him to look another
+way.
+
+Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he
+most probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of
+returning to the ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution that
+had thus far nerved me, began to succumb in a measure to the awful
+loneliness of the scene. Ere this, I had regarded the ocean as a slave,
+the steed that bore me whither I listed, and whose vicious
+propensities, mighty though they were, often proved harmless, when
+opposed to the genius of man. But now, how changed! In our frail boat,
+I would fain have built an altar to Neptune.
+
+What a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly shouldered us
+from crest to crest, as from hand to hand lost souls may be tossed
+along by the chain of shades which enfilade the route to Tartarus.
+
+But drown or swim, here’s overboard with care! Cheer up, Jarl! Ha! Ha!
+how merrily, yet terribly, we sail! Up, up—slowly up—toiling up the
+long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on a
+rail; and down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till
+arrested, we glide upward again. And thus did we go. Now buried in
+watery hollows—our sail idly flapping; then lifted aloft—canvas
+bellying; and beholding the furthest horizon.
+
+Had not our familiarity with the business of whaling divested our
+craft’s wild motions of its first novel horrors, we had been but a
+rueful pair. But day-long pulls after whales, the ship left miles
+astern; and entire dark nights passed moored to the monsters, killed
+too late to be towed to the ship far to leeward:—all this, and much
+more, accustoms one to strange things. Death, to be sure, has a mouth
+as black as a wolf’s, and to be thrust into his jaws is a serious
+thing. But true it most certainly is—and I speak from no hearsay—that
+to sailors, as a class, the grisly king seems not half so hideous as he
+appears to those who have only regarded him on shore, and at a
+deferential distance. Like many ugly mortals, his features grow less
+frightful upon acquaintance; and met over often and sociably, the old
+adage holds true, about familiarity breeding contempt. Thus too with
+soldiers. Of the quaking recruit, three pitched battles make a grim
+grenadier; and he who shrank from the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready
+to yield his mustache for a sponge.
+
+And truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant souls will
+taunt him while they may. Yet rather, should the wise regard him as the
+inflexible friend, who, even against our own wills, from life’s evils
+triumphantly relieves us.
+
+And there is but little difference in the manner of dying. To die, is
+all. And death has been gallantly encountered by those who never beheld
+blood that was red, only its light azure seen through the veins. And to
+yield the ghost proudly, and march out of your fortress with all the
+honors of war, is not a thing of sinew and bone. Though in prison,
+Geoffry Hudson, the dwarf, died more bravely than Goliah, the giant;
+and the last end of a butterfly shames us all. Some women have lived
+nobler lives, and died nobler deaths, than men. Threatened with the
+stake, mitred Cranmer recanted; but through her fortitude, the lorn
+widow of Edessa stayed the tide of Valens’ persecutions. ’Tis no great
+valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply
+complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish
+never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one’s bed, transcends the
+death of Epaminondas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make Things
+Comfortable
+
+
+Our little craft was soon in good order. From the spare rigging brought
+along, we made shrouds to the mast, and converted the boat- hook into a
+handy boom for the jib. Going large before the wind, we set this sail
+wing-and-wing with the main-sail. The latter, in accordance with the
+customary rig of whale-boats, was worked with a sprit and sheet. It
+could be furled or set in an instant. The bags of bread we stowed away
+in the covered space about the loggerhead, a useless appurtenance now,
+and therefore removed. At night, Jarl used it for a pillow; saying,
+that when the boat rolled it gave easy play to his head. The precious
+breaker we lashed firmly amidships; thereby much improving our sailing.
+
+Now, previous to leaving the ship, we had seen to it well, that our
+craft was supplied with all those equipments, with which, by the
+regulations of the fishery, a whale-boat is constantly provided: night
+and day, afloat or suspended. Hanging along our gunwales inside, were
+six harpoons, three lances, and a blubber-spade; all keen as razors,
+and sheathed with leather. Besides these, we had three waifs, a couple
+of two-gallon water-kegs, several bailers, the boat-hatchet for cutting
+the whale-line, two auxiliary knives for the like purpose, and several
+minor articles, also employed in hunting the leviathan. The line and
+line-tub, however, were on ship-board.
+
+And here it may be mentioned, that to prevent the strain upon the boat
+when suspended to the ship’s side, the heavy whale-line, over two
+hundred fathoms in length, and something more than an inch in diameter,
+when not in use is kept on ship-board, coiled away like an endless
+snake in its tub. But this tub is always in readiness to be launched
+into the boat. Now, having no use for the line belonging to our craft,
+we had purposely left it behind.
+
+But well had we marked that by far the most important item of a
+whale-boat’s furniture was snugly secured in its place. This was the
+water-tight keg, at both ends firmly headed, containing a small
+compass, tinder-box and flint, candles, and a score or two of biscuit.
+This keg is an invariable precaution against what so frequently occurs
+in pursuing the sperm whale—prolonged absence from the ship, losing
+sight of her, or never seeing her more, till years after you reach home
+again. In this same keg of ours seemed coopered up life and death, at
+least so seemed it to honest Jarl. No sooner had we got clear from the
+Arcturion, than dropping his oar for an instant, he clutched at it in
+the dark.
+
+And when day at last came, we knocked out the head of the keg with the
+little hammer and chisel, always attached to it for that purpose, and
+removed the compass, that glistened to us like a human eye. Then
+filling up the vacancy with biscuit, we again made all tight, driving
+down the hoops till they would budge no more.
+
+At first we were puzzled to fix our compass. But at last the Skyeman
+out knife, and cutting a round hole in the after-most thwart, or seat
+of the boat, there inserted the little brass case containing the
+needle.
+
+Over the stern of the boat, with some old canvas which my Viking’s
+forethought had provided, we spread a rude sort of awning, or rather
+counterpane. This, however, proved but little or no protection from the
+glare of the sun; for the management of the main-sail forbade any
+considerable elevation of the shelter. And when the breeze was fresh,
+we were fain to strike it altogether; for the wind being from aft, and
+getting underneath the canvas, almost lifted the light boat’s stem into
+the air, vexing the counterpane as if it were a petticoat turning a
+gusty corner. But when a mere breath rippled the sea, and the sun was
+fiery hot, it was most pleasant to lounge in this shady asylum. It was
+like being transferred from the roast to cool in the cupboard. And
+Jarl, much the toughest fowl of the two, out of an abundant kindness
+for his comrade, during the day voluntarily remained exposed at the
+helm, almost two hours to my one. No lady-like scruples had he, the old
+Viking, about marring his complexion, which already was more than
+bronzed. Over the ordinary tanning of the sailor, he seemed masked by a
+visor of japanning, dotted all over with freckles, so intensely yellow,
+and symmetrically circular, that they seemed scorched there by a
+burning glass.
+
+In the tragico-comico moods which at times overtook me, I used to look
+upon the brown Skyeman with humorous complacency. If we fall in with
+cannibals, thought I, then, ready-roasted Norseman that thou art, shall
+I survive to mourn thee; at least, during the period I revolve upon the
+spit.
+
+But of such a fate, it needs hardly be said, we had no apprehension.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw
+
+
+If ever again I launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, I
+shall take good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with a
+rattle-box head. Be he never so silly, his very silliness, so long as
+he be lively at it, shall be its own excuse.
+
+Upon occasion, who likes not a lively loon, one of your giggling,
+gamesome oafs, whose mouth is a grin? Are not such, well-ordered
+dispensations of Providence? filling up vacuums, in intervals of social
+stagnation relieving the tedium of existing? besides keeping up, here
+and there, in very many quarters indeed, sundry people’s good opinion
+of themselves? What, if at times their speech is insipid as water after
+wine? What, if to ungenial and irascible souls, their very “mug” is an
+exasperation to behold, their clack an inducement to suicide? Let us
+not be hard upon them for this; but let them live on for the good they
+may do.
+
+But Jarl, dear, dumb Jarl, thou wert none of these. Thou didst carry a
+phiz like an excommunicated deacon’s. And no matter what happened, it
+was ever the same. Quietly, in thyself, thou didst revolve upon thine
+own sober axis, like a wheel in a machine which forever goes round,
+whether you look at it or no. Ay, Jarl! wast thou not forever intent
+upon minding that which so many neglect—thine own especial business?
+Wast thou not forever at it, too, with no likelihood of ever winding up
+thy moody affairs, and striking a balance sheet?
+
+But at times how wearisome to me these everlasting reveries in my one
+solitary companion. I longed for something enlivening; a burst of
+words; human vivacity of one kind or other. After in vain essaying to
+get something of this sort out of Jarl, I tried it all by myself;
+playing upon my body as upon an instrument; singing, halloing, and
+making empty gestures, till my Viking stared hard; and I myself paused
+to consider whether I had run crazy or no.
+
+But how account for the Skyeman’s gravity? Surely, it was based upon no
+philosophic taciturnity; he was nothing of an idealist; an aerial
+architect; a constructor of flying buttresses. It was inconceivable,
+that his reveries were Manfred-like and exalted, reminiscent of
+unutterable deeds, too mysterious even to be indicated by the remotest
+of hints. Suppositions all out of the question.
+
+His ruminations were a riddle. I asked him anxiously, whether, in any
+part of the world, Savannah, Surat, or Archangel, he had ever a wife to
+think of; or children, that he carried so lengthy a phiz. Nowhere
+neither. Therefore, as by his own confession he had nothing to think of
+but himself, and there was little but honesty in him (having which, by
+the way, he may be thought full to the brim), what could I fall back
+upon but my original theory: namely, that in repose, his intellects
+stepped out, and left his body to itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+More About Being In An Open Boat
+
+
+On the third morning, at break of day, I sat at the steering oar, an
+hour or two previous having relieved Jarl, now fast asleep. Somehow,
+and suddenly, a sense of peril so intense, came over me, that it could
+hardly have been aggravated by the completest solitude.
+
+On a ship’s deck, the mere feeling of elevation above the water, and
+the reach of prospect you command, impart a degree of confidence which
+disposes you to exult in your fancied security. But in an open boat,
+brought down to the very plane of the sea, this feeling almost wholly
+deserts you. Unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip
+upon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is little larger
+than it would be at the bottom of a well. At best, your most extended
+view in any one direction, at least, is in a high, slow-rolling sea;
+when you descend into the dark, misty spaces, between long and uniform
+swells. Then, for the moment, it is like looking up and down in a
+twilight glade, interminable; where two dawns, one on each hand, seem
+struggling through the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains.
+
+But, lingering not long in those silent vales, from watery cliff to
+cliff, a sea-chamois, sprang our solitary craft,—a goat among the Alps!
+
+How undulated the horizon; like a vast serpent with ten thousand folds
+coiled all round the globe; yet so nigh, apparently, that it seemed as
+if one’s hand might touch it.
+
+What loneliness; when the sun rose, and spurred up the heavens, we
+hailed him as a wayfarer in Sahara the sight of a distant horseman.
+Save ourselves, the sun and the Chamois seemed all that was left of
+life in the universe. We yearned toward its jocund disk, as in strange
+lands the traveler joyfully greets a face from home, which there had
+passed unheeded. And was not the sun a fellow-voyager? were we not both
+wending westward? But how soon he daily overtook and passed us;
+hurrying to his journey’s end.
+
+When a week had gone by, sailing steadily on, by day and by night, and
+nothing in sight but this self-same sea, what wonder if disquieting
+thoughts at last entered our hearts? If unknowingly we should pass the
+spot where, according to our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what
+shoreless sea would we launch? At times, these forebodings bewildered
+my idea of the positions of the groups beyond. All became vague and
+confused; so that westward of the Kingsmil isles and the Radack chain,
+I fancied there could be naught but an endless sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South
+Seas
+
+
+At intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which diversified
+the scene; especially when the constellation Pisces was in the
+ascendant.
+
+It’s famous botanizing, they say, in Arkansas’ boundless prairies; I
+commend the student of Ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean moors
+of the Pacific. As your craft glides along, what strange monsters float
+by. Elsewhere, was never seen their like. And nowhere are they found in
+the books of the naturalists.
+
+Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown. And
+whoso crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The
+sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a garden
+worm. There are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and more sights
+unrevealed than you or I ever ever dreamt of. Moles and bats alone
+should be skeptics; and the only true infidelity is for a live man to
+vote himself dead. Be Sir Thomas Brown our ensample; who, while
+exploding “Vulgar Errors,” heartily hugged all the mysteries in the
+Pentateuch.
+
+But look! fathoms down in the sea; where ever saw you a phantom like
+that? An enormous crescent with antlers like a reindeer, and a Delta of
+mouths. Slowly it sinks, and is seen no more.
+
+Doctor Faust saw the devil; but you have seen the “Devil Fish.”
+
+Look again! Here comes another. Jarl calls it a Bone Shark. Full as
+large as a whale, it is spotted like a leopard; and tusk-like teeth
+overlap its jaws like those of the walrus. To seamen, nothing strikes
+more terror than the near vicinity of a creature like this. Great ships
+steer out of its path. And well they may; since the good craft Essex,
+and others, have been sunk by sea-monsters, as the alligator thrusts
+his horny snout through a Carribean canoe.
+
+Ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from
+the extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed.
+
+For the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by
+hundreds; but by thousands and by myriads. Trust me, there are more
+sharks in the sea than mortals on land.
+
+And of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs.
+But by the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening the
+sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are
+classed under one family; which family, according to Muller,
+king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous tribe of
+the Chondropterygii.
+
+To begin. There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so called
+by sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard
+knocks received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar.
+At times, these gentry swim in herds; especially about the remains of a
+slaughtered whale. They are the vultures of the deep.
+
+Then we often encountered the dandy Blue Shark, a long, taper and
+mighty genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a Bond-
+street beau, and the whitest tiers of teeth imaginable. This dainty
+spark invariably lounged by with a careless fin and an indolent tail.
+But he looked infernally heartless.
+
+How his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude, savage
+swagger of the Tiger Shark; a round, portly gourmand; with distended
+mouth and collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom he might
+devour. These gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in
+the South Seas, picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a
+tit-bit, a stray sailor. No wonder, then, that sailors denounce them.
+In substance, Jarl once assured me, that under any temporary
+misfortune, it was one of his sweetest consolations to remember, that
+in his day, he had murdered, not killed, shoals of Tiger Sharks.
+
+Yet this is all wrong. As well hate a seraph, as a shark. Both were
+made by the same hand. And that sharks are lovable, witness their
+domestic endearments. No Fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable
+side. In the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her cub, as
+Hagar did Ishmael; or a queen of France the dauphin. We know not what
+we do when we hate. And I have the word of my gentlemanly friend
+Stanhope, for it; that he who declared he loved a good hater was but a
+respectable sort of Hottentot, at best. No very genteel epithet this,
+though coming from the genteelest of men. But when the digger of
+dictionaries said that saying of his, he was assuredly not much of a
+Christian. However, it is hard for one given up to constitutional hypos
+like him; to be filled with the milk and meekness of the gospels. Yet,
+with deference, I deny that my old uncle Johnson really believed in the
+sentiment ascribed to him. Love a hater, indeed! Who smacks his lips
+over gall? Now hate is a thankless thing. So, let us only hate hatred;
+and once give love play, we will fall in love with a unicorn. Ah! the
+easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must work hard. Love is a
+delight; but hate a torment. And haters are thumbscrews, Scotch boots,
+and Spanish inquisitions to themselves. In five words—would they were a
+Siamese diphthong—he who hates is a fool.
+
+For several days our Chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid
+Tiger Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in
+our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time
+till you come to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a
+bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until
+completely out of sight. Much to the Skyeman’s chagrin; who long stood
+in the stern, lance poised for a dart.
+
+But of all sharks, save me from the ghastly White Shark. For though we
+should hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and disliking is
+not hating. And never yet could I bring myself to be loving, or even
+sociable, with a White Shark. He is not the sort of creature to enlist
+young affections.
+
+This ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by
+night than by day. Timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding
+along just under the surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a milky
+hue; with glimpses now and then of his bottomless white pit of teeth.
+No need of a dentist hath he. Seen at night, stealing along like a
+spirit in the water, with horrific serenity of aspect, the White Shark
+sent many a thrill to us twain in the Chamois.
+
+By day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the
+ponderous sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he
+fetched a long breath after napping below.
+
+And time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the
+chain-plate armor and golden scales; the Nimrod of the seas, to whom so
+many flying fish fall a prey. Flying from their pursuers, many of them
+flew into our boat. But invariably they died from the shock. No nursing
+could restore them. One of their wings I removed, spreading it out to
+dry under a weight. In two days’ time the thin membrane, all over
+tracings like those of a leaf, was transparent as isinglass, and tinted
+with brilliant hues, like those of a changing silk.
+
+Almost every day, we spied Black Fish; coal-black and glossy. They
+seemed to swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel;
+their dorsal fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes.
+
+Of a somewhat similar species, but smaller, and clipper-built about the
+nose, were the Algerines; so called, probably, from their corsair
+propensities; waylaying peaceful fish on the high seas, and plundering
+them of body and soul at a gulp. Atrocious Turks! a crusade should be
+preached against them.
+
+Besides all these, we encountered Killers and Thrashers, by far the
+most spirited and “spunky” of the finny tribes. Though little larger
+than a porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan
+himself. They bait the monster, as dogs a bull. The Killers seizing the
+Right whale by his immense, sulky lower lip, and the Thrashers
+fastening on to his back, and beating him with their sinewy tails.
+Often they come off conquerors, worrying the enemy to death. Though,
+sooth to say, if leviathan gets but one sweep al them with his terrible
+tail, they go flying into the air, as if tossed from Taurus’ horn.
+
+This sight we beheld. Had old Wouvermans, who once painted a bull bait,
+been along with us, a rare chance, that, for his pencil. And Gudin or
+Isabey might have thrown the blue rolling sea into the picture. Lastly,
+one of Claude’s setting summer suns would have glorified the whole. Oh,
+believe me, God’s creatures fighting, fin for fin, a thousand miles
+from land, and with the round horizon for an arena; is no ignoble
+subject for a masterpiece.
+
+Such are a few of the sights of the great South Sea. But there is no
+telling all. The Pacific is populous as China.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+Jarl’s Misgivings
+
+
+About this time an event took place. My good Viking opened his mouth,
+and spoke. The prodigy occurred, as, jacknife in hand, he was bending
+over the midship oar; on the loom, or handle, of which he kept our
+almanac; making a notch for every set sun. For some forty-eight hours
+past, the wind had been light and variable. It was more than suspected
+that a current was sweeping us northward.
+
+Now, marking these things, Jarl threw out the thought, that the more
+wind, and the less current, the better; and if a long calm came on, of
+which there was some prospect, we had better take to our oars.
+
+Take to our oars! as if we were crossing a ferry, and no ocean leagues
+to traverse. The idea indirectly suggested all possible horrors. To be
+rid of them forthwith, I proceeded to dole out our morning meal. For to
+make away with such things, there is nothing better than bolting
+something down on top of them; albeit, oft repeated, the plan is very
+apt to beget dyspepsia; and the dyspepsia the blues.
+
+But what of our store of provisions? So far as enough to eat was
+concerned, we felt not the slightest apprehension; our supplies proving
+more abundant than we had anticipated. But, curious to tell, we felt
+but little inclination for food. It was water, bright water, cool,
+sparkling water, alone, that we craved. And of this, also, our store at
+first seemed ample. But as our voyage lengthened, and breezes blew
+faint, and calms fell fast, the idea of being deprived of the precious
+fluid grew into something little short of a mono- mania; especially
+with Jarl.
+
+Every hour or two with the hammer and chisel belonging to the tinder
+box keg, he tinkered away at the invaluable breaker; driving down the
+hoops, till in his over solicitude, I thought he would burst them
+outright.
+
+Now the breaker lay on its bilge, in the middle of the boat, where more
+or less sea-water always collected. And ever and anon, dipping his
+finger therein, my Viking was troubled with the thought, that this
+sea-water tasted less brackish than that alongside. Of course the
+breaker must be leaking. So, he would turn it over, till its wet side
+came uppermost; when it would quickly become dry as a bone. But now,
+with his knife, he would gently probe the joints of the staves; shake
+his head; look up; look down; taste of the water in the bottom of the
+boat; then that of the sea; then lift one end of the breaker; going
+through with every test of leakage he could dream of. Nor was he ever
+fully satisfied, that the breaker was in all respects sound. But in
+reality it was tight as the drum-heads that beat at Cerro- Gordo. Oh!
+Jarl, Jarl: to me in the boat’s quiet stern, steering and
+philosophizing at one time and the same, thou and thy breaker were a
+study.
+
+Besides the breaker, we had, full of water, the two boat-kegs,
+previously alluded to. These were first used. We drank from them by
+their leaden spouts; so many swallows three times in the day; having no
+other means of measuring an allowance. But when we came to the breaker,
+which had only a bung-hole, though a very large one, dog- like, it was
+so many laps apiece; jealously counted by the observer. This plan,
+however, was only good for a single day; the water then getting beyond
+the reach of the tongue. We therefore daily poured from the breaker
+into one of the kegs; and drank from its spout. But to obviate the
+absorption inseparable from decanting, we at last hit upon something
+better,—my comrade’s shoe, which, deprived of its quarters, narrowed at
+the heel, and diligently rinsed out in the sea, was converted into a
+handy but rather limber ladle. This we kept suspended in the bung-hole
+of the breaker, that it might never twice absorb the water.
+
+Now pewter imparts flavor to ale; a Meerschaum bowl, the same to the
+tobacco of Smyrna; and goggle green glasses are deemed indispensable to
+the bibbing of Hock. What then shall be said of a leathern goblet for
+water? Try it, ye mariners who list.
+
+One morning, taking his wonted draught, Jarl fished up in his ladle a
+deceased insect; something like a Daddy-long-legs, only more corpulent.
+Its fate? A sea-toss? Believe it not; with all those precious drops
+clinging to its lengthy legs. It was held over the ladle till the last
+globule dribbled; and even then, being moist, honest Jarl was but loth
+to drop it overboard.
+
+For our larder, we could not endure the salt beef; it was raw as a live
+Abyssinian steak, and salt as Cracow. Besides, the Feegee simile would
+not have held good with respect to it. It was far from being “tender as
+a dead man.” The biscuit only could we eat; not to be wondered at; for
+even on shipboard, seamen in the tropics are but sparing feeders.
+
+And here let not, a suggestion be omitted, most valuable to any future
+castaway or sailaway as the case may be. Eat not your biscuit dry; but
+dip it in the sea: which makes it more bulky and palatable. During meal
+times it was soak and sip with Jarl and me: one on each side of the
+Chamois dipping our biscuit in the brine. This plan obviated
+finger-glasses at the conclusion of our repast. Upon the whole,
+dwelling upon the water is not so bad after all. The Chinese are no
+fools. In the operation of making your toilet, how handy to float in
+your ewer!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
+
+
+Like most silent earnest sort of people, my good Viking was a pattern
+of industry. When in the boats after whales, I have known him carry
+along a roll of sinnate to stitch into a hat. And the boats lying
+motionless for half an hour or so, waiting the rising of the chase, his
+fingers would be plying at their task, like an old lady knitting. Like
+an experienced old-wife too, his digits had become so expert and
+conscientious, that his eyes left them alone; deeming optic supervision
+unnecessary. And on this trip of ours, when not otherwise engaged, he
+was quite as busy with his fingers as ever: unraveling old Cape Horn
+hose, for yarn wherewith to darn our woolen frocks; with great patches
+from the skirts of a condemned reefing jacket, panneling the seats of
+our “ducks;” in short, veneering our broken garments with all manner of
+choice old broadcloths.
+
+With the true forethought of an old tar, he had brought along with him
+nearly the whole contents of his chest. His precious “Ditty Bag,”
+containing his sewing utensils, had been carefully packed away in the
+bottom of one of his bundles; of which he had as many as an old maid on
+her travels. In truth, an old salt is very much of an old maid, though,
+strictly speaking, far from deserving that misdeemed appellative.
+Better be an old maid, a woman with herself for a husband, than the
+wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and
+every wise man knows himself to be one. When playing the sempstress,
+Jarl’s favorite perch was the triangular little platform in the bow;
+which being the driest and most elevated part of the boat, was best
+adapted to his purpose. Here for hours and hours together the honest
+old tailor would sit darning and sewing away, heedless of the wide
+ocean around; while forever, his slouched Guayaquil hat kept bobbing up
+and down against the horizon before us.
+
+It was a most solemn avocation with him. Silently he nodded like the
+still statue in the opera of Don Juan. Indeed he never spoke, unless to
+give pithy utterance to the wisdom of keeping one’s wardrobe in repair.
+But herein my Viking at times waxed oracular. And many’s the hour we
+glided along, myself deeply pondering in the stem, hand upon helm;
+while crosslegged at the other end of the boat Jarl laid down patch
+upon patch, and at long intervals precept upon precept; here several
+saws, and there innumerable stitches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+They Are Becalmed
+
+
+On the eighth day there was a calm.
+
+It came on by night: so that waking at daybreak, and folding my arms
+over the gunwale, I looked out upon a scene very hard to describe. The
+sun was still beneath the horizon; perhaps not yet out of sight from
+the plains of Paraguay. But the dawn was too strong for the stars;
+which, one by one, had gone out, like waning lamps after a ball.
+
+Now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character from
+what it reflects; so in a calm in the Tropics, a colorless sky
+overhead, the ocean, upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of
+existence. The deep blue is gone; and the glassy element lies tranced;
+almost viewless as the air.
+
+But that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed
+collapsed into a vague ellipsis. And alike, the Chamois seemed drifting
+in the atmosphere as in the sea. Every thing was fused into the calm:
+sky, air, water, and all. Not a fish was to be seen. The silence was
+that of a vacuum. No vitality lurked in the air. And this inert
+blending and brooding of all things seemed gray chaos in conception.
+
+This calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few
+cat’s-paws of wind varied the scene. They were faint as the breath of
+one dying.
+
+At times the heat was intense. The heavens, at midday, glowing like an
+ignited coal mine. Our skin curled up like lint; our vision became dim;
+the brain dizzy.
+
+To our consternation, the water in the breaker became lukewarm,
+brackish, and slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept our spare
+clothing piled upon the breaker, to shield it from the sun. At last,
+Jarl enlarged the vent, carefully keeping it exposed. To this
+precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then thought. It was now
+deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the smallest modicum
+consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling all desire
+for more.
+
+Nor was this all. The upper planking of the boat began to warp; here
+and there, cracking and splintering. But though we kept it moistened
+with brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the
+sharp, sudden sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both to
+spring to our feet. Instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift to
+secure the rebellious plank with a cord, not having a nail; we then
+bailed out the boat, nearly half full of water.
+
+On the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its
+being pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells
+now overtaking us. Leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging,
+some tempest must have been sending to us its last dying waves. For as
+a pebble dropped into a pond ruffles it to its marge; so, on all sides,
+a sea-gale operates as if an asteroid had fallen into the brine; making
+ringed mountain billows, interminably expanding, instead of ripples.
+
+The great September waves breaking at the base of the Neversink
+Highlands, far in advance of the swiftest pilot-boat, carry tidings.
+And full often, they know the last secret of many a stout ship, never
+heard of from the day she left port. Every wave in my eyes seems a
+soul.
+
+As there was no steering to be done, Jarl and I sheltered ourselves as
+well as we could under the awning. And for the first two days, one at a
+time, and every three or four hours, we dropped overboard for a bath,
+clinging to the gun-wale; a sharp look-out being kept for prowling
+sharks. A foot or two below the surface, the water felt cool and
+refreshing.
+
+On the third day a change came over us. We relinquished bathing, the
+exertion taxing us too much. Sullenly we laid ourselves down; turned
+our backs to each other; and were impatient of the slightest casual
+touch of our persons. What sort of expression my own countenance wore,
+I know not; but I hated to look at Jarl’s. When I did it was a glare,
+not a glance. I became more taciturn than he. I can not tell what it
+was that came over me, but I wished I was alone. I felt that so long as
+the calm lasted, we were without help; that neither could assist the
+other; and above all, that for one, the water would hold out longer
+than for two. I felt no remorse, not the slightest, for these thoughts.
+It was instinct. Like a desperado giving up the ghost, I desired to
+gasp by myself.
+
+From being cast away with a brother, good God deliver me!
+
+The four days passed. And on the morning of the fifth, thanks be to
+Heaven, there came a breeze. Dancingly, mincingly it came, just
+rippling the sea, until it struck our sails, previously set at the very
+first token of its advance. At length it slightly freshened; and our
+poor Chamois seemed raised from the dead.
+
+Beyond expression delightful! Once more we heard the low humming of the
+sea under our bow, as our boat, like a bird, went singing on its way.
+
+How changed the scene! Overhead, a sweet blue haze, distilling sunlight
+in drops. And flung abroad over the visible creation was the
+sun-spangled, azure, rustling robe of the ocean, ermined with wave
+crests; all else, infinitely blue. Such a cadence of musical sounds!
+Waves chasing each other, and sporting and frothing in frolicsome foam:
+painted fish rippling past; and anon the noise of wings as sea- fowls
+flew by.
+
+Oh, Ocean, when thou choosest to smile, more beautiful thou art than
+flowery mead or plain!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita
+
+
+There were now fourteen notches on the loom of the Skyeman’s oar:—So
+many days since we had pushed from the fore-chains of the Arcturion.
+But as yet, no floating bough, no tern, noddy, nor reef-bird, to denote
+our proximity to land. In that long calm, whither might not the
+currents have swept us?
+
+Where we were precisely, we knew not; but according to our reckoning,
+the loose estimation of the knots run every hour, we must have sailed
+due west but little more than one hundred and fifty leagues; for the
+most part having encountered but light winds, and frequent intermitting
+calms, besides that prolonged one described. But spite of past calms
+and currents, land there must be to the westward. Sun, compass, stout
+hearts, and steady breezes, pointed our prow thereto. So courage! my
+Viking, and never say drown!
+
+At this time, our hearts were much lightened by discovering that our
+water was improving in taste. It seemed to have been undergoing anew
+that sort of fermentation, or working, occasionally incident to ship
+water shortly after being taken on board. Sometimes, for a period, it
+is more or less offensive to taste and smell; again, however, becoming
+comparatively limpid.
+
+But as our water improved, we grew more and more miserly of so
+priceless a treasure.
+
+And here it may be well to make mention of another little circumstance,
+however unsentimental. Thorough-paced tar that he was, my Viking was an
+inordinate consumer of the Indian weed. From the Arcturion, he had
+brought along with him a small half-keg, at bottom impacted with a
+solitary layer of sable Negrohead, fossil- marked, like the primary
+stratum of the geologists. It was the last tier of his abundant supply
+for the long whaling voyage upon which he had embarked upwards of three
+years previous. Now during the calm, and for some days after, poor
+Jarl’s accustomed quid was no longer agreeable company. To pun: he
+eschewed his chew. I asked him wherefore. He replied that it puckered
+up his mouth, above all provoked thirst, and had somehow grown every
+way distasteful. I was sorry; for the absence of his before ever
+present wad impaired what little fullness there was left in his cheek;
+though, sooth to say, I no longer called upon him as of yore to shift
+over the enormous morsel to starboard or larboard, and so trim our
+craft.
+
+The calm gone by, once again my sea-tailor plied needle and thread; or
+turning laundress, hung our raiment to dry on oars peaked obliquely in
+the thole-pins. All of which tattered pennons, the wind being astern,
+helped us gayly on our way; as jolly poor devils, with rags flying in
+the breeze, sail blithely through life; and are merry although they are
+poor!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+My Lord Shark And His Pages
+
+
+There is a fish in the sea that evermore, like a surly lord, only goes
+abroad attended by his suite. It is the Shovel-nosed Shark. A clumsy
+lethargic monster, unshapely as his name, and the last species of his
+kind, one would think, to be so bravely waited upon, as he is. His
+suite is composed of those dainty little creatures called Pilot fish by
+sailors. But by night his retinue is frequently increased by the
+presence of several small luminous fish, running in advance, and
+flourishing their flambeaux like link-boys lighting the monster’s way.
+Pity there were no ray-fish in rear, page-like, to carry his caudal
+train.
+
+Now the relation subsisting between the Pilot fish above mentioned and
+their huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable things in
+nature. At any rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. That a monster so
+ferocious, should suffer five or six little sparks, hardly fourteen
+inches long, to gambol about his grim hull with the utmost impunity, is
+of itself something strange. But when it is considered, that by a
+reciprocal understanding, the Pilot fish seem to act as scouts to the
+shark, warning him of danger, and apprising him of the vicinity of
+prey; and moreover, in case of his being killed, evincing their anguish
+by certain agitations, otherwise inexplicable; the whole thing becomes
+a mystery unfathomable. Truly marvels abound. It needs no dead man to
+be raised, to convince us of some things. Even my Viking marveled full
+as much at those Pilot fish as he would have marveled at the Pentecost.
+
+But perhaps a little incident, occurring about this period, will best
+illustrate the matter in hand.
+
+We were gliding along, hardly three knots an hour, when my comrade, who
+had been dozing over the gunwale, suddenly started to his feet, and
+pointed out an immense Shovel-nosed Shark, less than a boat’s length
+distant, and about half a fathom beneath the surface. A lance was at
+once snatched from its place; and true to his calling, Jarl was about
+to dart it at the fish, when, interested by the sight of its radiant
+little scouts, I begged him to desist.
+
+One of them was right under the shark, nibbling at his ventral fin;
+another above, hovering about his dorsal appurtenance; one on each
+flank; and a frisking fifth pranking about his nose, seemingly having
+something to say of a confidential nature. They were of a bright,
+steel-blue color, alternated with jet black stripes; with glistening
+bellies of a silver-white. Clinging to the back of the shark, were four
+or five Remoras, or sucking-fish; snaky parasites, impossible to remove
+from whatever they adhere to, without destroying their lives. The
+Remora has little power in swimming; hence its sole locomotion is on
+the backs of larger fish. Leech-like, it sticketh closer than a false
+brother in prosperity; closer than a beggar to the benevolent; closer
+than Webster to the Constitution. But it feeds upon what it clings to;
+its feelers having a direct communication with the esophagus.
+
+The shark swam sluggishly; creating no sign of a ripple, but ever and,
+anon shaking his Medusa locks, writhing and curling with horrible life.
+Now and then, the nimble Pilot fish darted from his side—this way and
+that—mostly toward our boat; but previous to taking a fresh start ever
+returning to their liege lord to report progress.
+
+A thought struck me. Baiting a rope’s end with a morsel of our almost
+useless salt beef, I suffered it to trail in the sea. Instantly the
+foremost scout swam toward it; hesitated; paused; but at last
+advancing, briskly snuffed at the line, and taking one finical little
+nibble, retreated toward the shark. Another moment, and the great
+Tamerlane himself turned heavily about; pointing his black, cannon-like
+nose directly toward our broadside. Meanwhile, the little Pilot fish
+darted hither and thither; keeping up a mighty fidgeting, like men of
+small minds in a state of nervous agitation.
+
+Presently, Tamerlane swam nearer and nearer, all the while lazily
+eyeing the Chamois, as a wild boar a kid. Suddenly making a rush for
+it, in the foam he made away with the bait. But the next instant, the
+uplifted lance sped at his skull; and thrashing his requiem with his
+sinewy tail, he sunk slowly, through his own blood, out of sight. Down
+with him swam the terrified Pilot fish; but soon after, three of them
+were observed close to the boat, gliding along at a uniform pace; one
+an each side, and one in advance; even as they had attended their lord.
+Doubtless, one was under our keel.
+
+“A good omen,” said Jarl; “no harm will befall us so long as they
+stay.”
+
+But however that might be, follow us they did, for many days after:
+until an event occurred, which necessitated their withdrawal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+Who Goes There?
+
+
+Jarl’s oar showed sixteen notches on the loom, when one evening, as the
+expanded sun touched the horizon’s rim, a ship’s uppermost spars were
+observed, traced like a spider’s web against its crimson disk. It
+looked like a far-off craft on fire.
+
+In bright weather at sea, a sail, invisible in the full flood of noon,
+becomes perceptible toward sunset. It is the reverse in the morning. In
+sight at gray dawn, the distant vessel, though in reality approaching,
+recedes from view, as the sun rises higher and higher. This holds true,
+till its vicinity makes it readily fall within the ordinary scope of
+vision. And thus, too, here and there, with other distant things: the
+more light you throw on them, the more you obscure. Some revelations
+show best in a twilight.
+
+The sight of the stranger not a little surprised us. But brightening
+up, as if the encounter were welcome, Jarl looked happy and expectant.
+He quickly changed his demeanor, however, upon perceiving that I was
+bent upon shunning a meeting.
+
+Instantly our sails were struck; and calling upon Jarl, who was
+somewhat backward to obey, I shipped the oars; and, both rowing, we
+stood away obliquely from our former course.
+
+I divined that the vessel was a whaler; and hence, that by help of the
+glass, with which her look-outs must be momentarily sweeping the
+horizon, they might possibly have descried us; especially, as we were
+due east from the ship; a direction, which at sunset is the one most
+favorable for perceiving a far-off object at sea. Furthermore, our
+canvas was snow-white and conspicuous. To be sure, we could not be
+certain what kind of a vessel it was; but whatever it might be, I, for
+one, had no mind to risk an encounter; for it was quite plain, that if
+the stranger came within hailing distance, there would be no resource
+but to link our fortunes with hers; whereas I desired to pursue none
+but the Chamois’. As for the Skyeman, he kept looking wistfully over
+his shoulder; doubtless, praying Heaven, that we might not escape what
+I sought to avoid.
+
+Now, upon a closer scrutiny, being pretty well convinced that the
+stranger, after all, was steering a nearly westerly course—right away
+from us—we reset our sail; and as night fell, my Viking’s entreaties,
+seconded by my own curiosity, induced me to resume our original course;
+and so follow after the vessel, with a view of obtaining a nearer
+glimpse, without danger of detection. So, boldly we steered for the
+sail.
+
+But not gaining much upon her, spite of the lightness of the breeze (a
+circumstance in our favor: the chase being a ship, and we but a boat),
+at my comrade’s instigation, we added oars to sails, readily guiding
+our way by the former, though the helm was left to itself.
+
+As we came nearer, it was plain that the vessel was no whaler; but a
+small, two-masted craft; in short, a brigantine. Her sails were in a
+state of unaccountable disarray, only the foresail, mainsail, and jib
+being set. The first was much tattered; and the jib was hoisted but
+half way up the stay, where it idly flapped, the breeze coming from
+over the taffrail. She continually yawed in her course; now almost
+presenting her broadside, then showing her stern.
+
+Striking our sails once more, we lay on our oars, and watched her in
+the starlight. Still she swung from side to side, and still sailed on.
+
+Not a little terrified at the sight, superstitious Jarl more than
+insinuated that the craft must be a gold-huntress, haunted. But I told
+him, that if such were the case, we must board her, come gold or
+goblins. In reality, however, I began to think that she must have been
+abandoned by her crew; or else, that from sickness, those on board were
+incapable of managing her.
+
+After a long and anxious reconnoiter, we came still nearer, using our
+oars, but very reluctantly on Jarl’s part; who, while rowing, kept his
+eyes over his shoulder, as if about to beach the little Chamois on the
+back of a whale as of yore. Indeed, he seemed full as impatient to quit
+the vicinity of the vessel, as before he had been anxiously courting
+it.
+
+Now, as the silent brigantine again swung round her broadside, I hailed
+her loudly. No return. Again. But all was silent. With a few vigorous
+strokes, we closed with her, giving yet another unanswered hail; when,
+laying the Chamois right alongside, I clutched at the main-chains.
+Instantly we felt her dragging us along. Securing our craft by its
+painter, I sprang over the rail, followed by Jarl, who had snatched his
+harpoon, his favorite arms. Long used with that weapon to overcome the
+monsters of the deep, he doubted not it would prove equally serviceable
+in any other encounter.
+
+The deck was a complete litter. Tossed about were pearl oyster shells,
+husks of cocoa-nuts, empty casks, and cases. The deserted tiller was
+lashed; which accounted for the vessel’s yawing. But we could not
+conceive, how going large before the wind; the craft could, for any
+considerable time, at least, have guided herself without the help of a
+hand. Still, the breeze was light and steady.
+
+Now, seeing the helm thus lashed, I could not but distrust the silence
+that prevailed. It conjured up the idea of miscreants concealed below,
+and meditating treachery; unscrupulous mutineers—Lascars, or
+Manilla-men; who, having murdered the Europeans of the crew, might not
+be willing to let strangers depart unmolested. Or yet worse, the entire
+ship’s company might have been swept away by a fever, its infection
+still lurking in the poisoned hull. And though the first conceit, as
+the last, was a mere surmise, it was nevertheless deemed prudent to
+secure the hatches, which for the present we accordingly barred down
+with the oars of our boat. This done, we went about the deck in search
+of water. And finding some in a clumsy cask, drank long and freely, and
+to our thirsty souls’ content.
+
+The wind now freshening, and the rent sails like to blow from the
+yards, we brought the brigantine to the wind, and brailed up the
+canvas. This left us at liberty to examine the craft, though,
+unfortunately, the night was growing hazy.
+
+All this while our boat was still towing alongside; and I was about to
+drop it astern, when Jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where it
+was; since, if there were people on board, they would most likely be
+down in the cabin, from the dead-lights of which, mischief might be
+done to the Chamois.
+
+It was then, that my comrade observed, that the brigantine had no
+boats, a circumstance most unusual in any sort of a vessel at sea. But
+marking this, I was exceedingly gratified. It seemed to indicate, as I
+had opined, that from some cause or other, she must have been abandoned
+of her crew. And in a good measure this dispelled my fears of foul
+play, and the apprehension of contagion. Encouraged by these
+reflections, I now resolved to descend, and explore the cabin, though
+sorely against Jarl’s counsel. To be sure, as he earnestly said, this
+step might have been deferred till daylight; but it seemed too
+wearisome to wait. So bethinking me of our tinder-box and candles, I
+sent him into the boat for them. Presently, two candles were lit; one
+of which the Skyeman tied up and down the barbed end of his harpoon; so
+that upon going below, the keen steel might not be far off, should the
+light be blown out by a dastard.
+
+Unfastening the cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest
+and murkiest den in the world. The altar-like transom, surmounted by
+the closed dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky-
+light overhead, and the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the
+place the air of some subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of Peter
+the Hermit. But coils of rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of
+clothing, and disorderly heaps of rubbish, harmonized not with this
+impression. Two doors, one on each side, led into wee little state-
+rooms, the berths of which also were littered. Among other things, was
+a large box, sheathed with iron and stoutly clamped, containing a keg
+partly filled with powder, the half of an old cutlass, a pouch of
+bullets, and a case for a sextant—a brass plate on the lid, with the
+maker’s name. London. The broken blade of the cutlass was very rusty
+and stained; and the iron hilt bent in. It looked so tragical that I
+thrust it out of sight.
+
+Removing a small trap-door, opening into the space beneath, called the
+“run,” we lighted upon sundry cutlasses and muskets, lying together at
+sixes and sevens, as if pitched down in a hurry.
+
+Casting round a hasty glance, and satisfying ourselves, that through
+the bulkhead of the cabin, there was no passage to the forward part of
+the hold, we caught up the muskets and cutlasses, the powder keg and
+the pouch of bullets, and bundling them on deck, prepared to visit the
+other end of the vessel. Previous to so doing, however, I loaded a
+musket, and belted a cutlass to my side. But my Viking preferred his
+harpoon.
+
+In the forecastle reigned similar confusion. But there was a snug
+little lair, cleared away in one corner, and furnished with a grass mat
+and bolster, like those used among the Islanders of these seas. This
+little lair looked to us as if some leopard had crouched there. And as
+it turned out, we were not far from right. Forming one side of this
+retreat, was a sailor’s chest, stoutly secured by a lock, and monstrous
+heavy withal. Regardless of Jarl’s entreaties, I managed to burst the
+lid; thereby revealing a motley assemblage of millinery, and outlandish
+knick-knacks of all sorts; together with sundry rude Calico
+contrivances, which though of unaccountable cut, nevertheless possessed
+a certain petticoatish air, and latitude of skirt, betokening them the
+habiliments of some feminine creature; most probably of the human
+species.
+
+In this strong box, also, was a canvas bag, jingling with rusty old
+bell-buttons, gangrened copper bolts, and sheathing nails; damp,
+greenish Carolus dollars (true coin all), besides divers iron screws,
+and battered, chisels, and belaying-pins. Sounded on the chest lid, the
+dollars rang clear as convent bells. These were put aside by Jarl the
+sight of substantial dollars doing away, for the nonce, with his
+superstitious Misgivings. True to his kingship, he loved true coin;
+though abroad on the sea, and no land but dollarless dominions ground,
+all this silver was worthless as charcoal or diamonds. Nearly one and
+the same thing, say the chemists; but tell that to the marines, say the
+illiterate Jews and the jewelers. Go, buy a house, or a ship, if you
+can, with your charcoal! Yea, all the woods in Canada charred down to
+cinders would not be worth the one famed Brazilian diamond, though no
+bigger than the egg of a carrier pigeon. Ah! but these chemists are
+liars, and Sir Humphrey Davy a cheat. Many’s the poor devil they’ve
+deluded into the charcoal business, who otherwise might have made his
+fortune with a mattock.
+
+Groping again into the chest, we brought to light a queer little hair
+trunk, very bald and rickety. At every corner was a mighty clamp, the
+weight of which had no doubt debilitated the box. It was jealously
+secured with a padlock, almost as big as itself; so that it was almost
+a question, which was meant to be security to the other. Prying at it
+hard, we at length effected an entrance; but saw no golden moidores, no
+ruddy doubloons; nothing under heaven but three pewter mugs, such as
+are used in a ship’s cabin, several brass screws, and brass plates,
+which must have belonged to a quadrant; together with a famous lot of
+glass beads, and brass rings; while, pasted on the inside of the cover,
+was a little colored print, representing the harlots, the shameless
+hussies, having a fine time with the Prodigal Son.
+
+It should have been mentioned ere now, that while we were busy in the
+forecastle, we were several times startled by strange sounds aloft. And
+just after, crashing into the little hair trunk, down came a great
+top-block, right through the scuttle, narrowly missing my Viking’s
+crown; a much stronger article, by the way, than your goldsmiths turn
+out in these days. This startled us much; particularly Jarl, as one
+might suppose; but accustomed to the strange creakings and wheezings of
+the masts and yards of old vessels at sea, and having many a time
+dodged stray blocks accidentally falling from aloft, I thought little
+more of the matter; though my comrade seemed to think the noises
+somewhat different from any thing of that kind he had even heard
+before.
+
+After a little more turning over of the rubbish in the forecastle, and
+much marveling thereat, we ascended to the deck; where we found every
+thing so silent, that, as we moved toward the taffrail, the Skyeman
+unconsciously addressed me in a whisper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+Noises And Portents
+
+
+I longed for day. For however now inclined to believe that the
+brigantine was untenanted, I desired the light of the sun to place that
+fact beyond a misgiving.
+
+Now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel, that she lay
+rather low in the water, I thought proper to sound the well. But there
+being no line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up in the
+arm-chest on the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept.
+Meanwhile I searched for the “breaks,” or pump-handles, which, as it
+turned out, could not have been very recently used; for they were found
+lashed up and down to the main-mast.
+
+Suddenly Jarl came running toward me, whispering that all doubt was
+dispelled;—there were spirits on board, to a dead certainty. He had
+overheard a supernatural sneeze. But by this time I was all but
+convinced, that we were alone in the brigantine. Since, if otherwise, I
+could assign no earthly reason for the crew’s hiding away from a couple
+of sailors, whom, were they so minded, they might easily have mastered.
+And furthermore, this alleged disturbance of the atmosphere aloft by a
+sneeze, Jarl averred to have taken place in the main-top; directly
+underneath which I was all this time standing, and had heard nothing.
+So complimenting my good Viking upon the exceeding delicacy of his
+auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his piratical
+ghosts and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his own imagination.
+
+Not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a bowline we
+rigged a substitute; and sounding the well, found nothing to excite our
+alarm. Under certain circumstances, however, this sounding a ship’s
+well is a nervous sort of business enough. ’Tis like feeling your own
+pulse in the last stage of a fever.
+
+At the Skyeman’s suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the
+brigantine’s head on the other tack. For until daylight we desired to
+alter the vessel’s position as little as possible, fearful of coming
+unawares upon reefs.
+
+And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about
+the brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely
+phantom-like nature, honest Jarl was nevertheless exceedingly downright
+and practical in all hints and proceedings concerning her. Wherein, he
+resembled my Right Reverend friend, Bishop Berkeley—truly, one of your
+lords spiritual—who, metaphysically speaking, holding all objects to be
+mere optical delusions, was, notwith- standing, extremely
+matter-of-fact in all matters touching matter itself. Besides being
+pervious to the points of pins, and possessing a palate capable of
+appreciating plum-puddings:—which sentence reads off like a pattering
+of hailstones.
+
+Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl
+must needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins on
+board. He swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round,
+he had heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one of his
+bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed. I laughed:—hinting
+that goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon he besought me to ascend the
+fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But here my mature judgment
+got the better of my first crude opinion. I civilly declined. For
+assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the fore-top might be
+tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a pretty hap would be
+mine, if, with hands full of rigging, and legs dangling in air, while
+surmounting the oblique futtock- shrouds, some unseen arm should all at
+once tumble me overboard. Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on
+to declare, that with regard to the character of the brigantine, his
+mind was now pretty fully made up;—she was an arrant impostor, a shade
+of a ship, full of sailors’ ghosts, and before we knew where we were,
+would dissolve in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the
+water. In short, Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old
+Norsemen, was full of old Norse conceits, and all manner of Valhalla
+marvels concerning the land of goblins and goblets. No wonder then,
+that with this catastrophe in prospect, he again entreated me to quit
+the ill-starred craft, carrying off nothing from her ghostly hull. But
+I refused.
+
+One can not relate every thing at once. While in the cabin, we came
+across a “barge” of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality much
+superior to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally regaled
+ourselves in the intervals of rummaging. Now this sea cake- basket we
+had brought on deck. And for the first time since bidding adieu to the
+Arcturion having fully quenched our thirst, our appetite returned with
+a rush; and having nothing better to do till day dawned, we planted the
+bread-barge in the middle of the quarter-deck; and crossing our legs
+before it, laid close seige thereto, like the Grand Turk and his Vizier
+Mustapha sitting down before Vienna.
+
+Our castle, the Bread-Barge was of the common sort; an oblong oaken
+box, much battered and bruised, and like the Elgin Marbles, all over
+inscriptions and carving:—foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs,
+Burton-blocks, love verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; and divers
+mystic diagrams in chalk, drawn by old Finnish mariners; in casting
+horoscopes and prophecies. Your old tars are all Daniels. There was a
+round hole in one side, through which, in getting at the bread, invited
+guests thrust their hands.
+
+And mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also, many and
+earnest the glances of Mustapha at every sudden creaking of the spars
+or rigging. Like Belshazzar, my royal Viking ate with great fear and
+trembling; ever and anon pausing to watch the wild shadows flitting
+along the bulwarks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+Man Ho!
+
+
+Slowly, fitfully, broke the morning in the East, showing the desolate
+brig forging heavily through the water, which sluggishly thumped under
+her bows. While leaping from sea to sea, our faithful Chamois, like a
+faithful dog, still gamboled alongside, confined to the main- chains by
+its painter. At times, it would long lag behind; then, pushed by a wave
+like lightning dash forward; till bridled by its leash, it again fell
+in rear.
+
+As the gray light came on, anxiously we scrutinized the features of the
+craft, as one by one they became more plainly revealed. Every thing
+seemed stranger now, than when partially visible in the dingy night.
+The stanchions, or posts of the bulwarks, were of rough stakes, still
+incased in the bark. The unpainted sides were of a dark-colored,
+heathenish looking wood. The tiller was a wry-necked, elbowed bough,
+thrusting itself through the deck, as if the tree itself was fast
+rooted in the hold. The binnacle, containing the compass, was defended
+at the sides by yellow matting. The rigging—shrouds, halyards and
+all—was of “Kaiar,” or cocoa-nut fibres; and here and there the sails
+were patched with plaited rushes.
+
+But this was not all. Whoso will pry, must needs light upon matters for
+suspicion. Glancing over the side, in the wake of every scupper- hole,
+we beheld a faded, crimson stain, which Jarl averred to be blood.
+Though now he betrayed not the slightest trepidation; for what he saw
+pertained not to ghosts; and all his fears hitherto had been of the
+super-natural.
+
+Indeed, plucking up a heart, with the dawn of the day my Viking looked
+bold as a lion; and soon, with the instinct of an old seaman cast his
+eyes up aloft.
+
+Directly, he touched my arm,—“Look: what stirs in the main-top?”
+
+Sure enough, something alive was there.
+
+Fingering our arms, we watched it; till as the day came on, a crouching
+stranger was beheld.
+
+Presenting my piece, I hailed him to descend or be shot. There was
+silence for a space, when the black barrel of a musket was thrust
+forth, leveled at my head. Instantly, Jarl’s harpoon was presented at a
+dart;—two to one;—and my hail was repeated. But no reply.
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+“Samoa,” at length said a clear, firm voice.
+
+“Come down from the rigging. We are friends.”
+
+Another pause; when, rising to his feet, the stranger slowly descended,
+holding on by one hand to the rigging, for but one did he have; his
+musket partly slung from his back, and partly griped under the stump of
+his mutilated arm.
+
+He alighted about six paces from where we stood; and balancing his
+weapon, eyed us bravely as the Cid.
+
+He was a tall, dark Islander, a very devil to behold, theatrically
+arrayed in kilt and turban; the kilt of a gay calico print, the turban
+of a red China silk. His neck was jingling with strings of beads.
+
+“Who else is on board?” I asked; while Jarl, thus far covering the
+stranger with his weapon, now dropped it to the deck.
+
+“Look there:—Annatoo!” was his reply in broken English, pointing aloft
+to the fore-top. And lo! a woman, also an Islander; and barring her
+skirts, dressed very much like Samoa, was beheld descending.
+
+“Any more?”
+
+“No more.”
+
+“Who are _you_ then; and what craft is this?”
+
+“Ah, ah—you are no ghost;—but are you my friend?” he cried, advancing
+nearer as he spoke; while the woman having gained the deck, also
+approached, eagerly glancing.
+
+We said we were friends; that we meant no harm; but desired to know
+what craft this was; and what disaster had befallen her; for that
+something untoward had occurred, we were certain.
+
+Whereto, Samoa made answer, that it was true that something dreadful
+had happened; and that he would gladly tell us all, and tell us the
+truth. And about it he went.
+
+Now, this story of his was related in the mixed phraseology of a
+Polynesian sailor. With a few random reflections, in substance, it will
+be found in the six following chapters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands
+
+
+The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the coast
+of Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been miserably
+cobbled together with planks of native wood, and fragments of a wreck,
+there drifted ashore.
+
+Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the tallest
+and goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands. With a
+mixed European and native crew, about thirty in number (but only four
+whites in all, captain included), the Parki, some four months previous,
+had sailed from her port on a voyage southward, in quest of pearls, and
+pearl oyster shells, sea-slugs, and other matters of that sort.
+
+Samoa, a native of the Navigator Islands, had long followed the sea,
+and was well versed in the business of oyster diving and its submarine
+mysteries. The native Lahineese on board were immediately subordinate
+to him; the captain having bargained with Samoa for their services as
+divers.
+
+The woman, Annatoo, was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to the
+westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the
+commander of a ship, touching there on a passage from Macao to
+Valparaiso. At Valparaiso her protector put her ashore; most probably,
+as I afterward had reason to think, for a nuisance.
+
+By chance it came to pass that when Annatoo’s first virgin bloom had
+departed, leaving nothing but a lusty frame and a lustier soul, Samoa,
+the Navigator, had fallen desperately in love with her. And thinking
+the lady to his mind, being brave like himself, and doubtless well
+adapted to the vicissitudes of matrimony at sea, he meditated suicide—I
+would have said, wedlock—and the twain became one. And some time after,
+in capacity of wife, Annatoo the dame, accompanied in the brigantine,
+Samoa her lord. Now, as Antony flew to the refuse embraces of Caesar,
+so Samoa solaced himself in the arms of this discarded fair one. And
+the sequel was the same. For not harder the life Cleopatra led my fine
+frank friend, poor Mark, than Queen Annatoo did lead this captive of
+her bow and her spear. But all in good time.
+
+They left their port; and crossing the Tropic and the Line, fell in
+with a cluster of islands, where the shells they sought were found in
+round numbers. And here—not at all strange to tell besides the natives,
+they encountered a couple of Cholos, or half-breed Spaniards, from the
+Main; one half Spanish, the other half quartered between the wild
+Indian and the devil; a race, that from Baldivia to Panama are
+notorious for their unscrupulous villainy.
+
+Now, the half-breeds having long since deserted a ship at these
+islands, had risen to high authority among the natives. This hearing,
+the Parki’s captain was much gratified; he, poor ignorant, never before
+having fallen in with any of their treacherous race. And, no doubt, he
+imagined that their influence over the Islanders would tend to his
+advantage. At all events, he made presents to the Cholos; who, in turn,
+provided him with additional divers from among the natives. Very
+kindly, also, they pointed out the best places for seeking the oysters.
+In a word, they were exceedingly friendly; often coming off to the
+brigantine, and sociably dining with the captain in the cabin; placing
+the salt between them and him.
+
+All things went on very pleasantly until, one morning, the half- breeds
+prevailed upon the captain to go with them, in his whale-boat, to a
+shoal on the thither side of the island, some distance from the spot
+where lay the brigantine. They so managed it, moreover, that none but
+the Lahineese under Samoa, in whom the captain much confided, were left
+in custody of the Parki; the three white men going along to row; for
+there happened to be little or no wind for a sail.
+
+Now, the fated brig lay anchored within a deep, smooth, circular
+lagoon, margined on all sides but one by the most beautiful groves. On
+that side, was the outlet to the sea; perhaps a cable’s length or more
+from where the brigantine had been moored. An hour or two after the
+party were gone, and when the boat was completely out of sight, the
+natives in shoals were perceived coming off from the shore; some in
+canoes, and some swimming. The former brought bread fruit and bananas,
+ostentatiously piled up in their proas; the latter dragged after them
+long strings of cocoanuts; for all of which, on nearing the vessel,
+they clamorously demanded knives and hatchets in barter.
+
+From their actions, suspecting some treachery, Samoa stood in the
+gangway, and warned them off; saying that no barter could take place
+until the captain’s return. But presently one of the savages stealthily
+climbed up from the water, and nimbly springing from the bob-stays to
+the bow-sprit, darted a javelin full at the foremast, where it
+vibrated. The signal of blood! With terrible outcries, the rest,
+pulling forth their weapons, hitherto concealed in the canoes, or under
+the floating cocoanuts, leaped into the low chains of the brigantine;
+sprang over the bulwarks; and, with clubs and spears, attacked the
+aghast crew with the utmost ferocity.
+
+After one faint rally, the Lahineese scrambled for the rigging; but to
+a man were overtaken and slain.
+
+At the first alarm, Annatoo, however, had escaped to the
+fore-top-gallant-yard, higher than which she could not climb, and
+whither the savages durst not venture. For though after their nuts
+these Polynesians will climb palm trees like squirrels; yet, at the
+first blush, they decline a ship’s mast like Kennebec farmers.
+
+Upon the first token of an onslaught, Samoa, having rushed toward the
+cabin scuttle for arms, was there fallen upon by two young savages. But
+after a desperate momentary fray, in which his arm was mangled, he made
+shift to spring below, instantly securing overhead the slide of the
+scuttle. In the cabin, while yet the uproar of butchery prevailed, he
+quietly bound up his arm; then laying on the transom the captain’s
+three loaded muskets, undauntedly awaited an assault.
+
+The object of the natives, it seems, was to wreck the brigantine upon
+the sharp coral beach of the lagoon. And with this intent, one of their
+number had plunged into the water, and cut the cable, which was of
+hemp. But the tide ebbing, cast the Parki’s head seaward—toward the
+outlet; and the savages, perceiving this, clumsily boarded the
+fore-tack, and hauled aft the sheet; thus setting, after a fashion, the
+fore-sail, previously loosed to dry.
+
+Meanwhile, a gray-headed old chief stood calmly at the tiller,
+endeavoring to steer the vessel shoreward. But not managing the helm
+aright, the brigantine, now gliding apace through the water, only made
+more way toward the outlet. Seeing which, the ringleaders, six or eight
+in number, ran to help the old graybeard at the helm. But it was a
+black hour for them. Of a sudden, while they were handling the tiller,
+three muskets were rapidly discharged upon them from the cabin
+skylight. Two of the savages dropped dead. The old steersman, clutching
+wildly at the helm, fell over it, mortally wounded; and in a wild panic
+at seeing their leaders thus unaccountably slain, the rest of the
+natives leaped overboard and made for the shore.
+
+Hearing the slashing, Samoa flew on deck; and beholding the foresail
+set, and the brigantine heading right out to sea, he cried out to
+Annatoo, still aloft, to descend to the topsail-yard, and loose the
+canvas there. His command was obeyed. Annatoo deserved a gold medal for
+what she did that day. Hastening down the rigging, after loosing the
+topsail, she strained away at the sheets; in which operation she was
+assisted by Samoa, who snatched an instant from the helm.
+
+The foresail and fore-topsail were now tolerably well set; and as the
+craft drew seaward, the breeze freshened. And well that it did; for,
+recovered from their alarm, the savages were now in hot pursuit; some
+in canoes, and some swimming as before. But soon the main-topsail was
+given to the breeze, which still freshening, came from over the
+quarter. And with this brave show of canvas, the Parki made gallantly
+for the outlet; and loud shouted Samoa as she shot by the reef, and
+parted the long swells without. Against these, the savages could not
+swim. And at that turn of the tide, paddling a canoe therein was almost
+equally difficult. But the fugitives were not yet safe. In full chase
+now came in sight the whale-boat manned by the Cholos, and four or five
+Islanders. Whereat, making no doubt, that all the whites who left the
+vessel that morning had been massacred through the treachery of the
+half-breeds; and that the capture of the brigantine had been
+premeditated; Samoa now saw no other resource than to point his craft
+dead away from the land.
+
+Now on came the devils buckling to their oars. Meantime Annatoo was
+still busy aloft, loosing the smaller sails—t’gallants and royals,
+which she managed partially to set.
+
+The strong breeze from astern now filling the ill-set sails, they
+bellied, and rocked in the air, like balloons, while, from the novel
+strain upon it, every spar quivered and sprung. And thus, like a
+frightened gull fleeing from sea-hawks, the little Parki swooped along,
+and bravely breasted the brine.
+
+His shattered arm in a hempen sling, Samoa stood at the helm, the
+muskets reloaded, and planted full before him on the binnacle. For a
+time, so badly did the brigantine steer, by reason of her ill- adjusted
+sails, made still more unmanageable by the strength of the breeze,—that
+it was doubtful, after all, notwithstanding her start, whether the
+fugitives would not yet fall a prey to their hunters. The craft wildly
+yawed, and the boat drew nearer and nearer. Maddened by the sight, and
+perhaps thinking more of revenge for the past, than of security for the
+future, Samoa, yielding the helm to Annatoo, rested his muskets on the
+bulwarks, and taking long, sure aim, discharged them, one by one at the
+advancing foe.
+
+The three reports were answered by loud jeers from the savages, who
+brandished their spears, and made gestures of derision; while with
+might and main the Cholos tugged at their oars.
+
+The boat still gaining on the brigantine, the muskets were again
+reloaded. And as the next shot sped, there was a pause; when, like
+lightning, the headmost Cholo bounded upwards from his seat, and oar in
+hand, fell into the sea. A fierce yell; and one of the natives
+springing into the water, caught the sinking body by its long hair; and
+the dead and the living were dragged into the boat. Taking heart from
+this fatal shot, Samoa fired yet again; but not with the like sure
+result; merely grazing the remaining half-breed, who, crouching behind
+his comrades, besought them to turn the boat round, and make for the
+shore. Alarmed at the fate of his brother, and seemingly distrustful of
+the impartiality of Samoa’s fire, the pusillanimous villain refused to
+expose a limb above the gunwale.
+
+Fain now would the pursuers have made good their escape; but an
+accident forbade. In the careening of the boat, when the stricken Cholo
+sprung overboard, two of their oars had slid into the water; and
+together with that death-griped by the half-breed, were now floating
+off; occasionally lost to view, as they sunk in the trough of the sea.
+Two of the Islanders swam to recover them; but frightened by the
+whirring of a shot over their heads, as they unavoidably struck out
+towards the Parki, they turned quickly about; just in time to see one
+of their comrades smite his body with his hand, as he received a bullet
+from Samoa.
+
+Enough: darting past the ill-fated boat, they swam rapidly for land,
+followed by the rest; who plunged overboard, leaving in the boat the
+surviving Cholo—who it seems could not swim—the wounded savage, and the
+dead man.
+
+“Load away now, and take thy revenge, my fine fellow,” said Samoa to
+himself. But not yet. Seeing all at his mercy, and having none, he
+quickly laid his fore-topsail to the mast; “hove to” the brigantine;
+and opened fire anew upon the boat; every swell of the sea heaving it
+nearer and nearer. Vain all efforts to escape. The wounded man paddled
+wildly with his hands the dead one rolled from side to side; and the
+Cholo, seizing the solitary oar, in his frenzied heedlessness, spun the
+boat round and round; while all the while shot followed shot, Samoa
+firing as fast as Annatoo could load. At length both Cholo and savage
+fell dead upon their comrades, canting the boat over sideways, till
+well nigh awash; in which manner she drifted off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin
+
+
+There was a small carronade on the forecastle, unshipped from its
+carriage, and lashed down to ringbolts on the deck. This Samoa now
+loaded; and with an ax knocking off the round knob upon the breech,
+rammed it home in the tube. When, running the cannon out at one of the
+ports, and studying well his aim, he let fly, sunk the boat, and buried
+his dead.
+
+It was now late in the afternoon; and for the present bent upon
+avoiding land, and gaining the shoreless sea, never mind where, Samoa
+again forced round his craft before the wind, leaving the island
+astern. The decks were still cumbered with the bodies of the Lahineese,
+which heel to point and crosswise, had, log-like, been piled up on the
+main-hatch. These, one by one, were committed to the sea; after which,
+the decks were washed down.
+
+At sunrise next morning, finding themselves out of sight of land, with
+little or no wind, they stopped their headway, and lashed the tiller
+alee, the better to enable them to overhaul the brigantine; especially
+the recesses of the cabin. For there, were stores of goods adapted for
+barter among the Islanders; also several bags of dollars.
+
+Now, nothing can exceed the cupidity of the Polynesian, when, through
+partial commerce with the whites, his eyes are opened to his nakedness,
+and he perceives that in some things they are richer than himself.
+
+The poor skipper’s wardrobe was first explored; his chests of clothes
+being capsized, and their contents strown about the cabin floor.
+
+Then took place the costuming. Samoa and Annatoo trying on coats and
+pantaloons, shirts and drawers, and admiring themselves in the little
+mirror panneled in the bulk-head. Then, were broken open boxes and
+bales; rolls of printed cotton were inspected, and vastly admired;
+insomuch, that the trumpery found in the captain’s chests was
+disdainfully doffed: and donned were loose folds of calico, more
+congénial to their tastes.
+
+As case after case was opened and overturned, slippery grew the cabin
+deck with torrents of glass beads; and heavy the necks of Samoa and
+Annatoo with goodly bunches thereof.
+
+Among other things, came to light brass jewelry,—Rag Fair gewgaws and
+baubles a plenty, more admired than all; Annatoo, bedecking herself
+like, a tragedy queen: one blaze of brass. Much mourned the married
+dame, that thus arrayed, there was none to admire but Samoa her
+husband; but he was all the while admiring himself, and not her.
+
+And here must needs be related, what has hitherto remained unsaid. Very
+often this husband and wife were no Darby and Joan. Their married life
+was one long campaign, whereof the truces were only by night. They
+billed and they cooed on their arms, rising fresh in the morning to
+battle, and often Samoa got more than a hen-pecking. To be short,
+Annatoo was a Tartar, a regular Calmuc, and Samoa—Heaven help him—her
+husband.
+
+Yet awhile, joined together by a sense of common danger, and long
+engrossed in turning over their tinsel acquisitions without present
+thought of proprietorship, the pair refrained from all squabbles. But
+soon burst the storm. Having given every bale and every case a good
+shaking, Annatoo, making an estimate of the whole, very coolly
+proceeded to set apart for herself whatever she fancied. To this, Samoa
+objected; to which objection Annatoo objected; and then they went at
+it.
+
+The lady vowed that the things were no more Samoa’s than hers; nay, not
+so much; and that whatever she wanted, that same would she have. And
+furthermore, by way of codicil, she declared that she was slave to
+nobody.
+
+Now, Samoa, sad to tell, stood in no little awe of his bellicose
+spouse. What, though a hero in other respects; what, though he had
+slain his savages, and gallantly carried his craft from their
+clutches:—Like the valiant captains Marlborough and Belisarius, he was
+a poltroon to his wife. And Annatoo was worse than either Sarah or
+Antonina.
+
+However, like every thing partaking of the nature of a scratch, most
+conjugal squabbles are quickly healed; for if they healed not, they
+would never anew break out: which is the beauty of the thing. So at
+length they made up but the treaty stipulations of Annatoo told much
+against the interests of Samoa. Nevertheless, ostensibly, it was agreed
+upon, that they should strictly go halves; the lady, however, laying
+special claim to certain valuables, more particularly fancied. But as a
+set-off to this, she generously renounced all claims upon the spare
+rigging; all claims upon the fore-mast and mainmast; and all claims
+upon the captain’s arms and ammunition. Of the latter, by the way, Dame
+Antonina stood in no need. Her voice was a park of artillery; her
+talons a charge of bayonets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
+
+
+By this time Samoa’s wounded arm was in such a state, that amputation
+became necessary. Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the
+most part, accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking to
+his couch in despair, the savage would disdain to recline.
+
+More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon,
+cutting off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. No unusual thing,
+for the warriors of Varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately
+wounded in battle. But owing to the clumsiness of the instrument
+employed—a flinty, serrated shell—the operation has been known to last
+several days. Nor will they suffer any friend to help them;
+maintaining, that a matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far better
+attended to by himself. Hence it may be said, that they amputate
+themselves at their leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. But,
+though thus beholden to no one for aught connected with the practice of
+surgery, they never cut off their own heads, that ever I heard; a
+species of amputation to which, metaphorically speaking, many would-be
+independent sort of people in civilized lands are addicted.
+
+Samoa’s operation was very summary. A fire was kindled in the little
+caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then
+placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber,
+breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook’s ax would have struck the
+blow; but for some reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo
+was assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just above
+the elbow, was no longer Samoa’s; and he saw his own bones; which many
+a centenarian can not say. The very clumsiness of the operation was
+safety to the subject. The weight and bluntness of the instrument both
+deadened the pain and lessened the hemorrhage. The wound was then
+scorched, and held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood
+vanished. From that day forward it healed, and troubled Samoa but
+little.
+
+But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously averse to
+burying in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that
+case Samoa held, that he must very soon drown and follow it; and how,
+that equally dreading to keep the thing near him, he at last hung it
+aloft from the topmast-stay; where yet it was suspended, bandaged over
+and over in cerements. The hand that must have locked many others in
+friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought Samoa, for fowls
+of the air nor fishes of the sea.
+
+Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as Haman? Or the
+living trunk below? Was the arm severed from the body, or the body from
+the arm? The residual part of Samoa was alive, and therefore we say it
+was he. But which of the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm,
+is the worm proper?
+
+For myself, I ever regarded Samoa as but a large fragment of a man, not
+a man complete. For was he not an entire limb out of pocket? And the
+action at Teneriffe over, great Nelson himself—physiologically
+speaking—was but three-quarters of a man. And the smoke of Waterloo
+blown by, what was Anglesea but the like? After Saratoga, what Arnold?
+To say nothing of Mutius Scaevola minus a hand, General Knox a thumb,
+and Hannibal an eye; and that old Roman grenadier, Dentatus, nothing
+more than a bruised and battered trunk, a knotty sort of hemlock of a
+warrior, hard to hack and hew into chips, though much marred in
+symmetry by battle-ax blows. Ah! but these warriors, like anvils, will
+stand a deal of hard hammering. Especially in the old knight-errant
+times. For at the battle of Brevieux in Flanders, my glorious old
+gossiping ancestor, Froissart, informs me, that ten good knights, being
+suddenly unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless to the plain, fatally
+encumbered by their armor. Whereupon, the rascally burglarious
+peasants, their foes, fell to picking their visors; as burglars, locks;
+or oystermen, oysters; to get at their lives. But all to no purpose.
+And at last they were fain to ask aid of a blacksmith; and not till
+then, were the inmates of the armor dispatched. Now it was deemed very
+hard, that the mysterious state- prisoner of France should be riveted
+in an iron mask; but these knight-errants did voluntarily prison
+themselves in their own iron Bastiles; and thus helpless were murdered
+there-in. Days of chivalry these, when gallant chevaliers died
+chivalric deaths!
+
+And this was the epic age, over whose departure my late eloquent and
+prophetic friend and correspondent, Edmund Burke, so movingly mourned.
+Yes, they were glorious times. But no sensible man, given to quiet
+domestic delights, would exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a
+heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty morning in
+Normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved fingers, and vainly
+striving to cook his cold coffee in his helmet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+Peril A Peace-Maker
+
+
+A few days passed: the brigantine drifting hither and thither, and
+nothing in sight but the sea, when forth again on its stillness rung
+Annatoo’s domestic alarum. The truce was up. Most egregiously had the
+lady infringed it; appropriating to herself various objects previously
+disclaimed in favor of Samoa. Besides, forever on the prowl, she was
+perpetually going up and down; with untiring energy, exploring every
+nook and cranny; carrying off her spoils and diligently secreting them.
+Having little idea of feminine adaptations, she pilfered whatever came
+handy:—iron hooks, dollars, bolts, hatchets, and stopping not at balls
+of marline and sheets of copper. All this, poor Samoa would have borne
+with what patience he might, rather than again renew the war, were it
+not, that the audacious dame charged him with peculations upon her own
+private stores; though of any such thing he was innocent as the
+bowsprit.
+
+This insulting impeachment got the better of the poor islander’s
+philosophy. He keenly resented it. And the consequence was, that seeing
+all domineering useless, Annatoo flew off at a tangent; declaring that,
+for the future, Samoa might stay by himself; she would have nothing
+more to do with him. Save when unavoidable in managing the brigantine,
+she would not even speak to him, that she wouldn’t, the monster! She
+then boldly demanded the forecastle—in the brig’s case, by far the
+pleasantest end of the ship—for her own independent suite of
+apartments. As for hapless Belisarius, he might do what he pleased in
+his dark little den of a cabin.
+
+Concerning the division of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in
+carrying the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods,
+together with numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover, she
+laid in a fine stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to
+live independent of her spouse.
+
+Unlovely Annatoo! Unfortunate Samoa! Thus did the pair make a divorce
+of it; the lady going upon a separate maintenance,—and Belisarius
+resuming his bachelor loneliness. In the captain’s state room, all cold
+and comfortless, he slept; his lady whilome retiring to her forecastle
+boudoir; beguiling the hours in saying her pater-nosters, and tossing
+over and assorting her ill-gotten trinkets and finery; like Madame De
+Maintenon dedicating her last days and nights to continence and
+calicoes.
+
+But think you this was the quiet end of their conjugal quarrels? Ah,
+no! No end to those feuds, till one or t’other gives up the ghost.
+
+Now, exiled from the nuptial couch, Belisarius bore the hardship
+without a murmur. And hero that he was, who knows that he felt not like
+a soldier on a furlough? But as for Antonina, she could neither get
+along with Belisarius, nor without him. She made advances. But of what
+sort? Why, breaking into the cabin and purloining sundry goods
+therefrom; in artful hopes of breeding a final reconciliation out of
+the temporary outburst that might ensue.
+
+Then followed a sad scene of altercation; interrupted at last by a
+sudden loud roaring of the sea. Rushing to the deck, they beheld
+themselves sweeping head-foremost toward a shoal making out from a
+cluster of low islands, hitherto, by banks of clouds, shrouded from
+view.
+
+The helm was instantly shifted; and the yards braced about. But for
+several hours, owing to the freshness of the breeze, the set of the
+currents, and the irregularity and extent of the shoal, it seemed
+doubtful whether they would escape a catastrophe. But Samoa’s
+seamanship, united to Annatoo’s industry, at last prevailed; and the
+brigantine was saved.
+
+Of the land where they came so near being wrecked, they knew nothing;
+and for that reason, they at once steered away. For after the fatal
+events which had overtaken the Parki at the Pearl Shell islands, so
+fearful were they of encountering any Islanders, that from the first
+they had resolved to keep open sea, shunning every appearance of land;
+relying upon being eventually picked up by some passing sail.
+
+Doubtless this resolution proved their salvation. For to the navigator
+in these seas, no risk so great, as in approaching the isles; which
+mostly are so guarded by outpost reefs, and far out from their margins
+environed by perils, that the green flowery field within, lies like a
+rose among thorns; and hard to be reached as the heart of proud maiden.
+Though once attained, all three—red rose, bright shore, and soft
+heart—are full of love, bloom, and all manner of delights. The Pearl
+Shell islands excepted.
+
+Besides, in those generally tranquil waters, Samoa’s little craft,
+though hundreds of miles from land, was very readily managed by himself
+and Annatoo. So small was the Parki, that one hand could brace the
+main-yard; and a very easy thing it was, even to hoist the small
+top-sails; for after their first clumsy attempt to perform that
+operation by hand, they invariably led the halyards to the windlass,
+and so managed it, with the utmost facility.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy
+
+
+Still many days passed and the Parki yet floated. The little flying-
+fish got used to her familiar, loitering hull; and like swallows
+building their nests in quiet old trees, they spawned in the great
+green barnacles that clung to her sides.
+
+The calmer the sea, the more the barnacles grow. In the tropical
+Pacific, but a few weeks suffice thus to encase your craft in shell
+armor. Vast bunches adhere to the very cutwater, and if not stricken
+off, much impede the ship’s sailing. And, at intervals, this clearing
+away of barnacles was one of Annatoo’s occupations. For be it known,
+that, like most termagants, the dame was tidy at times, though
+capriciously; loving cleanliness by fits and starts. Wherefore, these
+barnacles oftentimes troubled her; and with a long pole she would go
+about, brushing them aside. It beguiled the weary hours, if nothing
+more; and then she would return to her beads and her trinkets; telling
+them all over again; murmuring forth her devotions, and marking whether
+Samoa had been pilfering from her store.
+
+Now, the escape from the shoal did much once again to heal the
+differences of the good lady and her spouse. And keeping house, as they
+did, all alone by themselves, in that lonely craft, a marvel it is,
+that they should ever have quarreled. And then to divorce, and yet
+dwell in the same tenement, was only aggravating the evil. So
+Belisarius and Antonina again came together. But now, grown wise by
+experience, they neither loved over-keenly, nor hated; but took things
+as they were; found themselves joined, without hope of a sundering, and
+did what they could to make a match of the mate. Annatoo concluded that
+Samoa was not wholly to be enslaved; and Samoa thought best to wink at
+Annatoo’s foibles, and let her purloin when she pleased.
+
+But as in many cases, all this philosophy about wedlock is not proof
+against the perpetual contact of the parties concerned; and as it is
+far better to revive the old days of courtship, when men’s mouths are
+honey-combs: and, to make them still sweeter, the ladies the bees which
+there store their sweets; when fathomless raptures glimmer far down in
+the lover’s fond eye; and best of all, when visits are alternated by
+absence: so, like my dignified lord duke and his duchess, Samoa and
+Annatoo, man and wife, dwelling in the same house, still kept up their
+separate quarters. Marlborough visiting Sarah; and Sarah, Marlborough,
+whenever the humor suggested.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+In Which The Past History Of The Parki Is Concluded
+
+
+Still days, days, days sped by; and steering now this way, now that, to
+avoid the green treacherous shores, which frequently rose into view,
+the Parki went to and fro in the sea; till at last, it seemed hard to
+tell, in what watery world she floated. Well knowing the risks they
+ran, Samoa desponded. But blessed be ignorance. For in the day of his
+despondency, the lively old lass his wife bade him be of stout heart,
+cheer up, and steer away manfully for the setting sun; following which,
+they must inevitably arrive at her own dear native island, where all
+their cares would be over. So squaring their yards, away they glided;
+far sloping down the liquid sphere.
+
+Upon the afternoon of the day we caught sight of them in our boat, they
+had sighted a cluster of low islands, which put them in no small panic,
+because of their resemblance to those where the massacre had taken
+place. Whereas, they must have been full five hundred leagues from that
+fearful vicinity. However, they altered their course to avoid it; and a
+little before sunset, dropping the islands astern, resumed their
+previous track. But very soon after, they espied our little sea-goat,
+bounding over the billows from afar.
+
+This they took for a canoe giving chase to them. It renewed and
+augmented their alarm.
+
+And when at last they perceived that the strange object was a boat,
+their fears, instead of being allayed, only so much the more increased.
+For their wild superstitions led them to conclude, that a white man’s
+craft coming upon them so suddenly, upon the open sea, and by night,
+could be naught but a phantom. Furthermore, marking two of us in the
+Chamois, they fancied us the ghosts of the Cholos. A conceit which
+effectually damped Samoa’s courage, like my Viking’s, only proof
+against things tangible. So seeing us bent upon boarding the
+brigantine; after a hurried over-turning of their chattels, with a view
+of carrying the most valuable aloft for safe keeping, they secreted
+what they could; and together made for the fore-top; the man with a
+musket, the woman with a bag of beads. Their endeavoring to secure
+these treasures against ghostly appropriation originated in no real
+fear, that otherwise they would be stolen: it was simply incidental to
+the vacant panic into which they were thrown. No reproach this, to
+Belisarius’ heart of game; for the most intrepid Feegee warrior, he who
+has slain his hecatombs, will not go ten yards in the dark alone, for
+fear of ghosts.
+
+Their purpose was to remain in the top until daylight; by which time,
+they counted upon the withdrawal of their visitants; who, sure enough,
+at last sprang on board, thus verifying their worst apprehensions.
+
+They watched us long and earnestly. But curious to tell, in that very
+strait of theirs, perched together in that airy top, their domestic
+differences again broke forth; most probably, from their being suddenly
+forced into such very close contact.
+
+However that might be, taking advantage of our descent into the cabin,
+Samoa, in desperation fled from his wife, and one-armed as he was,
+sailor-like, shifted himself over by the fore and aft-stays to the
+main-top, his musket being slung to his back. And thus divided, though
+but a few yards intervened, the pair were as much asunder as if at the
+opposite Poles.
+
+During the live-long night they were both in great perplexity as to the
+extraordinary goblins on board. Such inquisitive, meddlesome spirits,
+had never before been encountered. So cool and systematic; sagaciously
+stopping the vessel’s headway the better to rummage;—the very plan they
+themselves had adopted. But what most surprised them, was our striking
+a light, a thing of which no true ghost would be guilty. Then, our
+eating and drinking on the quarter- deck including the deliberate
+investment of Vienna; and many other actions equally strange, almost
+led Samoa to fancy that we were no shades, after all, but a couple of
+men from the moon.
+
+Yet they had dimly caught sight of the frocks and trowsers we wore,
+similar to those which the captain of the Parki had bestowed upon the
+two Cholos, and in which those villains had been killed. This, with the
+presence of the whale boat, united to chase away the conceit of our
+lunar origin. But these considerations renewed their first
+superstitious impressions of our being the ghosts of the murderous
+half-breeds.
+
+Nevertheless, while during the latter part of the night we were
+reclining beneath him, munching our biscuit, Samoa eyeing us intently,
+was half a mind to open fire upon us by way of testing our
+corporeality. But most luckily, he concluded to defer so doing till
+sunlight; if by that time we should not have evaporated.
+
+For dame Annatoo, almost from our first boarding the brigantine,
+something in our manner had bred in her a lurking doubt as to the
+genuineness of our atmospheric organization; and abandoned to her
+speculations when Samoa fled from her side, her incredulity waxed
+stronger and stronger. Whence we came she knew not; enough, that we
+seemed bent upon pillaging her own precious purloinings. Alas! thought
+she, my buttons, my nails, my tappa, my dollars, my beads, and my
+boxes!
+
+Wrought up to desperation by these dismal forebodings, she at length
+shook the ropes leading from her own perch to Samoa’s; adopting this
+method of arousing his attention to the heinousness of what was in all
+probability going on in the cabin, a prelude most probably to the
+invasion of her own end of the vessel. Had she dared raise her voice,
+no doubt she would have suggested the expediency of shooting us so soon
+as we emerged from the cabin. But failing to shake Samoa into an
+understanding of her views on the subject, her malice proved futile.
+
+When her worst fears were confirmed, however, and we actually descended
+into the forecastle; there ensued such a reckless shaking of the ropes,
+that Samoa was fain to hold on hard, for fear of being tossed out of
+the rigging. And it was this violent rocking that caused the loud
+creaking of the yards, so often heard by us while below in Annatoo’s
+apartment.
+
+And the fore-top being just over the open forecastle scuttle, the dame
+could look right down upon us; hence our proceedings were plainly
+revealed by the lights that we carried. Upon our breaking open her
+strong-box, her indignation almost completely overmastered her fears.
+Unhooking a top-block, down it came into the forecastle, charitably
+commissioned with the demolition of Jarl’s cocoa-nut, then more exposed
+to the view of an aerial observer than my own. But of it turned out, no
+harm was done to our porcelain.
+
+At last, morning dawned; when ensued Jarl’s discovery as the occupant
+of the main-top; which event, with what followed, has been duly
+recounted.
+
+And such, in substance, was the first, second, third and fourth acts of
+the Parki drama. The fifth and last, including several scenes, now
+follows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
+
+
+Though abounding in details full of the savor of reality, Samoa’s
+narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory. Not that it
+was so strange; for stranger recitals I had heard.
+
+But one reason, perhaps, was that I had anticipated a narrative quite
+different; something agreeing with my previous surmises.
+
+Not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen islands the
+day preceding; though, upon reflection, that might have been the case,
+and yet, from his immediately altering the Parki’s course, the Chamois,
+unknowingly might have sailed by their vicinity. Still, those islands
+could form no part of the chain we were seeking. They must have been
+some region hitherto undiscovered.
+
+But seems it likely, thought I, that one, who, according to his own
+account, has conducted himself so heroically in rescuing the
+brigantine, should be the victim of such childish terror at the mere
+glimpse of a couple of sailors in an open boat, so well supplied, too,
+with arms, as he was, to resist their capturing his craft, if such
+proved their intention? On the contrary, would it not have been more
+natural, in his dreary situation, to have hailed our approach with the
+utmost delight? But then again, we were taken for phantoms, not flesh
+and blood. Upon the whole, I regarded the narrator of these things
+somewhat distrustfully. But he met my gaze like a man. While Annatoo,
+standing by, looked so expressively the Amazonian character imputed to
+her, that my doubts began to waver. And recalling all the little
+incidents of their story, so hard to be conjured up on the spur of a
+presumed necessity to lie; nay, so hard to be conjured up at all; my
+suspicions at last gave way. And I could no longer harbor any
+misgivings.
+
+For, to be downright, what object could Samoa have, in fabricating such
+a narrative of horrors—those of the massacre, I mean—unless to conceal
+some tragedy, still more atrocious, in which he himself had been
+criminally concerned? A supposition, which, for obvious reasons, seemed
+out of the question. True, instances were known to me of half-
+civilized beings, like Samoa, forming part of the crews of ships in
+these seas, rising suddenly upon their white ship-mates, and murdering
+them, for the sake of wrecking the ship on the shore of some island
+near by, and plundering her hull, when stranded.
+
+But had this been purposed with regard to the Parki, where the rest of
+the mutineers? There was no end to my conjectures; the more I indulged
+in them, the more they multiplied. So, unwilling to torment myself,
+when nothing could be learned, but what Samoa related, and stuck to
+like a hero; I gave over conjecturing at all; striving hard to repose
+full faith in the Islander.
+
+Jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could be brought
+completely to credit the tale. He stoutly maintained that the
+hobgoblins must have had something or other to do with the Parki.
+
+My own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine, Samoa
+himself turned inquisitor. He desired to know who we were; and whence
+we came in our marvelous boat. But on these heads I thought best to
+withhold from him the truth; among other things, fancying that if
+disclosed, it would lessen his deference for us, as men superior to
+himself. I therefore spoke vaguely of our adventures, and assumed the
+decided air of a master; which I perceived was not lost upon the rude
+Islander. As for Jarl, and what he might reveal, I embraced the first
+opportunity to impress upon him the importance of never divulging our
+flight from the Arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that
+head: injunctions which he faithfully promised to observe.
+
+If not wholly displeased with the fine form of Samoa, despite his
+savage lineaments, and mutilated member, I was much less conciliated by
+the person of Annatoo; who, being sinewy of limb, and neither young,
+comely, nor amiable, was exceedingly distasteful in my eyes. Besides,
+she was a tigress. Yet how avoid admiring those Penthesilian qualities
+which so signally had aided Samoa, in wresting the Parki from its
+treacherous captors. Nevertheless, it was indispensable that she should
+at once be brought under prudent subjection; and made to know, once for
+all, that though conjugally a rebel, she must be nautically submissive.
+For to keep the sea with a Calmuc on board, seemed next to impossible.
+In most military marines, they are prohibited by law; no officer may
+take his Pandora and her bandbox off soundings.
+
+By the way, this self-same appellative, Pandora, has been bestowed upon
+vessels. There was a British ship by that name, dispatched in quest of
+the mutineers of the Bounty. But any old tar might have prophesied her
+fate. Bound home she was wrecked on a reef off New South Wales.
+Pandora, indeed! A pretty name for a ship: fairly smiting Fate in the
+face. But in this matter of christening ships of war, Christian nations
+are but too apt to be dare-devils. Witness the following: British names
+all—The Conqueror, the Defiance, the Revenge, the Spitfire, the
+Dreadnaught, the Thunderer, and the Tremendous; not omitting the Etna,
+which, in the Roads of Corfu, was struck by lightning, coming nigh
+being consumed by fire from above. But almost potent as Moses’ rod,
+Franklin’s proved her salvation.
+
+With the above catalogue, compare we the Frenchman’s; quite
+characteristic of the aspirations of Monsieur:—The Destiny, the
+Glorious, the Magnanimous, the Magnificent, the Conqueror, the
+Triumphant, the Indomitable, the Intrepid, the Mont-Blanc. Lastly, the
+Dons; who have ransacked the theology of the religion of peace for fine
+names for their fighting ships; stopping not at designating one of
+their three-deckers, The Most Holy Trinity. But though, at Trafalgar,
+the Santissima Trinidada thundered like Sinai, her thunders were
+silenced by the victorious cannonade of the Victory.
+
+And without being blown into splinters by artillery, how many of these
+Redoubtables and Invincibles have succumbed to the waves, and like
+braggarts gone down before hurricanes, with their bravadoes broad on
+their bows.
+
+Much better the American names (barring Scorpions, Hornets, and Wasps;)
+Ohio, Virginia, Carolina, Vermont. And if ever these Yankees fight
+great sea engagements—which Heaven forefend!—how glorious, poetically
+speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth a
+broadside from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious indeed! yet in
+that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the shade of peace-loving Penn
+be astounded, to see the mightiest murderer of them all, the great
+Pennsylvania, a very namesake of his. Truly, the Pennsylvania’s guns
+should be the wooden ones, called by men-of- war’s-men, Quakers.
+
+But all this is an episode, made up of digressions. Time to tack ship,
+and return.
+
+Now, in its proper place, I omitted to mention, that shortly after
+descending from the rigging, and while Samoa was rehearsing his
+adventures, dame Annatoo had stolen below into the forecastle, intent
+upon her chattels. And finding them all in mighty disarray, she
+returned to the deck prodigiously, excited, and glancing angrily toward
+Jarl and me, showered a whole torrent of objurgations into both ears of
+Samoa.
+
+This contempt of my presence surprised me at first; but perhaps women
+are less apt to be impressed by a pretentious demeanor, than men.
+
+Now, to use a fighting phrase, there is nothing like boarding an enemy
+in the smoke. And therefore, upon this first token of Annatoo’s
+termagant qualities, I gave her to understand—craving her pardon—that
+neither the vessel nor aught therein was hers; but that every thing
+belonged to the owners in Lahina. I added, that at all hazards, a stop
+must be put to her pilferings. Rude language for feminine ears; but how
+to be avoided? Here was an infatuated woman, who, according to Samoa’s
+account, had been repeatedly detected in the act of essaying to draw
+out the screw-bolts which held together the planks. Tell me; was she
+not worse than the Load-Stone Rock, sailing by which a stout ship fell
+to pieces?
+
+During this scene, Samoa said little. Perhaps he was secretly pleased
+that his matrimonial authority was reinforced by myself and my Viking,
+whose views of the proper position of wives at sea, so fully
+corresponded with his own; however difficult to practice, those purely
+theoretical ideas of his had hitherto proved.
+
+Once more turning to Annatoo, now looking any thing but amiable, I
+observed, that all her clamors would be useless; and that if it came to
+the worst, the Parki had a hull that would hold her.
+
+In the end she went off in a fit of the sulks; sitting down on the
+windlass and glaring; her arms akimbo, and swaying from side to side;
+while ever and anon she gave utterance to a dismal chant. It sounded
+like an invocation to the Cholos to rise and dispatch us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The Craft, And The
+Resolution They Came To
+
+
+Descending into the cabin with Samoa, I bade him hunt up the
+brigantine’s log, the captain’s writing-desk, and nautical instruments;
+in a word, aught that could throw light on the previous history of the
+craft, or aid in navigating her homeward.
+
+But nearly every thing of the kind had disappeared: log, quadrant, and
+ship’s papers. Nothing was left but the sextant-case, which Jarl and I
+had lighted upon in the state-room.
+
+Upon this, vague though they were, my suspicions returned; and I
+closely questioned the Islander concerning the disappearance of these
+important articles. In reply, he gave me to understand, that the
+nautical instruments had been clandestinely carried down into the
+forecastle by Annatoo; and by that indefatigable and inquisitive dame
+they had been summarily taken apart for scientific inspection. It was
+impossible to restore them; for many of the fixtures were lost,
+including the colored glasses, sights, and little mirrors; and many
+parts still recoverable, were so battered and broken as to be entirely
+useless. For several days afterward, we now and then came across bits
+of the quadrant or sextant; but it was only to mourn over their fate.
+
+However, though sextant and quadrant were both unattainable, I did not
+so quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which, if in
+good order, though at present not ticking, might still be made in some
+degree serviceable. But no such instrument was to be seen. No: nor to
+be heard of; Samoa himself professing utter ignorance.
+
+Annatoo, I threatened and coaxed; describing the chronometer—a live,
+round creature like a toad, that made a strange noise, which I
+imitated; but she knew nothing about it. Whether she had lighted upon
+it unbeknown to Samoa, and dissected it as usual, there was now no way
+to determine. Indeed, upon this one point, she maintained an air of
+such inflexible stupidity, that if she were really fibbing, her
+dead-wall countenance superseded the necessity for verbal deceit.
+
+It may be, however, that in this particular she was wronged; for, as
+with many small vessels, the Parki might never have possessed the
+instrument in question. All thought, therefore, of feeling our way, as
+we should penetrate farther and farther into the watery wilderness, was
+necessarily abandoned.
+
+The log book had also formed a portion of Annatoo’s pilferings. It
+seems she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. But after
+amusing herself by again and again counting over the leaves, and
+wondering how so many distinct surfaces could be compacted together in
+so small a compass, she had very suddenly conceived an aversion to
+literature, and dropped the book overboard as worthless. Doubtless, it
+met the fate of many other ponderous tomes; sinking quickly and
+profoundly. What Camden or Stowe hereafter will dive for it?
+
+One evening Samoa brought me a quarto half-sheet of yellowish, ribbed
+paper, much soiled and tarry, which he had discovered in a dark hole of
+the forecastle. It had plainly formed part of the lost log; but all the
+writing thereon, at present decipherable, conveyed no information upon
+the subject then nearest my heart.
+
+But one could not but be struck by a tragical occurrence, which the
+page very briefly recounted; as well, as by a noteworthy pictorial
+illustration of the event in the margin of the text. Save the cut,
+there was no further allusion to the matter than the following:— “This
+day, being calm, Tooboi, one of the Lahina men, went overboard for a
+bath, and was eaten up by a shark. Immediately sent forward for his
+bag.”
+
+Now, this last sentence was susceptible of two meanings. It is truth,
+that immediately upon the decease of a friendless sailor at sea, his
+shipmates oftentimes seize upon his effects, and divide them; though
+the dead man’s clothes are seldom worn till a subsequent voyage. This
+proceeding seems heartless. But sailors reason thus: Better we, than
+the captain. For by law, either scribbled or unscribbled, the effects
+of a mariner, dying on shipboard, should be held in trust by that
+officer. But as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry
+all their kith and kin in their arms and their legs, there hardly ever
+appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate; seldom worth inheriting,
+like Esterhazy’s. Wherefore, the withdrawal of a dead man’s “kit” from
+the forecastle to the cabin, is often held tantamount to its virtual
+appropriation by the captain. At any rate, in small ships on long
+voyages, such things have been done.
+
+Thus much being said, then, the sentence above quoted from the Parki’s
+log, may be deemed somewhat ambiguous. At the time it struck me as
+singular; for the poor diver’s grass bag could not have contained much
+of any thing valuable unless, peradventure, he had concealed therein
+some Cleopatra pearls, feloniously abstracted from the shells brought
+up from the sea.
+
+Aside of the paragraph, copied above, was a pen-and-ink sketch of the
+casualty, most cruelly executed; the poor fellow’s legs being
+represented half way in the process of deglutition; his arms firmly
+grasping the monster’s teeth, as if heroically bent upon making as
+tough a morsel of himself as possible.
+
+But no doubt the honest captain sketched this cenotaph to the departed
+in all sincerity of heart; perhaps, during the melancholy leisure which
+followed the catastrophe. Half obliterated were several stains upon the
+page; seemingly, lingering traces of a salt tear or two.
+
+From this unwonted embellishment of the text, I was led to infer, that
+the designer, at one time or other, must have been engaged in the
+vocation of whaling. For, in India ink, the logs of certain whalemen
+are decorated by somewhat similar illustrations.
+
+When whales are seen, but not captured, the fact is denoted by an
+outline figure representing the creature’s flukes, the broad, curving
+lobes of his tail. But in those cases where the monster is both chased
+and killed, this outline is filled up jet black; one for every whale
+slain; presenting striking objects in turning over the log; and so
+facilitating reference. Hence, it is quite imposing to behold, all in a
+row, three or four, sometime five or six, of these drawings; showing
+that so many monsters that day jetted their last spout. And the chief
+mate, whose duty it is to keep the ship’s record, generally prides
+himself upon the beauty, and flushy likeness to life, of his flukes;
+though, sooth to say, many of these artists are no Landseers.
+
+After vainly searching the cabin for those articles we most needed, we
+proceeded to explore the hold, into which as yet we had not penetrated.
+Here, we found a considerable quantity of pearl shells; cocoanuts; an
+abundance of fresh water in casks; spare sails and rigging; and some
+fifty barrels or more of salt beef and biscuit. Unromantic as these
+last mentioned objects were, I lingered over them long, and in a
+revery. Branded upon each barrel head was the name of a place in
+America, with which I was very familiar. It is from America chiefly,
+that ship’s stores are originally procured for the few vessels sailing
+out of the Hawaiian Islands.
+
+Having now acquainted myself with all things respecting the Parki,
+which could in any way be learned, I repaired to the quarter-deck, and
+summoning round me Samoa, Annatoo, and Jarl, gravely addressed them.
+
+I said, that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than forthwith
+to return to the scene of the massacre, and chastise its surviving
+authors. But as there were only four of us in all; and the place of
+those islands was wholly unknown to me; and even if known, would be
+altogether out of our reach, since we possessed no instruments of
+navigation; it was quite plain that all thought of returning thither
+was entirely useless. The last mentioned reason, also, prevented our
+voyaging to the Hawaiian group, where the vessel belonged; though that
+would have been the most advisable step, resulting, as it would, if
+successful, in restoring the ill-fated craft to her owners.
+
+But all things considered, it seemed best, I added, cautiously to hold
+on our way to the westward. It was our easiest course; for we would
+ever have the wind from astern; and though we could not so much as hope
+to arrive at any one spot previously designated, there was still a
+positive certainty, if we floated long enough, of falling in with
+islands whereat to refresh ourselves; and whence, if we thought fit, we
+might afterward embark for more agreeable climes. I then reminded them
+of the fact, that so long as we kept the sea, there was always some
+prospect of encountering a friendly sail; in which event, our
+solicitude would be over.
+
+All this I said in the mild, firm tone of a superior; being anxious, at
+once to assume the unquestioned supremacy. For, otherwise, Jarl and I
+might better quit the vessel forthwith, than remain on board subject to
+the outlandish caprices of Annatoo, who through Samoa would then have
+the sway. But I was sure of my Viking; and if Samoa proved docile, had
+no fear of his dame.
+
+And therefore during my address, I steadfastly eyed him; thereby
+learning enough to persuade me, that though he deferred to me at
+present, he was, notwithstanding, a man who, without precisely
+meditating mischief, could upon occasion act an ugly part. But of his
+courage, and savage honor, such as it was, I had little doubt. Then,
+wild buffalo that he was, tamed down in the yoke matrimonial, I could
+not but fancy, that if upon no other account, our society must please
+him, as rendering less afflictive the tyranny of his spouse.
+
+For a hen-pecked husband, by the way, Samoa was a most terrible fellow
+to behold. And though, after all, I liked him; it was as you fancy a
+fiery steed with mane disheveled, as young Alexander fancied
+Bucephalus; which wild horse, when he patted, he preferred holding by
+the bridle. But more of Samoa anon.
+
+Our course determined, and the command of the vessel tacitly yielded up
+to myself, the next thing done was to put every thing in order. The
+tattered sails were replaced by others, dragged up from the sail- room
+below; in several places, new running-rigging was rove; blocks
+restrapped; and the slackened stays and shrouds set taught. For all of
+which, we were mostly indebted to my Viking’s unwearied and skillful
+marling-spike, which he swayed like a scepter.
+
+The little Parki’s toilet being thus thoroughly made for the first time
+since the massacre, we gave her new raiment to the breeze, and daintily
+squaring her yards, she gracefully glided away; honest old Jarl at the
+helm, watchfully guiding her path, like some devoted old foster-father.
+
+As I stood by his side like a captain, or walked up and down on the
+quarter-deck, I felt no little importance upon thus assuming for the
+first time in my life, the command of a vessel at sea. The novel
+circumstances of the case only augmented this feeling; the wild and
+remote seas where we were; the character of my crew, and the
+consideration, that to all purposes, I was owner, as well as commander
+of the craft I sailed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa
+
+
+My original intention to touch at the Kingsmill Chain, or the countries
+adjacent, was greatly strengthened by thus encountering Samoa; and the
+more I had to do with my Belisarius, the more I was pleased with him.
+Nor could I avoid congratulating myself, upon having fallen in with a
+hero, who in various ways, could not fail of proving exceedingly
+useful.
+
+Like any man of mark, Samoa best speaks for himself; but we may as well
+convey some idea of his person. Though manly enough, nay, an obelisk in
+stature, the savage was far from being sentimentally prepossessing. Be
+not alarmed; but he wore his knife in the lobe of his dexter ear,
+which, by constant elongation almost drooped upon his shoulder. A mode
+of sheathing it exceedingly handy, and far less brigandish than the
+Highlander’s dagger concealed in his leggins.
+
+But it was the mother of Samoa, who at a still earlier day had
+punctured him through and through in still another direction. The
+middle cartilage of his nose was slightly pendent, peaked, and Gothic,
+and perforated with a hole; in which, like a Newfoundland dog carrying
+a cane, Samoa sported a trinket: a well polished nail.
+
+In other respects he was equally a coxcomb. In his style of tattooing,
+for instance, which seemed rather incomplete; his marks embracing but a
+vertical half of his person, from crown to sole; the other side being
+free from the slightest stain. Thus clapped together, as it were, he
+looked like a union of the unmatched moieties of two distinct beings;
+and your fancy was lost in conjecturing, where roamed the absent ones.
+When he turned round upon you suddenly, you thought you saw some one
+else, not him whom you had been regarding before.
+
+But there was one feature in Samoa beyond the reach of the innovations
+of art:—his eye; which in civilized man or savage, ever shines in the
+head, just as it shone at birth. Truly, our eyes are miraculous things.
+But alas, that in so many instances, these divine organs should be mere
+lenses inserted into the socket, as glasses in spectacle rims.
+
+But my Islander had a soul in his eye; looking out upon you there, like
+somebody in him. What an eye, to be sure! At times, brilliantly
+changeful as opal; in anger, glowing like steel at white heat.
+
+Belisarius, be it remembered, had but very recently lost an arm. But
+you would have thought he had been born without it; so Lord Nelson-
+like and cavalierly did he sport the honorable stump.
+
+But no more of Samoa; only this: that his name had been given him by a
+sea-captain; to whom it had been suggested by the native designation of
+the islands to which he belonged; the Saviian or Samoan group,
+otherwise known as the Navigator Islands. The island of Upolua, one of
+that cluster, claiming the special honor of his birth, as Corsica does
+Napoleon’s, we shall occasionally hereafter speak of Samoa as the
+Upoluan; by which title he most loved to be called.
+
+It is ever ungallant to pass over a lady. But what shall be said of
+Annatoo? As I live, I can make no pleasing portrait of the dame; for as
+in most ugly subjects, flattering would but make the matter worse.
+Furthermore, unalleviated ugliness should ever go unpainted, as
+something unnecessary to duplicate. But the only ugliness is that of
+the heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the
+only loveliness is invisible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+Rovings Alow And Aloft
+
+
+Every one knows what a fascination there is in wandering up and down in
+a deserted old tenement in some warm, dreamy country; where the vacant
+halls seem echoing of silence, and the doors creak open like the
+footsteps of strangers; and into every window the old garden trees
+thrust their dark boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; and ever and
+anon the nails start from the wainscot; while behind it the mice rattle
+like dice. Up and down in such old specter houses one loves to wander;
+and so much the more, if the place be haunted by some marvelous story.
+
+And during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, very much such
+a fancy had I, for prying about our little brigantine, whose tragic
+hull was haunted by the memory of the massacre, of which it still bore
+innumerable traces.
+
+And so far as the indulgence of quiet strolling and reverie was
+concerned, it was well nigh the same as if I were all by myself. For
+Samoa, for a time, was rather reserved, being occupied with thoughts of
+his own. And Annatoo seldom troubled me with her presence. She was
+taken up with her calicoes and jewelry; which I had permitted her to
+retain, to keep her in good humor if possible. And as for My royal old
+Viking, he was one of those individuals who seldom speak, unless
+personally addressed.
+
+Besides, all that by day was necessary to navigating the Parki was,
+that—somebody should stand at the helm; the craft being so small, and
+the grating, whereon the steersman stood, so elevated, that he
+commanded a view far beyond the bowsprit; thus keeping Argus eyes on
+the sea, as he steered us along. In all other respects we left the
+brigantine to the guardianship of the gentle winds.
+
+My own turn at the helm—for though commander, I felt constrained to do
+duty with the rest—came but once in the twenty-four hours. And not only
+did Jarl and Samoa, officiate as helmsmen, but also Dame Annatoo, who
+had become quite expert at the business. Though Jarl always maintained
+that there was a slight drawback upon her usefulness in this vocation.
+Too much taken up by her lovely image partially reflected in the glass
+of the binnacle before her, Annatoo now and then neglected her duty,
+and led us some devious dances. Nor was she, I ween, the first woman
+that ever led men into zigzags.
+
+For the reasons above stated, I had many spare hours to myself. At
+times, I mounted aloft, and lounging in the slings of the topsail
+yard—one of the many snug nooks in a ship’s rigging—I gazed broad off
+upon the blue boundless sea, and wondered what they were doing in that
+unknown land, toward which we were fated to be borne. Or feeling less
+meditative, I roved about hither and thither; slipping over, by the
+stays, from one mast to the other; climbing up to the truck; or
+lounging out to the ends of the yards; exploring wherever there was a
+foothold. It was like climbing about in some mighty old oak, and
+resting in the crotches.
+
+To a sailor, a ship’s ropes are a study. And to me, every rope-yarn of
+the Parki’s was invested with interest. The outlandish fashion of her
+shrouds, the collars of her stays, the stirrups, seizings,
+Flemish-horses, gaskets,—all the wilderness of her rigging, bore
+unequivocal traces of her origin.
+
+But, perhaps, my pleasantest hours were those which I spent, stretched
+out on a pile of old sails, in the fore-top; lazily dozing to the
+craft’s light roll.
+
+Frequently, I descended to the cabin: for the fiftieth time, exploring
+the lockers and state-rooms for some new object of curiosity. And
+often, with a glimmering light, I went into the midnight hold, as into
+old vaults and catacombs; and creeping between damp ranges of casks,
+penetrated into its farthest recesses.
+
+Sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, I lighted upon sundry
+out-of-the-way hiding places of Annatoo’s; where were snugly secreted
+divers articles, with which she had been smitten. In truth, no small
+portion of the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its
+own bowels. I found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain’s, hidden away in
+the hollow heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most
+touchingly natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a
+breaker, discovered several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied
+together with cords almost strong enough to sustain the mainmast.
+
+Near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down
+into this part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as
+Charles the First. And herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a
+discovery which accounted for what had often proved an enigma. Not
+seldom Annatoo had been among the missing; and though, from stem to
+stern, loudly invoked to come forth and relieve the poignant distress
+of her anxious friends, the dame remained perdu; silent and invisible
+as a spirit. But in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge;
+or be suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she had
+been there from all eternity.
+
+Useless to inquire, “Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo?” For no sweet
+rejoinder would she give.
+
+But now the problem was solved. Here, in this silent cask in the hold,
+Annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a
+stone.
+
+Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about:
+whether she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved
+to this unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could
+tell. Can you?
+
+Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in
+building their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a
+fool of a sage.
+
+Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+Xiphius Platypterus
+
+
+About this time, the loneliness of our voyage was relieved by an event
+worth relating.
+
+Ever since leaving the Pearl Shell Islands, the Parki had been followed
+by shoals of small fish, pleasantly enlivening the sea, and socially
+swimming by her side. But in vain did Jarl and I search among their
+ranks for the little, steel-blue Pilot fish, so long outriders of the
+Chamois. But perhaps since the Chamois was now high and dry on the
+Parki’s deck, our bright little avant-couriers were lurking out of
+sight, far down in the brine; racing along close to the keel.
+
+But it is not with the Pilot fish that we now have to do.
+
+One morning our attention was attracted to a mighty commotion in the
+water. The shoals of fish were darting hither and thither, and leaping
+into the air in the utmost affright. Samoa declared, that their deadly
+foe the Sword fish must be after them.
+
+And here let me say, that, since of all the bullies, and braggarts, and
+bravoes, and free-booters, and Hectors, and fish-at-arms, and
+knight-errants, and moss-troopers, and assassins, and foot-pads, and
+gallant soldiers, and immortal heroes that swim the seas, the Indian
+Sword fish is by far the most remarkable, I propose to dedicate this
+chapter to a special description of the warrior. In doing which, I but
+follow the example of all chroniclers and historians, my Peloponnesian
+friend Thucydides and others, who are ever mindful of devoting much
+space to accounts of eminent destroyers; for the purpose, no doubt, of
+holding them up as ensamples to the world.
+
+Now, the fish here treated of is a very different creature from the
+Sword fish frequenting the Northern Atlantic; being much larger every
+way, and a more dashing varlet to boot. Furthermore, he is denominated
+the Indian Sword fish, in contradistinction from his namesake above
+mentioned. But by seamen in the Pacific, he is more commonly known as
+the Bill fish; while for those who love science and hard names, be it
+known, that among the erudite naturalists he goeth by the outlandish
+appellation of “_Xiphius Platypterus_.”
+
+But I waive for my hero all these his cognomens, and substitute a much
+better one of my own: namely, the Chevalier. And a Chevalier he is, by
+good right and title. A true gentleman of Black Prince Edward’s bright
+day, when all gentlemen were known by their swords; whereas, in times
+present, the Sword fish excepted, they are mostly known by their high
+polished boots and rattans.
+
+A right valiant and jaunty Chevalier is our hero; going about with his
+long Toledo perpetually drawn. Rely upon it, he will fight you to the
+hilt, for his bony blade has never a scabbard. He himself sprang from
+it at birth; yea, at the very moment he leaped into the Battle of Life;
+as we mortals ourselves spring all naked and scabbardless into the
+world. Yet, rather, are we scabbards to our souls. And the drawn soul
+of genius is more glittering than the drawn cimeter of Saladin. But how
+many let their steel sleep, till it eat up the scabbard itself, and
+both corrode to rust-chips. Saw you ever the hillocks of old Spanish
+anchors, and anchor-stocks of ancient galleons, at the bottom of Callao
+Bay? The world is full of old Tower armories, and dilapidated Venetian
+arsenals, and rusty old rapiers. But true warriors polish their good
+blades by the bright beams of the morning; and gird them on to their
+brave sirloins; and watch for rust spots as for foes; and by many stout
+thrusts and stoccadoes keep their metal lustrous and keen, as the
+spears of the Northern Lights charging over Greenland.
+
+Fire from the flint is our Chevalier enraged. He takes umbrage at the
+cut of some ship’s keel crossing his road; and straightway runs a tilt
+at it; with one mad lounge thrusting his Andrea Ferrara clean through
+and through; not seldom breaking it short off at the haft, like a bravo
+leaving his poignard in the vitals of his foe.
+
+In the case of the English ship Foxhound, the blade penetrated through
+the most solid part of her hull, the bow; going completely through the
+copper plates and timbers, and showing for several inches in the hold.
+On the return of the ship to London, it was carefully sawn out; and,
+imbedded in the original wood, like a fossil, is still preserved. But
+this was a comparatively harmless onslaught of the valiant Chevalier.
+With the Rousseau, of Nantucket, it fared worse. She was almost
+mortally stabbed; her assailant withdrawing his blade. And it was only
+by keeping the pumps clanging, that she managed to swim into a Tahitian
+harbor, “heave down,” and have her wound dressed by a ship-surgeon with
+tar and oakum. This ship I met with at sea, shortly after the disaster.
+
+At what armory our Chevalier equips himself after one of his spiteful
+tilting-matches, it would not be easy to say. But very hard for him, if
+ever after he goes about in the lists, swordless and disarmed, at the
+mercy of any caitiff shark he may meet.
+
+Now, seeing that our fellow-voyagers, the little fish along-side, were
+sorely tormented and thinned out by the incursions of a pertinacious
+Chevalier, bent upon making a hearty breakfast out of them, I
+determined to interfere in their behalf, and capture the enemy.
+
+With shark-hook and line I succeeded, and brought my brave gentleman to
+the deck. He made an emphatic landing; lashing the planks with his
+sinewy tail; while a yard and a half in advance of his eyes, reached
+forth his terrible blade.
+
+As victor, I was entitled to the arms of the vanquished; so, quickly
+dispatching him, and sawing off his Toledo, I bore it away for a
+trophy. It was three-sided, slightly concave on each, like a bayonet;
+and some three inches through at the base, it tapered from thence to a
+point.
+
+And though tempered not in Tagus or Guadalquiver, it yet revealed upon
+its surface that wavy grain and watery fleckiness peculiar to tried
+blades of Spain. It was an aromatic sword; like the ancient caliph’s,
+giving out a peculiar musky odor by friction. But far different from
+steel of Tagus or Damascus, it was inflexible as Crocket’s rifle tube;
+no doubt, as deadly.
+
+Long hung that rapier over the head of my hammock. Was it not storied
+as the good trenchant blade of brave Bayard, that other chevalier? The
+knight’s may have slain its scores, or fifties; but the weapon I
+preserved had, doubtless, run through and riddled its thousands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+Otard
+
+
+And here is another little incident.
+
+One afternoon while all by myself curiously penetrating into the hold,
+I most unexpectedly obtained proof, that the ill-fated captain of the
+Parki had been a man of sound judgment and most excellent taste. In
+brief, I lighted upon an aromatic cask of prime old Otard.
+
+Now, I mean not to speak lightly of any thing immediately connected
+with the unfortunate captain. Nor, on the other hand, would I resemble
+the inconsolable mourner, who among other tokens of affliction, bound
+in funereal crape his deceased friend’s copy of Joe Miller. Is there
+not a fitness in things?
+
+But let that pass. I found the Otard, and drank there-of; finding it,
+moreover, most pleasant to the palate, and right cheering to the soul.
+My next impulse was to share my prize with my shipmates. But here a
+judicious reflection obtruded. From the sea-monarchs, his ancestors, my
+Viking had inherited one of their cardinal virtues, a detestation and
+abhorrence of all vinous and spirituous beverages; insomuch, that he
+never could see any, but he instantly quaffed it out of sight. To be
+short, like Alexander the Great and other royalties, Jarl was prone to
+overmuch bibing. And though at sea more sober than a Fifth Monarchy
+Elder, it was only because he was then removed from temptation. But
+having thus divulged my Viking’s weak; side, I earnestly entreat, that
+it may not disparage him in any charitable man’s estimation. Only
+think, how many more there are like him to say nothing further of
+Alexander the Great—especially among his own class; and consider, I
+beseech, that the most capacious-souled fellows, for that very reason,
+are the most apt to be too liberal in their libations; since, being so
+large-hearted, they hold so much more good cheer than others.
+
+For Samoa, from his utter silence hitherto as to aught inebriating on
+board, I concluded, that, along with his other secrets, the departed
+captain had very wisely kept his Otard to himself.
+
+Nor did I doubt, but that the Upoluan, like all Polynesians, much loved
+getting high of head; and in that state, would be more intractable than
+a Black Forest boar. And concerning Annatoo, I shuddered to think, how
+that Otard might inflame her into a Fury more fierce than the foremost
+of those that pursued Orestes.
+
+In good time, then, bethinking me of the peril of publishing my
+discovery;—bethinking me of the quiet, lazy, ever-present perils of the
+voyage, of all circumstances, the very worst under which to introduce
+an intoxicating beverage to my companions, I resolved to withhold it
+from them altogether.
+
+So impressed was I with all this, that for a moment, I was almost
+tempted to roll over the cask on its bilge, remove the stopper, and
+suffer its contents to mix with the foul water at the bottom of the
+hold.
+
+But no, no: What: dilute the brine with the double distilled soul of
+the precious grape? Haft himself would have haunted me!
+
+Then again, it might come into play medicinally; and Paracelsus himself
+stands sponsor for every cup drunk for the good of the abdomen. So at
+last, I determined to let it remain where it was: visiting it
+occasionally, by myself, for inspection.
+
+But by way of advice to all ship-masters, let me say, that if your
+Otard magazine be exposed to view—then, in the evil hour of wreck,
+stave in your spirit-casks, ere rigging the life-boat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+How They Steered On Their Way
+
+
+When we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at
+least two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had
+abandoned the Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been, North
+or South of the Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.
+
+But that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line,
+seemed obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme Polar
+constellations was visible; though often we scanned the northern and
+southern horizon in search of them. So far as regards the aspect of the
+skies near the ocean’s rim, the difference of several degrees in one’s
+latitude at sea, is readily perceived by a person long accustomed to
+surveying the heavens.
+
+If correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time here
+alluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been making in
+the Parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to sail, ere the
+country we sought would be found. But for obvious reasons, how long
+precisely we might continue to float out of sight of land, it was
+impossible to say. Calms, light breezes, and currents made every thing
+uncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating our due westward
+progress, except by what is called Dead Reckoning,—the computation of
+the knots run hourly; allowances’ being made for the supposed
+deviations from our course, by reason of the ocean streams; which at
+times in this quarter of the Pacific run with very great velocity.
+
+Now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the Parki than
+in the Chamois. The sense of danger is less vivid, the greater the
+number of lives involved. He who is ready to despair in solitary peril,
+plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of
+comrades is much countenance and consolation.
+
+Still, in the brigantine there were many sources of uneasiness and
+anxiety unknown to me in the whale-boat. True, we had now between us
+and the deep, five hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant
+little chip. But the Parki required more care and attention; especially
+by night, when a vigilant look-out was indispensable. With impunity, in
+our whale-boat, we might have run close to shoal or reef; whereas,
+similar carelessness or temerity now, might prove fatal to all
+concerned.
+
+Though in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, I was
+little troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of darkness it
+was quite another thing. And the apprehensions, nay terrors I felt,
+were much augmented by the remissness of both Jarl and Samoa, in
+keeping their night-watches. Several times I was seized with a deadly
+panic, and earnestly scanned the murky horizon, when rising from
+slumber I found the steersman, in whose hands for the time being were
+life and death, sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of a
+fixture there, as the open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow.
+
+Were it not, that on board of other vessels, I myself had many a time
+dozed at the helm, spite of all struggles, I would have been almost at
+a loss to account for this heedlessness in my comrades. But it seemed
+as if the mere sense of our situation, should have been sufficient to
+prevent the like conduct in all on board our craft.
+
+Samoa’s aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. His large
+opal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the binnacle,
+gleamed between the lids like bars of flame. And added to all, was his
+giant stature and savage lineaments.
+
+It was in vain, that I remonstrated, begged, or threatened: the
+occasional drowsiness of my fellow-voyagers proved incurable. To no
+purpose, I reminded my Viking that sleeping in the night-watch in a
+craft like ours, was far different from similar heedlessness on board
+the Arcturion. For there, our place upon the ocean was always known,
+and our distance from land; so that when by night the seamen were
+permitted to be drowsy, it was mostly, because the captain well knew
+that strict watchfulness could be dispensed with.
+
+Though in all else, the Skyeman proved a most faithful ally, in this
+one thing he was either perversely obtuse, or infatuated. Or, perhaps,
+finding himself once more in a double-decked craft, which rocked him as
+of yore, he was lulled into a deceitful security.
+
+For Samoa, his drowsiness was the drowsiness of one beat on sleep, come
+dreams or death. He seemed insensible to the peril we ran. Often I sent
+the sleepy savage below, sad, steered myself till morning. At last I
+made a point of slumbering much by day, the better to stand watch by
+night; though I made Samoa and Jarl regularly go through with their
+allotted four hours each.
+
+It has been mentioned, that Annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it
+was only by day. And in justice to the lady, I must affirm, that upon
+the whole she acquitted herself well. For notwithstanding the syren
+face in the binnacle, which dimly allured her glances, Annatoo after
+all was tolerably heedful of her steering. Indeed she took much pride
+therein; always ready for her turn; with marvelous exactitude
+calculating the approaching hour, as it came on in regular rotation.
+Her time-piece was ours, the sun. By night it must have been her
+guardian star; for frequently she gazed up at a particular section of
+the heavens, like one regarding the dial in a tower.
+
+By some odd reasoning or other, she had cajoled herself into the
+notion, that whoever steered the brigantine, for that period was
+captain. Wherefore, she gave herself mighty airs at the tiller; with
+extravagant gestures issuing unintelligible orders about trimming the
+sails, or pitching overboard something to see how fast we were going.
+All this much diverted my Viking, who several times was delivered of a
+laugh; a loud and healthy one to boot: a phenomenon worthy the
+chronicling.
+
+And thus much for Annatoo, preliminary to what is further to be said.
+Seeing the drowsiness of Jarl and Samoa, which so often kept me from my
+hammock at night, forcing me to repose by day, when I far preferred
+being broad awake, I decided to let Annatoo take her turn at the night
+watches; which several times she had solicited me to do; railing at the
+sleepiness of her spouse; though abstaining from all reflections upon
+Jarl, toward whom she had of late grown exceedingly friendly.
+
+Now the Calmuc stood her first night watch to admiration; if any thing,
+was altogether too wakeful. The mere steering of the craft employed not
+sufficiently her active mind. Ever and anon she must needs rush from
+the tiller to take a parenthetical pull at the fore- brace, the end of
+which led down to the bulwarks near by; then refreshing herself with a
+draught or two of water and a biscuit, she would continue to steer
+away, full of the importance of her office. At any unusual flapping of
+the sails, a violent stamping on deck announced the fact to the
+startled crew. Finding her thus indefatigable, I readily induced her to
+stand two watches to Jarl’s and Samoa’s one; and when she was at the
+helm, I permitted myself to doze on a pile of old sails, spread every
+evening on the quarter-deck.
+
+It was the Skyeman, who often admonished me to “heave the ship to”
+every night, thus stopping her headway till morning; a plan which,
+under other circumstances, might have perhaps warranted the slumbers of
+all. But as it was, such a course would have been highly imprudent. For
+while making no onward progress through the water, the rapid currents
+we encountered would continually be drifting us eastward; since,
+contrary to our previous experience, they seemed latterly to have
+reversed their flow, a phenomenon by no means unusual in the vicinity
+of the Line in the Pacific. And this it was that so prolonged our
+passage to the westward. Even in a moderate breeze, I sometimes
+fancied, that the impulse of the wind little more than counteracted the
+glide of the currents; so that with much show of sailing, we were in
+reality almost a fixture on the sea.
+
+The equatorial currents of the South Seas may be regarded as among the
+most mysterious of the mysteries of the deep. Whence they come, whither
+go, who knows? Tell us, what hidden law regulates their flow.
+Regardless of the theory which ascribes to them a nearly uniform course
+from east to west, induced by the eastwardly winds of the Line, and the
+collateral action of the Polar streams; these currents are forever
+shifting. Nor can the period of their revolutions be at all relied upon
+or predicted.
+
+But however difficult it may be to assign a specific cause for the
+ocean streams, in any part of the world, one of the wholesome effects
+thereby produced would seem obvious enough. And though the circumstance
+here alluded to is perhaps known to every body, it may be questioned,
+whether it is generally invested with the importance it deserves.
+Reference is here made to the constant commingling and purification of
+the sea-water by reason of the currents.
+
+For, that the ocean, according to the popular theory, possesses a
+special purifying agent in its salts, is somewhat to be doubted. Nor
+can it be explicitly denied, that those very salts might corrupt it,
+were it not for the brisk circulation of its particles consequent upon
+the flow of the streams. It is well known to seamen, that a bucket of
+sea-water, left standing in a tropical climate, very soon becomes
+highly offensive; which is not the case with rainwater.
+
+But I build no theories. And by way of obstructing the one, which might
+possibly be evolved from the statement above, let me add, that the
+offensiveness of sea-water left standing, may arise in no small degree
+from the presence of decomposed animal matter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+Ah, Annatoo!
+
+
+In order to a complete revelation, I must needs once again discourse of
+Annatoo and her pilferings; and to what those pilferings led. In the
+simplicity of my soul, I fancied that the dame, so much flattered as
+she needs must have been, by the confidence I began to repose in her,
+would now mend her ways, and abstain from her larcenies. But not so.
+She was possessed by some scores of devils, perpetually her to mischief
+on their own separate behoof, and not less for many of her pranks were
+of no earthly advantage to her, present or prospective.
+
+One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo. She came; but knew
+nothing about it. Jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a
+substitute; and a few days after, pop, we came upon the lost: article
+hidden away in the main-top.
+
+Another time, discovering the little vessel to “gripe” hard in
+steering, as if some one under water were jerking her backward, we
+instituted a diligent examination, to see what was the matter. When lo;
+what should we find but a rope, cunningly attached to one of the
+chain-plates under the starboard main-channel. It towed heavily in the
+water. Upon dragging it up—much as you would the cord of a ponderous
+bucket far down in a well—a stout wooden box was discovered at the end;
+which opened, disclosed sundry knives, hatchets, and ax-heads.
+
+Called to the stand, the Upoluan deposed, that thrice he had rescued
+that identical box from Annatoo’s all-appropriating clutches.
+
+Now, here were four human beings shut up in this little oaken craft,
+and, for the time being, their interests the same. What sane mortal,
+then, would forever be committing thefts, without rhyme or reason. It
+was like stealing silver from one pocket and decanting it into the
+other. And what might it not lead to in the end?
+
+Why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of the compass
+from the binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute for it, the one
+brought along in the Chamois.
+
+It was Jarl that first published this last and alarming theft. Annatoo
+being at the helm at dawn, he had gone to relieve her; and looking to
+see how we headed, was horror-struck at the emptiness of the binnacle.
+
+I started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously demanded
+the compass. But her face was a blank; every word a denial.
+
+Further lenity was madness. I summoned Samoa, told him what had
+happened, and affirmed that there was no safety for us except in the
+nightly incarceration of his spouse. To this he privily assented; and
+that very evening, when Annatoo descended into the forecastle, we
+barred over her the scuttle-slide. Long she clamored, but unavailingly.
+And every night this was repeated; the dame saying her vespers most
+energetically.
+
+It has somewhere been hinted, that Annatoo occasionally cast sheep’s
+eyes at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised when her manner toward
+him decidedly changed. Pulling at the ropes with us, she would give him
+sly pinches, and then look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then again,
+she would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with him; with wry
+faces, rinsed out the wooden can at the water cask, if it so chanced
+that my Viking had previously been drinking therefrom. At other times,
+when the honest Skyeman came up from below, she would set up a shout of
+derision, and loll out her tongue; accompanying all this by certain
+indecorous and exceedingly unladylike gestures, significant of the
+profound contempt in which she held him.
+
+Yet, never did Jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently overlooked and
+forgave it. Inquiring the reason of the dame’s singular conduct, I
+learned, that with eye averted, she had very lately crept close to my
+Viking, and met with no tender reception.
+
+Doubtless, Jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently imagined
+that ere long the lady would forgive and forget him. But what knows a
+philosopher about women?
+
+Ere long, so outrageous became Annatoo’s detestation of him, that the
+honest old tar could stand it no longer, and like most good-natured men
+when once fairly roused, he was swept through and through with a
+terrible typhoon of passion. He proposed, that forthwith the woman
+should be sacked and committed to the deep; he could stand it no
+longer.
+
+Murder is catching. At first I almost jumped at the proposition; but as
+quickly rejected it. Ah! Annatoo: Woman unendurable: deliver me, ye
+gods, from being shut up in a ship with such a hornet again.
+
+But are we yet through with her? Not yet. Hitherto she had continued to
+perform the duties of the office assigned her since the commencement of
+the voyage: namely, those of the culinary department. From this she was
+now deposed. Her skewer was broken. My Viking solemnly averring, that
+he would eat nothing more of her concocting, for fear of being
+poisoned. For myself, I almost believed, that there was malice enough
+in the minx to give us our henbane broth.
+
+But what said Samoa to all this? Passing over the matter of the
+cookery, will it be credited, that living right among us as he did, he
+was yet blind to the premeditated though unachieved peccadilloes of his
+spouse? Yet so it was. And thus blind was Belisarius himself,
+concerning the intrigues of Antonina.
+
+Witness that noble dame’s affair with the youth Theodosius; when her
+deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns she
+had bestowed upon him.
+
+Upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate Annatoo’s
+thievings, Samoa proudly intimated, that the lady was the most virtuous
+of her sex.
+
+But alas, poor Annatoo, why say more? And bethinking me of the hard
+fate that so soon overtook thee, I almost repent what has already and
+too faithfully been portrayed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+The Parki Gives Up The Ghost
+
+
+A long calm in the boat, and now, God help us, another in the
+brigantine. It was airless and profound.
+
+In that hot calm, we lay fixed and frozen in like Parry at the Pole.
+The sun played upon the glassy sea like the sun upon the glaciers.
+
+At the end of two days we lifted up our eyes and beheld a low,
+creeping, hungry cloud expanding like an army, wing and wing, along the
+eastern horizon. Instantly Jarl bode me take heed.
+
+Here be it said, that though for weeks and weeks reign over the
+equatorial latitudes of the Pacific, the mildest and sunniest of days;
+that nevertheless, when storms do come, they come in their strength:
+spending in a few, brief blasts their concentrated rage. They come like
+the Mamelukes: they charge, and away.
+
+It wanted full an hour to sunset; but the sun was well nigh obscured.
+It seemed toiling among bleak Scythian steeps in the hazy background.
+Above the storm-cloud flitted ominous patches of scud, rapidly
+advancing and receding: Attila’s skirmishers, thrown forward in the van
+of his Huns. Beneath, a fitful shadow slid along the surface. As we
+gazed, the cloud came nearer; accelerating its approach.
+
+With all haste we proceeded to furl the sails, which, owing to the
+calm, had been hanging loose in the brails. And by help of a spare
+boom, used on the forecastle-deck sit a sweep or great oar, we
+endeavored to cast the brigantine’s head toward the foe.
+
+The storm seemed about to overtake us; but we felt no breeze. The
+noiseless cloud stole on; its advancing shadow lowering over a distinct
+and prominent milk-white crest upon the surface of the ocean. But now
+this line of surging foam came rolling down upon us like a white charge
+of cavalry: mad Hotspur and plumed Murat at its head; pouring right
+forward in a continuous frothy cascade, which curled over, and fell
+upon the glassy sea before it.
+
+Still, no breath of air. But of a sudden, like a blow from a man’s
+hand, and before our canvas could be secured, the stunned craft, giving
+one lurch to port, was stricken down on her beam-ends; the roaring tide
+dashed high up against her windward side, and drops of brine fell upon
+the deck, heavy as drops of gore.
+
+It was all a din and a mist; a crashing of spars and of ropes; a
+horrible blending of sights and of sounds; as for an instant we seemed
+in the hot heart of the gale; our cordage, like harp-strings, shrieking
+above the fury of the blast. The masts rose, and swayed, and dipped
+their trucks in the sea. And like unto some stricken buffalo brought
+low to the plain, the brigantine’s black hull, shaggy with sea-weed,
+lay panting on its flank in the foam.
+
+Frantically we clung to the uppermost bulwarks. And now, loud above the
+roar of the sea, was suddenly heard a sharp, splintering sound, as of a
+Norway woodman felling a pine in the forest. It was brave Jarl, who
+foremost of all had snatched from its rack against the mainmast, the
+ax, always there kept.
+
+“Cut the lanyards to windward!” he cried; and again buried his ax into
+the mast. He was quickly obeyed. And upon cutting the third lanyard of
+the five, he shouted for us to pause. Dropping his ax, he climbed up to
+windward. As he clutched the rail, the wounded mast snapped in twain
+with a report like a cannon. A slight smoke was perceptible where it
+broke. The remaining lanyards parted. From the violent strain upon
+them, the two shrouds flew madly into the air, and one of the great
+blocks at their ends, striking Annatoo upon the forehead, she let go
+her hold upon a stanchion, and sliding across the aslant deck, was
+swallowed up in the whirlpool under our lea. Samoa shrieked. But there
+was no time to mourn; no hand could reach to save.
+
+By the connecting stays, the mainmast carried over with it the
+foremast; when we instantly righted, and for the time were saved; my
+own royal Viking our saviour.
+
+The first fury of the gale was gone. But far to leeward was seen the
+even, white line of its onset, pawing the ocean into foam. All round
+us, the sea boiled like ten thousand caldrons; and through eddy, wave,
+and surge, our almost water-logged craft waded heavily; every dead
+clash ringing hollow against her hull, like blows upon a coffin.
+
+We floated a wreck. With every pitch we lifted our dangling jib-boom
+into the air; and beating against the side, were the shattered
+fragments of the masts. From these we made all haste to be free, by
+cutting the rigging that held them.
+
+Soon, the worst of the gale was blown over. But the sea ran high. Yet
+the rack and scud of the tempest, its mad, tearing foam, was subdued
+into immense, long-extended, and long-rolling billows; the white cream
+on their crests like snow on the Andes. Ever and anon we hung poised on
+their brows; when the furrowed ocean all round looked like a panorama
+from Chimborazo.
+
+A few hours more, and the surges went down. There was a moderate sea, a
+steady breeze, and a clear, starry sky. Such was the storm that came
+after our calm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+Once More They Take To The Chamois
+
+
+Try the pumps. We dropped the sinker, and found the Parki bleeding at
+every pore. Up from her well, the water, spring-like, came bubbling,
+pure and limpid as the water of Saratoga. Her time had come. But by
+keeping two hands at the pumps, we had no doubt she would float till
+daylight; previous to which we liked not to abandon her.
+
+The interval was employed in clanging at the pump-breaks, and preparing
+the Chamois for our reception. So soon as the sea permitted, we lowered
+it over the side; and letting it float under the stern, stowed it with
+water and provisions, together with various other things, including
+muskets and cutlasses.
+
+Shortly after daylight, a violent jostling and thumping under foot
+showed that the water, gaining rapidly in the, hold, spite of all
+pumping, had floated the lighter casks up-ward to the deck, against
+which they were striking.
+
+Now, owing to the number of empty butts in the hold, there would have
+been, perhaps, but small danger of the vessel’s sinking outright—all
+awash as her decks would soon be—were it not, that many of her timbers
+were of a native wood, which, like the Teak of India, is specifically
+heavier than water. This, with the pearl shells on board, counteracted
+the buoyancy of the casks.
+
+At last, the sun—long waited for—arose; the Parki meantime sinking
+lower and lower.
+
+All things being in readiness, we proceeded to embark from the wreck,
+as from a wharf.
+
+But not without some show of love for our poor brigantine.
+
+To a seaman, a ship is no piece of mechanism merely; but a creature of
+thoughts and fancies, instinct with life. Standing at her vibrating
+helm, you feel her beating pulse. I have loved ships, as I have loved
+men.
+
+To abandon the poor Parki was like leaving to its fate something that
+could feel. It was meet that she should die decently and bravely.
+
+All this thought the Skyeman. Samoa and I were in the boat, calling
+upon him to enter quickly, lest the vessel should sink, and carry us
+down in the eddies; for already she had gone round twice. But cutting
+adrift the last fragments of her broken shrouds, and putting her decks
+in order, Jarl buried his ax in the splintered stump of the mainmast,
+and not till then did he join us.
+
+We slowly cheered, and sailed away.
+
+Not ten minutes after, the hull rolled convulsively in the sea; went
+round once more; lifted its sharp prow as a man with arms pointed for a
+dive; gave a long seething plunge; and went down.
+
+Many of her old planks were twice wrecked; once strown upon ocean’s
+beach; now dropped into its lowermost vaults, with the bones of drowned
+ships and drowned men.
+
+Once more afloat in our shell! But not with the intrepid spirit that
+shoved off with us from the deck of the Arcturion. A bold deed done
+from impulse, for the time carries few or no misgivings along with it.
+But forced upon you, its terrors stare you in the face. So now. I had
+pushed from the Arcturion with a stout heart; but quitting the sinking
+Parki, my heart sunk with her.
+
+With a fair wind, we held on our way westward, hoping to see land
+before many days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+The Sea On Fire
+
+
+The night following our abandonment of the Parki, was made memorable by
+a remarkable spectacle.
+
+Slumbering in the bottom of the boat, Jarl and I were suddenly awakened
+by Samoa. Starting, we beheld the ocean of a pallid white color,
+corruscating all over with tiny golden sparkles. But the pervading hue
+of the water cast a cadaverous gleam upon the boat, so that we looked
+to each other like ghosts. For many rods astern our wake was revealed
+in a line of rushing illuminated foam; while here and there beneath the
+surface, the tracks of sharks were denoted by vivid, greenish trails,
+crossing and recrossing each other in every direction. Farther away,
+and distributed in clusters, floated on the sea, like constellations in
+the heavens, innumerable Medusae, a species of small, round, refulgent
+fish, only to be met with in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean.
+
+Suddenly, as we gazed, there shot high into the air a bushy jet of
+flashes, accompanied by the unmistakable deep breathing sound of a
+sperm whale. Soon, the sea all round us spouted in fountains of fire;
+and vast forms, emitting a glare from their flanks, and ever and anon
+raising their heads above water, and shaking off the sparkles, showed
+where an immense shoal of Cachalots had risen from below to sport in
+these phosphorescent billows.
+
+The vapor jetted forth was far more radiant than any portion of the
+sea; ascribable perhaps to the originally luminous fluid contracting
+still more brilliancy from its passage through the spouting canal of
+the whales.
+
+We were in great fear, lest without any vicious intention the
+Leviathans might destroy us, by coming into close contact with our
+boat. We would have shunned them; but they were all round and round us.
+Nevertheless we were safe; for as we parted the pallid brine, the
+peculiar irradiation which shot from about our keel seemed to deter
+them. Apparently discovering us of a sudden, many of them plunged
+headlong down into the water, tossing their fiery tails high into the
+air, and leaving the sea still more sparkling from the violent surging
+of their descent.
+
+Their general course seemed the same as our own; to the westward. To
+remove from them, we at last out oars, and pulled toward the north. So
+doing, we were steadily pursued by a solitary whale, that must have
+taken our Chamois for a kindred fish. Spite of all our efforts, he drew
+nearer and nearer; at length rubbing his fiery flank against the
+Chamois’ gunwale, here and there leaving long strips of the glossy
+transparent substance which thin as gossamer invests the body of the
+Cachalot.
+
+In terror at a sight so new, Samoa shrank. But Jarl and I, more used to
+the intimate companionship of the whales, pushed the boat away from it
+with our oars: a thing often done in the fishery.
+
+The close vicinity of the whale revived in the so long astute Skyeman
+all the enthusiasm of his daring vocation. However quiet by nature, a
+thorough-bred whaleman betrays no little excitement in sight of his
+game. And it required some persuasion to prevent Jarl from darting his
+harpoon: insanity under present circumstances; and of course without
+object. But “Oh! for a dart,” cried my Viking. And “Where’s now our old
+ship?” he added reminiscently.
+
+But to my great joy the monster at last departed; rejoining the shoal,
+whose lofty spoutings of flame were still visible upon the distant line
+of the horizon; showing there, like the fitful starts of the Aurora
+Borealis.
+
+The sea retained its luminosity for about three hours; at the
+expiration of half that period beginning to fade; and excepting
+occasional faint illuminations consequent upon the rapid darting of
+fish under water, the phenomenon at last wholly disappeared.
+
+Heretofore, I had beheld several exhibitions of marine phosphorescence,
+both in the Atlantic and Pacific. But nothing in comparison with what
+was seen that night. In the Atlantic, there is very seldom any portion
+of the ocean luminous, except the crests of the waves; and these mostly
+appear so during wet, murky weather. Whereas, in the Pacific, all
+instances of the sort, previously corning under my notice, had been
+marked by patches of greenish light, unattended with any pallidness of
+sea. Save twice on the coast of Peru, where I was summoned from my
+hammock to the alarming midnight cry of “All hands ahoy! tack ship!”
+And rushing on deck, beheld the sea white as a shroud; for which reason
+it was feared we were on soundings.
+
+Now, sailors love marvels, and love to repeat them. And from many an
+old shipmate I have heard various sage opinings, concerning the
+phenomenon in question. Dismissing, as destitute of sound philosophic
+probability, the extravagant notion of one of my nautical friends—no
+less a philosopher than my Viking himself—namely: that the
+phosphoresence of the sea is caused by a commotion among the mermaids,
+whose golden locks, all torn and disheveled, do irradiate the waters at
+such times; I proceed to record more reliable theories.
+
+Faraday might, perhaps, impute the phenomenon to a peculiarly
+electrical condition of the atmosphere; and to that solely. But herein,
+my scientific friend would be stoutly contradicted by many intelligent
+seamen, who, in part, impute it to the presence of large quantities of
+putrescent animal matter; with which the sea is well known to abound.
+
+And it would seem not unreasonable to suppose, that it is by this means
+that the fluid itself becomes charged with the luminous principle. Draw
+a bucket of water from the phosphorescent ocean, and it still retains
+traces of fire; but, standing awhile, this soon subsides. Now pour it
+along the deck, and it is a stream of flame; caused by its renewed
+agitation. Empty the bucket, and for a space sparkles cling to it
+tenaciously; and every stave seems ignited.
+
+But after all, this seeming ignition of the sea can not be wholly
+produced by dead matter therein. There are many living fish,
+phosphorescent; and, under certain conditions, by a rapid throwing off
+of luminous particles must largely contribute to the result. Not to
+particularize this circumstance as true of divers species of sharks,
+cuttle-fish, and many others of the larger varieties of the finny
+tribes; the myriads of microscopic mollusca, well known to swarm off
+soundings, might alone be deemed almost sufficient to kindle a fire in
+the brine.
+
+But these are only surmises; likely, but uncertain.
+
+After science comes sentiment.
+
+A French naturalist maintains, that the nocturnal radiance of the
+fire-fly is purposely intended as an attraction to the opposite sex;
+that the artful insect illuminates its body for a beacon to love. Thus:
+perched upon the edge of a leaf, and waiting the approach of her
+Leander, who comes buffeting with his wings the aroma of the flowers,
+some insect Hero may show a torch to her gossamer gallant.
+
+But alas, thrice alas, for the poor little fire-fish of the sea, whose
+radiance but reveals them to their foes, and lights the way to their
+destruction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+They Fall In With Strangers
+
+
+After quitting the Parki, we had much calm weather, varied by light
+breezes. And sailing smoothly over a sea, so recently one sheet of
+foam, I could not avoid bethinking me, how fortunate it was, that the
+gale had overtaken us in the brigantine, and not in the Chamois. For
+deservedly high as the whale-shallop ranks as a sea boat; still, in a
+severe storm, the larger your craft the greater your sense of security.
+Wherefore, the thousand reckless souls tenanting a line-of- battle ship
+scoff at the most awful hurricanes; though, in reality, they may be
+less safe in their wooden-walled Troy, than those who contend with the
+gale in a clipper.
+
+But not only did I congratulate myself upon salvation from the past,
+but upon the prospect for the future. For storms happening so seldom in
+these seas, one just blown over is almost a sure guarantee of very many
+weeks’ calm weather to come.
+
+Now sun followed sun; and no land. And at length it almost seemed as if
+we must have sailed past the remotest presumable westerly limit of the
+chain of islands we sought; a lurking suspicion which I sedulously kept
+to myself However, I could not but nourish a latent faith that all
+would yet be well.
+
+On the ninth day my forebodings were over. In the gray of the dawn,
+perched upon the peak of our sail, a noddy was seen fast asleep. This
+freak was true to the nature of that curious fowl, whose name is
+significant of its drowsiness. Its plumage was snow-white, its bill and
+legs blood-red; the latter looking like little pantalettes. In a sly
+attempt at catching the bird, Samoa captured three tail- feathers; the
+alarmed creature flying away with a scream, and leaving its quills in
+his hand.
+
+Sailing on, we gradually broke in upon immense low-sailing flights of
+other aquatic fowls, mostly of those species which are seldom found far
+from land: terns, frigate-birds, mollymeaux, reef-pigeons, boobies,
+gulls, and the like. They darkened the air; their wings making overhead
+an incessant rustling like the simultaneous turning over of ten
+thousand leaves. The smaller sort skimmed the sea like pebbles sent
+skipping from the shore. Over these, flew myriads of birds of broader
+wing. While high above all, soared in air the daring “Diver,” or
+sea-kite, the power of whose vision is truly wonderful. It perceives
+the little flying-fish in the water, at a height which can not be less
+than four hundred feet. Spirally wheeling and screaming as it goes, the
+sea-kite, bill foremost, darts downward, swoops into the water, and for
+a moment altogether disappearing, emerges at last; its prey firmly
+trussed in its claws. But bearing it aloft, the bold bandit is quickly
+assailed by other birds of prey, that strive to wrest from him his
+booty. And snatched from his talons, you see the fish falling through
+the air, till again caught up in the very act of descent, by the
+fleetest of its pursuers.
+
+Leaving these sights astern, we presently picked up the slimy husk of a
+cocoanut, all over green barnacles. And shortly after, passed two or
+three limbs of trees, and the solitary trunk of a palm; which, upon
+sailing nearer, seemed but very recently started on its endless voyage.
+As noon came on; the dark purple land-haze, which had been dimly
+descried resting upon the western horizon, was very nearly obscured.
+Nevertheless, behind that dim drapery we doubted not bright boughs were
+waving.
+
+We were now in high spirits. Samoa between times humming to himself
+some heathenish ditty, and Jarl ten times more intent on his silence
+than ever; yet his eye full of expectation and gazing broad off from
+our bow. Of a sudden, shading his face with his hand, he gazed fixedly
+for an instant, and then springing to his feet, uttered the long-drawn
+sound—“Sail ho!”
+
+Just tipping the furthest edge of the sky was a little speck, dancing
+into view every time we rose upon the swells. It looked like one of
+many birds; for half intercepting our view, fell showers of plumage: a
+flight of milk-white noddies flying downward to the sea.
+
+But soon the birds are seen no more. Yet there remains the speck;
+plainly a sail; but too small for a ship. Was it a boat after a whale?
+The vessel to which it belonged far astern, and shrouded by the haze?
+So it seemed.
+
+Quietly, however, we waited the stranger’s nearer approach; confident,
+that for some time he would not be able to perceive us, owing to our
+being in what mariners denominate the “sun-glade,” or that part of the
+ocean upon which the sun’s rays flash with peculiar intensity.
+
+As the sail drew nigh, its failing to glisten white led us to doubt
+whether it was indeed a whale-boat. Presently, it showed yellow; and
+Samoa declared, that it must be the sail of some island craft. True.
+The stranger proving a large double-canoe, like those used by the
+Polynesians in making passages between distant islands.
+
+The Upoluan was now clamorous for a meeting, to which Jarl was averse.
+Deliberating a moment, I directed the muskets to be loaded; then
+setting the sail the wind on our quarter—we headed away for the canoe,
+now sailing at right angles with our previous course.
+
+Here it must be mentioned, that from the various gay cloths and other
+things provided for barter by the captain of the Parki, I had very
+strikingly improved my costume; making it free, flowing, and eastern. I
+looked like an Emir. Nor had my Viking neglected to follow my example;
+though with some few modifications of his own. With his long tangled
+hair and harpoon, he looked like the sea-god, that boards ships, for
+the first time crossing the Equator. For tatooed Samoa, he yet sported
+both kilt and turban, reminding one of a tawny leopard, though his
+spots were all in one place. Besides this raiment of ours, against
+emergencies we had provided our boat with divers nankeens and silks.
+
+But now into full view comes a yoke of huge clumsy prows, shaggy with
+carving, and driving through the water with considerable velocity; the
+immense sprawling sail holding the wind like a bag. She seemed full of
+men; and from the dissonant cries borne over to us, and the canoe’s
+widely yawing, it was plain that we had occasioned no small sensation.
+They seemed undetermined what course to pursue: whether to court a
+meeting, or avoid it; whether to regard us as friends or foes.
+
+As we came still nearer, distinctly beholding their faces, we loudly
+hailed them, inviting them to furl their sails, and allow us to board
+them. But no answer was returned; their confusion increasing. And now,
+within less than two ships’-lengths, they swept right across our bow,
+gazing at us with blended curiosity and fear.
+
+Their craft was about thirty feet long, consisting of a pair of
+parallel canoes, very narrow, and at the distance of a yard or so,
+lengthwise, united by stout cross-timbers, lashed across the four
+gunwales. Upon these timbers was a raised platform or dais, quite dry;
+and astern an arched cabin or tent; behind which, were two broad-bladed
+paddles terminating in rude shark-tails, by which the craft was
+steered.
+
+The yard, spreading a yellow sail, was a crooked bough, supported
+obliquely in the crotch of a mast, to which the green bark was still
+clinging. Here and there were little tufts of moss. The high, beaked
+prow of that canoe in which the mast was placed, resembled a rude
+altar; and all round it was suspended a great variety of fruits,
+including scores of cocoanuts, unhusked. This prow was railed off,
+forming a sort of chancel within.
+
+The foremost beam, crossing the gunwales, extended some twelve feet
+beyond the side of the dais; and at regular intervals hereupon, stout
+cords were fastened, which, leading up to the head of the mast,
+answered the purpose of shrouds. The breeze was now streaming fresh;
+and, as if to force down into the water the windward side of the craft,
+five men stood upon this long beam, grasping five shrouds. Yet they
+failed to counterbalance the pressure of the sail; and owing to the
+opposite inclination of the twin canoes, these living statues were
+elevated high above the water; their appearance rendered still more
+striking by their eager attitudes, and the apparent peril of their
+position, as the mad spray from the bow dashed over them. Suddenly, the
+Islanders threw their craft into the wind; while, for ourselves, we lay
+on our oars, fearful of alarming them by now coming nearer. But hailing
+them again, we said we were friends; and had friendly gifts for them,
+if they would peaceably permit us to approach. This understood, there
+ensued a mighty clamor; insomuch, that I bade Jarl and Samoa out oars,
+and row very gently toward the strangers. Whereupon, amid a storm of
+vociferations, some of them hurried to the furthest side of their dais;
+standing with arms arched over their heads, as if for a dive; others
+menacing us with clubs and spears; and one, an old man with a bamboo
+trellis on his head forming a sort of arbor for his hair, planted
+himself full before the tent, stretching behind him a wide plaited
+sling.
+
+Upon this hostile display, Samoa dropped his oar, and brought his piece
+to bear upon the old man, who, by his attitude, seemed to menace us
+with the fate of the great braggart of Gath. But I quickly knocked down
+the muzzle of his musket, and forbade the slightest token of hostility;
+enjoining it upon my companions, nevertheless, to keep well on their
+guard.
+
+We now ceased rowing, and after a few minutes’ uproar in the canoe,
+they ran to the steering-paddles, and forcing round their craft before
+the wind, rapidly ran away from us. With all haste we set our sail, and
+pulling also at our oars, soon overtook them, determined upon coming
+into closer communion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+Sire And Sons
+
+
+Seeing flight was useless, the Islanders again stopped their canoe, and
+once more we cautiously drew nearer; myself crying out to them not to
+be fearful; and Samoa, with the odd humor of his race, averring that he
+had known every soul of them from his infancy.
+
+We approached within two or three yards; when we paused, which somewhat
+allayed their alarm. Fastening a red China handkerchief to the blade of
+our long mid-ship oar, I waved it in the air. A lively clapping of
+hands, and many wild exclamations.
+
+While yet waving the flag, I whispered to Jarl to give the boat a sheer
+toward the canoe, which being adroitly done, brought the bow, where I
+stood, still nearer to the Islanders. I then dropped the silk among
+them; and the Islander, who caught it, at once handed it to the warlike
+old man with the sling; who, on seating himself, spread it before him;
+while the rest crowding round, glanced rapidly from the wonderful gift,
+to the more wonderful donors.
+
+This old man was the superior of the party. And Samoa asserted, that he
+must be a priest of the country to which the Islanders belonged; that
+the craft could be no other than one of their sacred canoes, bound on
+some priestly voyage. All this he inferred from the altar- like prow,
+and there being no women on board.
+
+Bent upon conciliating the old priest, I dropped into the canoe another
+silk handkerchief; while Samoa loudly exclaimed, that we were only
+three men, and were peaceably inclined. Meantime, old Aaron, fastening
+the two silks crosswise over his shoulders, like a brace of Highland
+plaids, crosslegged sat, and eyed us.
+
+It was a curious sight. The old priest, like a scroll of old parchment,
+covered all over with hieroglyphical devices, harder to interpret, I’ll
+warrant, than any old Sanscrit manuscript. And upon his broad brow,
+deep-graven in wrinkles, were characters still more mysterious, which
+no Champollion nor gipsy could have deciphered. He looked old as the
+elderly hills; eyes sunken, though bright; and head white as the summit
+of Mont Blanc.
+
+The rest were a youthful and comely set: their complexion that of Gold
+Sherry, and all tattooed after this pattern: two broad cross- stripes
+on the chest and back; reaching down to the waist, like a
+foot-soldier’s harness. Their faces were full of expression; and their
+mouths were full of fine teeth; so that the parting of their lips, was
+as the opening of pearl oysters. Marked, here and there, after the
+style of Tahiti, with little round figures in blue, dotted in the
+middle with a spot of vermilion, their brawny brown thighs looked not
+unlike the gallant hams of Westphalia, spotted with the red dust of
+Cayenne.
+
+But what a marvelous resemblance in the features of all. Were they born
+at one birth? This resemblance was heightened by their uniform marks.
+But it was subsequently ascertained, that they were the children of one
+sire; and that sire, old Aaron; who, no doubt, reposed upon his sons,
+as an old general upon the trophies of his youth.
+
+They were the children of as many mothers; and he was training them up
+for the priesthood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+A Fray
+
+
+So bent were the strangers upon concealing who they were, and the
+object of their voyage, that it was some time ere we could obtain the
+information we desired.
+
+They pointed toward the tent, as if it contained their Eleusinian
+mysteries. And the old priest gave us to know, that it would be
+profanation to enter it.
+
+But all this only roused my curiosity to unravel the wonder.
+
+At last I succeeded.
+
+In that mysterious tent was concealed a beautiful maiden. And, in
+pursuance of a barbarous custom, by Aleema, the priest, she was being
+borne an offering from the island of Amma to the gods of Tedaidee.
+
+Now, hearing of the maiden, I waited for no more. Need I add, how
+stirred was my soul toward this invisible victim; and how hotly I
+swore, that precious blood of hers should never smoke upon an altar. If
+we drowned for it, I was bent upon rescuing the captive. But as yet, no
+gentle signal of distress had been waved to us from the tent. Thence,
+no sound could be heard, but an occasional rustle of the matting. Was
+it possible, that one about to be immolated could proceed thus
+tranquilly to her fate?
+
+But desperately as I resolved to accomplish the deliverance of the
+maiden, it was best to set heedfully about it. I desired no shedding of
+blood; though the odds were against us.
+
+The old priest seemed determined to prevent us from boarding his craft.
+But being equally determined the other way, I cautiously laid the bow
+of the Chamois against the canoe’s quarter, so as to present the
+smallest possible chance for a hostile entrance into our boat. Then,
+Samoa, knife in ear, and myself with a cutlass, stepped upon the dais,
+leaving Jarl in the boat’s head, equipped with his harpoon; three
+loaded muskets lying by his side. He was strictly enjoined to resist
+the slightest demonstration toward our craft.
+
+As we boarded the canoe, the Islanders slowly retreated; meantime
+earnestly conferring in whispers; all but the old priest, who, still
+seated, presented an undaunted though troubled front. To our surprise,
+he motioned us to sit down by him; which we did; taking care, however,
+not to cut off our communication with Jarl.
+
+With the hope of inspiring good will, I now unfolded a roll of printed
+cotton, and spreading it before the priest, directed his attention to
+the pictorial embellishments thereon, representing some hundreds of
+sailor boys simultaneously ascending some hundreds of uniform sections
+of a ship’s rigging. Glancing at them a moment, by a significant sign,
+he gave me to know, that long previous he himself had ascended the
+shrouds of a ship. Making this allusion, his countenance was overcast
+with a ferocious expression, as if something terrific was connected
+with the reminiscence. But it soon passed away, and somewhat abruptly
+he assumed an air of much merriment.
+
+While we were thus sitting together, and my whole soul full of the
+thoughts of the captive, and how best to accomplish my purpose, and
+often gazing toward the tent; I all at once noticed a movement among
+the strangers. Almost in the same instant, Samoa, right across the face
+of Aleema, and in his ordinary tones, bade me take heed to myself, for
+mischief was brewing. Hardly was this warning uttered, when, with
+carved clubs in their hands, the Islanders completely surrounded us.
+Then up rose the old priest, and gave us to know, that we were wholly
+in his power, and if we did not swear to depart in our boat forthwith,
+and molest him no more, the peril be ours.
+
+“Depart and you live; stay and you die.”
+
+Fifteen to three. Madness to gainsay his mandate. Yet a beautiful
+maiden was at stake.
+
+The knife before dangling in Samoa’s ear was now in his hand. Jarl
+cried out for us to regain the boat, several of the Islanders making a
+rush for it. No time to think. All passed quicker than it can be said.
+They closed in upon us, to push us from the canoe: Rudely the old
+priest flung me from his side, menacing me with his dagger, the sharp
+spine of a fish. A thrust and a threat! Ere I knew it, my cutlass made
+a quick lunge. A curse from the priest’s mouth; red blood from his
+side; he tottered, stared about him, and fell over like a brown hemlock
+into the sea. A yell of maledictions rose on the air. A wild cry was
+heard from the tent. Making a dead breach among the crowd, we now
+dashed side by side for the boat. Springing into it, we found Jarl
+battling with two Islanders; while the rest were still howling upon the
+dais. Rage and grief had almost disabled them.
+
+With one stroke of my cutlass, I now parted the line that held us to
+the canoe, and with Samoa falling upon the two Islanders, by Jarl’s
+help, we quickly mastered them; forcing them down into the bottom of
+the boat.
+
+The Skyeman and Samoa holding passive the captives, I quickly set our
+sail, and snatching the sheet at the cavil, we rapidly shot from the
+canoe. The strangers defying us with their spears; several couching
+them as if to dart; while others held back their hands, as if to
+prevent them from jeopardizing the lives of their countrymen in the
+Chamois.
+
+Seemingly untoward events oftentimes lead to successful results: Far
+from destroying all chance of rescuing the captive, our temporary
+flight, indispensable for the safety of Jarl, only made the success of
+our enterprise more probable. For having made prisoners two of the
+strangers, I determined to retain them as hostages, through whom to
+effect my plans without further bloodshed.
+
+And here it must needs be related, that some of the natives were
+wounded in the fray: while all three of their assailants had received
+several bruises.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+Remorse
+
+
+During the skirmish not a single musket had been discharged. The first
+snatched by Jarl had missed fire, and ere he could seize another, it
+was close quarters with him, and no gestures to spare. His harpoon was
+his all. And truly, there is nothing like steel in a fray. It comes and
+it goes with a will, and is never a-weary. Your sword is your life, and
+that of your foe; to keep or to take as it happens. Closer home does it
+go than a rammer; and fighting with steel is a play without ever an
+interlude. There are points more deadly than bullets; and stocks packed
+full of subtle tubes, whence comes an impulse more reliable than
+powder.
+
+Binding our prisoners lengthwise across the boat’s seats, we rowed for
+the canoe, making signs of amity.
+
+Now, if there be any thing fitted to make a high tide ebb in the veins,
+it is the sight of a vanquished foe, inferior to yourself in powers of
+destruction; but whom some necessity has forced you to subdue. All
+victories are not triumphs, nor all who conquer, heroes.
+
+As we drew near the canoe, it was plain, that the loss of their sire
+had again for the instant overcome the survivors. Raising hands, they
+cursed us; and at intervals sent forth a low, piercing wail, peculiar
+to their race. As before, faint cries were heard from the tent. And all
+the while rose and fell on the sea, the ill-fated canoe.
+
+As I gazed at this sight, what iron mace fell on my soul; what curse
+rang sharp in my ear! It was I, who was the author of the deed that
+caused the shrill wails that I heard. By this hand, the dead man had
+died. Remorse smote me hard; and like lightning I asked myself, whether
+the death-deed I had done was sprung of a virtuous motive, the rescuing
+a captive from thrall; or whether beneath that pretense, I had engaged
+in this fatal affray for some other, and selfish purpose; the
+companionship of a beautiful maid. But throttling the thought, I swore
+to be gay. Am I not rescuing the maiden? Let them go down who withstand
+me.
+
+At the dismal spectacle before him, Jarl, hitherto menacing our
+prisoners with his weapon, in order to intimidate their countrymen,
+honest Jarl dropped his harpoon. But shaking his knife in the air,
+Samoa yet defied the strangers; nor could we prevent him. His
+heathenish blood was up.
+
+Standing foremost in the boat, I now assured the strangers, that all we
+sought at their hands was the maiden in the tent. That captive
+surrendered, our own, unharmed, should be restored. If not, they must
+die. With a cry, they started to their feet, and brandished their
+clubs; but, seeing Jarl’s harpoon quivering over the hearts of our
+prisoners, they quickly retreated; at last signifying their
+acquiescence in my demand. Upon this, I sprang to the dais, and across
+it indicating a line near the bow, signed the Islanders to retire
+beyond it. Then, calling upon them one by one to deliver their weapons,
+they were passed into the boat.
+
+The Chamois was now brought round to the canoe’s stern; and leaving
+Jarl to defend it as before, the Upoluan rejoined me on the dais. By
+these precautions—the hostages still remaining bound hand and foot in
+the boat—we deemed ourselves entirely secure.
+
+Attended by Samoa, I stood before the tent, now still as the grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+The Tent Entered
+
+
+By means of thin spaces between the braids of matting, the place was
+open to the air, but not to view. There was also a round opening on one
+side, only large enough, however, to admit the arm; but this aperture
+was partially closed from within. In front, a deep-dyed rug of osiers,
+covering the entrance way, was intricately laced to the standing part
+of the tent. As I divided this lacing with my cutlass, there arose an
+outburst of voices from the Islanders. And they covered their faces, as
+the interior was revealed to my gaze.
+
+Before me crouched a beautiful girl. Her hands were drooping. And, like
+a saint from a shrine, she looked sadly out from her long, fair hair. A
+low wail issued from her lips, and she trembled like a sound. There
+were tears on her cheek, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom.
+
+Did I dream?—A snow-white skin: blue, firmament eyes: Golconda locks.
+For an instant spell-bound I stood; while with a slow, apprehensive
+movement, and still gazing fixedly, the captive gathered more closely
+about her a gauze-like robe. Taking one step within, and partially
+dropping the curtain of the tent, I so stood, as to have both sight and
+speech of Samoa, who tarried without; while the maiden, crouching in
+the farther corner of the retreat, was wholly screened from all eyes
+but mine.
+
+Crossing my hands before me, I now stood without speaking. For the soul
+of me, I could not link this mysterious creature with the tawny
+strangers. She seemed of another race. So powerful was this impression,
+that unconsciously, I addressed her in my own tongue. She started, and
+bending over, listened intently, as if to the first faint echo of
+something dimly remembered. Again I spoke, when throwing back her hair,
+the maiden looked up with a piercing, bewildered gaze. But her eyes
+soon fell, and bending over once more, she resumed her former attitude.
+At length she slowly chanted to herself several musical words, unlike
+those of the Islanders; but though I knew not what they meant, they
+vaguely seemed familiar.
+
+Impatient to learn her story, I now questioned her in Polynesian. But
+with much earnestness, she signed me to address her as before. Soon
+perceiving, however, that without comprehending the meaning of the
+words I employed, she seemed merely touched by something pleasing in
+their sound, I once more addressed her in Polynesian; saying that I was
+all eagerness to hear her history.
+
+After much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm at every sound
+from without; yet all the while deeply regarding me.
+
+Broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are here presented
+in the form in which they were afterward more fully narrated.
+
+So unearthly was the story, that at first I little comprehended it; and
+was almost persuaded that the luckless maiden was some beautiful
+maniac.
+
+She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from Oroolia, the
+Island of Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the
+Polynesians. To this isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical power,
+she had been spirited from Amma, the place of her nativity. Her name
+was Yillah. And hardly had the waters of Oroolia washed white her olive
+skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when one day strolling in the
+woodlands, she was snared in the tendrils of a vine. Drawing her into
+its bowers, it gently transformed her into one of its blossoms, leaving
+her conscious soul folded up in the transparent petals.
+
+Here hung Yillah in a trance, the world without all tinged with the
+rosy hue of her prison. At length when her spirit was about to burst
+forth in the opening flower, the blossom was snapped from its stem; and
+borne by a soft wind to the sea; where it fell into the opening valve
+of a shell; which in good time was cast upon the beach of the Island of
+Amma.
+
+In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the priest; who by a
+spell unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now showed
+signs of opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy
+revealings, as of the dawn behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding,
+the blossom exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the air.
+Condensing at last, there emerged from this mist the same radiant young
+Yillah as before; her locks all moist, and a rose- colored pearl on her
+bosom. Enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful child now tarried in the
+sacred temple of Apo, buried in a dell; never beheld of mortal eyes
+save Aleema’s.
+
+Moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four days gone by,
+Aleema came to her with a dream; that the spirits in Oroolia had
+recalled her home by the way of Tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up in
+the sea an enchanted spring; which streaming over upon the brine,
+flowed on between blue watery banks; and, plunging into a vortex, went
+round and round, descending into depths unknown. Into this whirlpool
+Yillah was to descend in a canoe, at last to well up in an inland
+fountain of Oroolia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+Away!
+
+
+Though clothed in language of my own, the maiden’s story is in
+substance the same as she related. Yet were not these things narrated
+as past events; she merely recounted them as impressions of her
+childhood, and of her destiny yet unaccomplished. And mystical as the
+tale most assuredly was, my knowledge of the strange arts of the island
+priesthood, and the rapt fancies indulged in by many of their victims,
+deprived it in good part of the effect it otherwise would have
+produced.
+
+For ulterior purposes connected with their sacerdotal supremacy, the
+priests of these climes oftentimes secrete mere infants in their
+temples; and jealously secluding them from all intercourse with the
+world, craftily delude them, as they grow up, into the wildest
+conceits.
+
+Thus wrought upon, their pupils almost lose their humanity in the
+constant indulgence of seraphic imaginings. In many cases becoming
+inspired as oracles; and as such, they are sometimes resorted to by
+devotees; always screened from view, however, in the recesses of the
+temples. But in every instance, their end is certain. Beguiled with
+some fairy tale about revisiting the islands of Paradise, they are led
+to the secret sacrifice, and perish unknown to their kindred.
+
+But, would that all this had been hidden from me at the time. For
+Yillah was lovely enough to be really divine; and so I might have been
+tranced into a belief of her mystical legends.
+
+But with what passionate exultation did I find myself the deliverer of
+this beautiful maiden; who, thinking no harm, and rapt in a dream, was
+being borne to her fate on the coast of Tedaidee. Nor now, for a
+moment, did the death of Aleema her guardian seem to hang heavy upon my
+heart. I rejoiced that I had sent him to his gods; that in place of the
+sea moss growing over sweet Yillah drowned in the sea, the vile priest
+himself had sunk to the bottom.
+
+But though he had sunk in the deep, his ghost sunk not in the deep
+waters of my soul. However in exultations its surface foamed up, at
+bottom guilt brooded. Sifted out, my motives to this enterprise
+justified not the mad deed, which, in a moment of rage, I had done:
+though, those motives had been covered with a gracious pretense;
+concealing myself from myself. But I beat down the thought.
+
+In relating her story, the maiden frequently interrupted it with
+questions concerning myself:—Whence I came: being white, from Oroolia?
+Whither I was going: to Amma? And what had happened to Aleema? For she
+had been dismayed at the fray, though knowing not what it could mean;
+and she had heard the priest’s name called upon in lamentations. These
+questions for the time I endeavored to evade; only inducing her to
+fancy me some gentle demigod, that had come over the sea from her own
+fabulous Oroolia. And all this she must verily have believed. For whom,
+like me, ere this could she have beheld? Still fixed she her eyes upon
+me strangely, and hung upon the accents of my voice.
+
+While this scene was passing, the strangers began to show signs of
+impatience, and a voice from the Chamois repeatedly hailed us to
+accelerate our movements.
+
+My course was quickly decided. The only obstacle to be encountered was
+the possibility of Yillah’s alarm at being suddenly borne into my prow.
+For this event I now sought to prepare her. I informed the damsel that
+Aleema had been dispatched on a long errand to Oroolia; leaving to my
+care, for the present, the guardianship of the lovely Yillah; and that
+therefore, it was necessary to carry her tent into my own canoe, then
+waiting to receive it.
+
+This intelligence she received with the utmost concern; and not knowing
+to what her perplexity might lead, I thought fit to transport her into
+the Chamois, while yet overwhelmed by the announcement of my intention.
+
+Quitting her retreat, I apprised Jarl of my design; and then, no more
+delay!
+
+At bottom, the tent was attached to a light framework of bamboos; and
+from its upper corners, four cords, like those of a marquee, confined
+it to the dais. These, Samoa’s knife soon parted; when lifting the
+light tent, we speedily transferred it to the Chamois; a wild yell
+going up from the Islanders, which drowned the faint cries of the
+maiden. But we heeded not the din. Toss in the fruit, hanging from the
+altar-prow! It was done; and then running up our sail, we glided
+away;—Chamois, tent, hostages, and all. Rushing to the now vacant stern
+of their canoe, the Islanders once more lifted up their hands and their
+voices in curses.
+
+A suitable distance gained, we paused to fling overboard the arms we
+had taken; and Jarl proceeded to liberate the hostages.
+
+Meanwhile, I entered the tent, and by many tokens, sought to allay the
+maiden’s alarm. Thus engaged, violent plunges were heard: our prisoners
+taking to the sea to regain their canoe. All dripping, they were
+received by their brethren with wild caresses.
+
+From something now said by the captives, the rest seemed suddenly
+inspirited with hopes of revenge; again wildly shaking their spears,
+just before picked up from the sea. With great clamor and confusion
+they soon set their mat-sail; and instead of sailing southward for
+Tedaidee, or northward for Amma their home, they steered straight after
+us, in our wake.
+
+Foremost in the prow stood three; javelins poised for a dart; at
+intervals, raising a yell.
+
+Did they mean to pursue me? Full in my rear they came on, baying like
+hounds on their game. Yillah trembled at their cries. My own heart beat
+hard with undefinable dread. The corpse of Aleema seemed floating
+before: its avengers were raging behind.
+
+But soon these phantoms departed. For very soon it appeared that in
+vain the pagans pursued. Their craft, our fleet Chamois outleaped. And
+farther and farther astern dropped the evil-boding canoe, till at last
+but a speck; when a great swell of the sea surged up before it, and it
+was seen no more. Samoa swore that it must have swamped, and gone down.
+But however it was, my heart lightened apace. I saw none but ourselves
+on the sea: I remembered that our keel left no track as it sailed.
+
+Let the Oregon Indian through brush, bramble, and brier, hunt his
+enemy’s trail, far over the mountains and down in the vales; comes he
+to the water, he snuffs idly in air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+Reminiscences
+
+
+In resecuing the gentle Yillah from the hands of the Islanders, a
+design seemed accomplished. But what was now to be done? Here, in our
+adventurous Chamois, was a damsel more lovely than the flushes of
+morning; and for companions, whom had she but me and my comrades?
+Besides, her bosom still throbbed with alarms, her fancies all roving
+through mazes.
+
+How subdue these dangerous imaginings? How gently dispel them?
+
+But one way there was: to lead her thoughts toward me, as her friend
+and preserver; and a better and wiser than Aleema the priest. Yet could
+not this be effected but by still maintaining my assumption of a divine
+origin in the blessed isle of Oroolia; and thus fostering in her heart
+the mysterious interest, with which from the first she had regarded me.
+But if punctilious reserve on the part of her deliverer should teach
+her to regard him as some frigid stranger from the Arctic Zone, what
+sympathy could she have for him? and hence, what peace of mind, having
+no one else to cling to?
+
+Now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried Aleema.
+
+“Think not of him, sweet Yillah,” I cried. “Look on me. Am I not white
+like yourself? Behold, though since quitting Oroolia the sun has dyed
+my cheek, am I not even as you? Am I brown like the dusky Aleema? They
+snatched you away from your isle in the sea, too early for you to
+remember me there. But you have not been forgotten by me, sweetest
+Yillah. Ha! ha! shook we not the palm-trees together, and chased we not
+the rolling nuts down the glen? Did we not dive into the grotto on the
+sea-shore, and come up together in the cool cavern in the hill? In my
+home in Oroolia, dear Yillah, I have a lock of your hair, ere yet it
+was golden: a little dark tress like a ring. How your cheeks were then
+changing from olive to white. And when shall I forget the hour, that I
+came upon you sleeping among the flowers, with roses and lilies for
+cheeks. Still forgetful? Know you not my voice? Those little spirits in
+your eyes have seen me before. They mimic me now as they sport in their
+lakes. All the past a dim blank? Think of the time when we ran up and
+down in our arbor, where the green vines grew over the great ribs of
+the stranded whale. Oh Yillah, little Yillah, has it all come to this?
+am I forever forgotten? Yet over the wide watery world have I sought
+thee: from isle to isle, from sea to sea. And now we part not. Aleema
+is gone. My prow shall keep kissing the waves, till it kisses the beach
+at Oroolia. Yillah, look up.”
+
+Sunk the ghost of Aleema: Sweet Yillah was mine!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+The Chamois With A Roving Commission
+
+
+Through the assiduity of my Viking, ere nightfall our Chamois was again
+in good order. And with many subtle and seamanlike splices the light
+tent was lashed in its place; the sail taken up by a reef.
+
+My comrades now questioned me, as to my purposes; whether they had been
+modified by the events of the day. I replied that our destination was
+still the islands to the westward.
+
+But from these we had steadily been drifting all the morning long; so
+that now no loom of the land was visible. But our prow was kept
+pointing as before.
+
+As evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the
+helm.
+
+How soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. The rays of the sun,
+setting behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of a
+shaded light behind a lattice. And the low breeze, pervaded with the
+peculiar balm of the mid-Pacific near land, was fragrant as the breath
+of a bride.
+
+Such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of Yillah in
+mine seemed no hand, but a touch. Visions flitted before me and in me;
+something hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay.
+
+And now entered a thought into my heart. I reflected how serenely we
+might thus glide along, far removed from all care and anxiety. And
+then, what different scenes might await us upon any of the shores
+roundabout. But there seemed no danger in the balmy sea; the assured
+vicinity of land imparting a sense of security. We had ample supplies
+for several days more, and thanks to the Pagan canoe, an abundance of
+fruit.
+
+Besides, what cared I now for the green groves and bright shore? Was
+not Yillah my shore and my grove? my meadow, my mead, my soft shady
+vine, and my arbor? Of all things desirable and delightful, the full-
+plumed sheaf, and my own right arm the band? Enough: no shore for me
+yet. One sweep of the helm, and our light prow headed round toward the
+vague land of song, sun, and vine: the fabled South.
+
+As we glided along, strange Yillah gazed down in the sea, and would
+fain have had me plunge into it with her, to rove through its depths.
+But I started dismayed; in fancy, I saw the stark body of the priest
+drifting by. Again that phantom obtruded; again guilt laid his red hand
+on my soul. But I laughed. Was not Yillah my own? by my arm rescued
+from ill? To do her a good, I had periled myself. So down, down,
+Aleema.
+
+When next morning, starting from slumber, my comrades beheld the sun on
+our beam, instead of astern as before at that hour, they eagerly
+inquired, “Whither now?” But very briefly I gave them to know, that
+after devoting the night to the due consideration of a matter so
+important, I had determined upon voyaging for the island Tedaidee, in
+place of the land to the westward.
+
+At this, they were not displeased. But to tell the plain truth, I
+harbored some shadowy purpose of merely hovering about for a while,
+till I felt more landwardly inclined.
+
+But had I not declared to Yillah, that our destination was the fairy
+isle she spoke of, even Oroolia? Yet that shore was so exceedingly
+remote, and the folly of endeavoring to reach it in a craft built with
+hands, so very apparent, that what wonder I really nourished no thought
+of it?
+
+So away floated the Chamois, like a vagrant cloud in the heavens:
+bound, no one knew whither.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
+
+
+But time to tell, how Samoa and Jarl regarded this mystical Yillah; and
+how Yillah regarded them.
+
+As Beauty from the Beast, so at first shrank the damsel from my one-
+armed companion. But seeing my confidence in the savage, a reaction
+soon followed. And in accordance with that curious law, by which, under
+certain conditions, the ugliest mortals become only amiably hideous,
+Yillah at length came to look upon Samoa as a sort of harmless and
+good-natured goblin. Whence came he, she cared not; or what was his
+history; or in what manner his fortunes were united to mine.
+
+May be, she held him a being of spontaneous origin.
+
+Now, as every where women are the tamers of the menageries of men; so
+Yillah in good time tamed down Samoa to the relinquishment of that
+horrible thing in his ear, and persuaded him to substitute a vacancy
+for the bauble in his nose. On his part, however, all this was
+conditional. He stipulated for the privilege of restoring both trinkets
+upon suitable occasions.
+
+But if thus gayly the damsel sported with Samoa; how different his
+emotions toward her? The fate to which she had been destined, and every
+nameless thing about her, appealed to all his native superstitions,
+which ascribed to beings of her complexion a more than terrestrial
+origin. When permitted to approach her, he looked timid and awkwardly
+strange; suggesting the likeness of some clumsy satyr, drawing in his
+horns; slowly wagging his tail; crouching abashed before some radiant
+spirit.
+
+And this reverence of his was most pleasing to me, Bravo! thought I; be
+a pagan forever. No more than myself; for, after a different fashion,
+Yillah was an idol to both.
+
+But what of my Viking? Why, of good Jarl I grieve to say, that the
+old-fashioned interest he took in my affairs led him to look upon
+Yillah as a sort of intruder, an Ammonite syren, who might lead me
+astray. This would now and then provoke a phillipic; but he would only
+turn toward my resentment his devotion; and then I was silent.
+
+Unsophisticated as a wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable
+of perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our
+companions. And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption,
+that it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove
+otherwise than irresistible to all.
+
+She betrayed much surprise at my Vikings appearance. But most of all
+was she struck by a characteristic device upon the arm of the wonderful
+mariner—our Saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown of thorns,
+and three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one from each
+hand and foot.
+
+Now, honest Jarl did vastly pride himself upon this ornament. It was
+the only piece of vanity about him. And like a lady keeping gloveless
+her hand to show off a fine Turquoise ring, he invariably wore that
+sleeve of his frock rolled up, the better to display the embellishment.
+
+And round and round would Yillah turn Jarl’s arm, till Jarl was fain to
+stand firm, for fear of revolving all over. How such untutored homage
+would have thrilled the heart of the ingenious artist!
+
+Eventually, through the Upoluan, she made overtures to the Skyeman,
+concerning the possession of his picture in her own proper right. In
+her very simplicity, little heeding, that like a landscape in fresco,
+it could not be removed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+Something Under The Surface
+
+
+Not to omit an occurrence of considerable interest, we must needs here
+present some account of a curious retinue of fish which overtook our
+Chamois, a day or two after parting with the canoe.
+
+A violent creaming and frothing in our rear announced their approach.
+Soon we found ourselves the nucleus of an incredible multitude of finny
+creatures, mostly anonymous.
+
+First, far in advance of our prow, swam the helmeted Silver-heads; side
+by side, in uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas, with
+their flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct regiment,
+wormed and twisted through the water like Archimedean screws, the
+quivering Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the
+Trigger-fish—so called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their
+backs with a comical curve, as if at half-cock. Far astern the rear was
+brought up by endless battalions of Yellow- backs, right martially
+vested in buff.
+
+And slow sailing overhead were flights of birds; a wing in the air for
+every fin in the sea.
+
+But let the sea-fowls fly on: turn we to the fish.
+
+Their numbers were amazing; countless as the tears shed for perfidious
+lovers. Far abroad on both flanks, they swam in long lines, tier above
+tier; the water alive with their hosts. Locusts of the sea,
+peradventure, going to fall with a blight upon some green, mossy
+province of Neptune. And tame and fearless they were, as the first fish
+that swam in Euphrates; hardly evading the hand; insomuch that Samoa
+caught many without lure or line.
+
+They formed a decorous escort; paddling along by our barnacled sides,
+as if they had been with us from the very beginning; neither scared by
+our craft’s surging in the water; nor in the least sympathetic at
+losing a comrade by the hand of Samoa. They closed in their ranks and
+swam on.
+
+How innocent, yet heartless they looked! Had a plank dropped out of our
+boat, we had sunk to the bottom; and belike, our cheerful retinue would
+have paid the last rites to our remains.
+
+But still we kept company; as sociably as you please; Samoa helping
+himself when he listed, and Yillah clapping her hands as the radiant
+creatures, by a simultaneous turning round on their silvery bellies,
+caused the whole sea to glow like a burnished shield.
+
+But what has befallen this poor little Boneeta astern, that he swims so
+toilingly on, with gills showing purple? What has he there, towing
+behind? It is tangled sea-kelp clinging to its fins. But the clogged
+thing strains to keep up with its fellows. Yet little they heed. Away
+they go; every fish for itself, and any fish for Samoa.
+
+At last the poor Boneeta is seen no more. The myriad fins swim on; a
+lonely waste, where the lost one drops behind.
+
+Strange fish! All the live-long day, they were there by our side; and
+at night still tarried and shone; more crystal and scaly in the pale
+moonbeams, than in the golden glare of the sun.
+
+How prettily they swim; all silver life; darting hither and thither
+between their long ranks, and touching their noses, and scraping
+acquaintance. No mourning they wear for the Boneeta left far astern;
+nor for those so cruelly killed by Samoa. No, no; all is glee, fishy
+glee, and frolicking fun; light hearts and light fins; gay backs and
+gay spirits.—Swim away, swim away! my merry fins all. Let us roam the
+flood; let us follow this monster fish with the barnacled sides; this
+strange-looking fish, so high out of water; that goes without fins.
+What fish can it be? What rippling is that? Dost hear the great monster
+breathe? Why, ’tis sharp at both ends; a tail either way; nor eyes has
+it any, nor mouth. What a curious fish! what a comical fish! But more
+comical far, those creatures above, on its hollow back, clinging
+thereto like the snaky eels, that cling and slide on the back of the
+Sword fish, our terrible foe. But what curious eels these are! Do they
+deem themselves pretty as we? No, no; for sure, they behold our limber
+fins, our speckled and beautiful scales. Poor, powerless things! How
+they must wish they were we, that roam the flood, and scour the seas
+with a wish. Swim away; merry fins, swim away! Let him drop, that
+fellow that halts; make a lane; close in, and fill up. Let him drown,
+if he can not keep pace. No laggards for us:—
+
+We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,
+We care not for friend nor for foe:
+    Our fins are stout,
+    Our tails are out,
+As through the seas we go.
+
+Fish, Fish, we are fish with red gills;
+    Naught disturbs us, our blood is at zero:
+We are buoyant because of our bags,
+    Being many, each fish is a hero.
+We care not what is it, this life
+    That we follow, this phantom unknown:
+To swim, it’s exceedingly pleasant,—
+    So swim away, making a foam.
+This strange looking thing by our side,
+    Not for safety, around it we flee:—
+Its shadow’s so shady, that’s all,—
+    We only swim under its lee.
+And as for the eels there above,
+    And as for the fowls in the air,
+We care not for them nor their ways,
+    As we cheerily glide afar!
+
+We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,
+We care not for friend nor for foe:
+    Our fins are stout,
+    Our tails are out,
+As through the seas we go.
+
+
+But how now, my fine fish! what alarms your long ranks, and tosses them
+all into a hubbub of scales and of foam? Never mind that long knave
+with the spear there, astern. Pipe away, merry fish, and give us a
+stave or two more, keeping time with your doggerel tails. But no, no!
+their singing was over. Grim death, in the shape of a Chevalier, was
+after them.
+
+How they changed their boastful tune! How they hugged the vilified
+boat! How they wished they were in it, the braggarts! And how they all
+tingled with fear!
+
+For, now here, now there, is heard a terrific rushing sound under
+water, betokening the onslaught of the dread fish of prey, that with
+spear ever in rest, charges in upon the out-skirts of the shoal,
+transfixing the fish on his weapon. Re-treating and shaking them off,
+the Chevalier devours them; then returns to the charge.
+
+Hugging the boat to desperation, the poor fish fairly crowded
+themselves up to the surface, and floundered upon each other, as men
+are lifted off their feet in a mob. They clung to us thus, out of a
+fancied security in our presence. Knowing this, we felt no little alarm
+for ourselves, dreading lest the Chevalier might despise our boat, full
+as much as his prey; and in pursuing the fish, run through the poor
+Chamois with a lunge. A jacket, rolled up, was kept in readiness to be
+thrust into the first opening made; while as the thousand fins audibly
+patted against our slender planks, we felt nervously enough; as if
+treading upon thin, crackling ice.
+
+At length, to our no small delight, the enemy swam away; and again by
+our side merrily paddled our escort; ten times merrier than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+Yillah
+
+
+While for a few days, now this way, now that, as our craft glides
+along, surrounded by these locusts of the deep, let the story of Yillah
+flow on.
+
+Of her beauty say I nothing. It was that of a crystal lake in a
+fathomless wood: all light and shade; full of fleeting revealings; now
+shadowed in depths; now sunny in dimples; but all sparkling and
+shifting, and blending together.
+
+But her wild beauty was a vail to things still more strange. As often
+she gazed so earnestly into my eyes, like some pure spirit looking far
+down into my soul, and seeing therein some upturned faces, I started in
+amaze, and asked what spell was on me, that thus she gazed.
+
+Often she entreated me to repeat over and over again certain syllables
+of my language. These she would chant to herself, pausing now and then,
+as if striving to discover wherein lay their charm.
+
+In her accent, there was something very different from that of the
+people of the canoe. Wherein lay the difference. I knew not; but it
+enabled her to pronounce with readiness all the words which I taught
+her; even as if recalling sounds long forgotten.
+
+If all this filled me with wonder, how much was that wonder increased,
+and yet baffled again, by considering her complexion, and the cast of
+her features.
+
+After endeavoring in various ways to account for these things, I was
+led to imagine, that the damsel must be an Albino (Tulla) occasionally
+to be met with among the people of the Pacific. These persons are of an
+exceedingly delicate white skin, tinted with a faint rose hue, like the
+lips of a shell. Their hair is golden. But, unlike the Albinos of other
+climes, their eyes are invariably blue, and no way intolerant of light.
+
+As a race, the Tullas die early. And hence the belief, that they
+pertain to some distant sphere, and only through irregularities in the
+providence of the gods, come to make their appearance upon earth:
+whence, the oversight discovered, they are hastily snatched. And it is
+chiefly on this account, that in those islands where human sacrifices
+are offered, the Tullas are deemed the most suitable oblations for the
+altar, to which from their birth many are prospectively devoted. It was
+these considerations, united to others, which at times induced me to
+fancy, that by the priest, Yillah was regarded as one of these beings.
+So mystical, however, her revelations concerning her past history, that
+often I knew not what to divine. But plainly they showed that she had
+not the remotest conception of her real origin.
+
+But these conceits of a state of being anterior to an earthly existence
+may have originated in one of those celestial visions seen
+transparently stealing over the face of a slumbering child. And
+craftily drawn forth and re-echoed by another, and at times repeated
+over to her with many additions, these imaginings must at length have
+assumed in her mind a hue of reality, heightened into conviction by the
+dreamy seclusion of her life.
+
+But now, let her subsequent and more credible history be related, as
+from time to time she rehearsed it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+Yillah In Ardair
+
+
+In the verdant glen of Ardair, far in the silent interior of Amma, shut
+in by hoar old cliffs, Yillah the maiden abode.
+
+So small and so deep was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by steep
+acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive the
+shadows that played there; that, from above, it seemed more like a lake
+of cool, balmy air, than a glen: its woodlands and grasses gleaming
+shadowy all, like sea groves and mosses beneath the calm sea.
+
+Here, none came but Aleema the priest, who at times was absent for days
+together. But at certain seasons, an unseen multitude with loud chants
+stood upon the verge of the neighboring precipices, and traversing
+those shaded wilds, slowly retreated; their voices lessening and
+lessening, as they wended their way through the more distant groves.
+
+At other times, Yillah being immured in the temple of Apo, a band of
+men entering the vale, surrounded her retreat, dancing there till
+evening came. Meanwhile, heaps of fruit, garlands of flowers, and
+baskets of fish, were laid upon an altar without, where stood Aleema,
+arrayed in white tappa, and muttering to himself, as the offerings were
+laid at his feet.
+
+When Aleema was gone, Yillah went forth into the glen, and wandered
+among the trees, and reposed by the banks of the stream. And ever as
+she strolled, looked down upon her the grim old cliffs, bearded with
+trailing moss.
+
+Toward the lower end of the vale, its lofty walls advancing and
+overhanging their base, almost met in mid air. And a great rock, hurled
+from an adjacent height, and falling into the space intercepted, there
+remained fixed. Aerial trees shot up from its surface; birds nested in
+its clefts; and strange vines roved abroad, overrunning the tops of the
+trees, lying thereon in coils and undulations, like anacondas basking
+in the light. Beneath this rock, was a lofty wall of ponderous stones.
+Between its crevices, peeps were had of a long and leafy arcade,
+quivering far away to where the sea rolled in the sun. Lower down,
+these crevices gave an outlet to the waters of the brook, which, in a
+long cascade, poured over sloping green ledges near the foot of the
+wall, into a deep shady pool; whose rocky sides, by the perpetual
+eddying of the water, had been worn into a grotesque resemblance to a
+group of giants, with heads submerged, indolently reclining about the
+basin.
+
+In this pool, Yillah would bathe. And once, emerging, she heard the
+echoes of a voice, and called aloud. But the only reply, was the
+rustling of branches, as some one, invisible, fled down the valley
+beyond. Soon after, a stone rolled inward, and Aleema the priest stood
+before her; saying that the voice she had heard was his. But it was
+not.
+
+At last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined
+for companionship. When the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves of
+the mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as
+tears in the eye, Yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in her
+soul to awaken. She sang low airs, she thought she had heard in
+Oroolia; but started affrighted, as from dingles and dells, came back
+to her strains more wild than hers. And ever, when sad, Aleema would
+seek to cheer her soul, by calling to mind the bright scenes of Oroolia
+the Blest, to which place, he averred, she was shortly to return, never
+more to depart.
+
+Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak,
+presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose shadow,
+every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain: a silent
+phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen.
+
+At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth,
+and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her
+arms in a caress; saying, “Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?” And at
+last, when it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the
+whole valley in gloom; Aleema would say, “Arise Yillah; Apo hath
+stretched himself to sleep in Ardair. Go, slumber where thou wilt; for
+thou wilt slumber in his arms.”
+
+And so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim Apo.
+
+One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something that
+every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully still; she
+went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from the peak. Of
+a sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that made it to look
+as if parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and thought it was Apo
+calling “Yillah! Yillah!” But now it seemed like the voice she had
+heard while bathing in the pool. Glancing upward, she beheld a
+beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down upon her from an inaccessible
+crag. But presently, there was a rustling in the groves behind, and
+swift as thought, something darted through the air. The youth bounded
+forward. Yillah opened her arms to receive him; but he fell upon the
+cliff, and was seen no more. As alarmed, and in tears, she fled from
+the scene, some one out of sight ran before her through the wood.
+
+Upon recounting this adventure to Aleema, he said, that the being she
+had seen, must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that Apo
+had slain him.
+
+The sight of this youth, filled Yillah with wild yearnings to escape
+from her lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest
+and the phantom, suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings, in
+regions beyond Ardair. But Aleema sought to put away these conceits;
+saying, that ere long she would be journeying to Oroolia, there to
+rejoin the spirits she dimly remembered.
+
+Soon after, he came to her with a shell—one of those ever moaning of
+ocean—and placing it to her ear, bade her list to the being within,
+which in that little shell had voyaged from Oroolia to bear her company
+in Amma.
+
+Now, the maiden oft held it to her ear, and closing her eyes, listened
+and listened to its soft inner breathings, till visions were born of
+the sound, and her soul lay for hours in a trance of delight.
+
+And again the priest came, and brought her a milk-white bird, with a
+bill jet-black, and eyes like stars. “In this, lurks the soul of a
+maiden; it hath flown from Oroolia to greet you.” The soft stranger
+willingly nestled in her bosom; turning its bright eyes upon hers, and
+softly warbling.
+
+Many days passed; and Yillah, the bird, and the shell were inseparable.
+The bird grew familiar; pecked seeds from her mouth; perched upon her
+shoulder, and sang in her ear; and at night, folded its wings in her
+bosom, and, like a sea-fowl, went softly to sleep: rising and falling
+upon the maiden’s heart. And every morning it flew from its nest, and
+fluttered and chirped; and sailed to and fro; and blithely sang; and
+brushed Yillah’s cheek till she woke. Then came to her hand: and
+Yillah, looking earnestly in its eyes, saw strange faces there; and
+said to herself as she gazed—“These are two souls, not one.”
+
+But at last, going forth into the groves with the bird, it suddenly
+flew from her side, and perched in a bough; and throwing back its white
+downy throat, there gushed from its bill a clear warbling jet, like a
+little fountain in air. Now the song ceased; when up and away toward
+the head of the vale, flew the bird. “Lil! Lil! come back, leave me
+not, blest souls of the maidens.” But on flew the bird, far up a
+defile, winging its way till a speck.
+
+It was shortly after this, and upon the evening of a day which had been
+tumultuous with sounds of warfare beyond the lower wall of the glen;
+that Aleema came to Yillah in alarm; saying—“Yillah, the time has come
+to follow thy bird; come, return to thy home in Oroolia.” And he told
+her the way she would voyage there: by the vortex on the coast of
+Tedaidee. That night, being veiled and placed in the tent, the maiden
+was borne to the sea-side, where the canoe was in waiting. And setting
+sail quickly, by next morning the island of Amma was no longer in
+sight.
+
+And this was the voyage, whose sequel has already been recounted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+The Dream Begins To Fade
+
+
+Stripped of the strange associations, with which a mind like Yillah’s
+must have invested every incident of her life, the story of her abode
+in Ardair seemed not incredible.
+
+But so etherealized had she become from the wild conceits she
+nourished, that she verily believed herself a being of the lands of
+dreams. Her fabulous past was her present.
+
+Yet as our intimacy grew closer and closer, these fancies seemed to be
+losing their hold. And often she questioned me concerning my own
+reminiscences of her shadowy isle. And cautiously I sought to produce
+the impression, that whatever I had said of that clime, had been
+revealed to me in dreams; but that in these dreams, her own lineaments
+had smiled upon me; and hence the impulse which had sent me roving
+after the substance of this spiritual image.
+
+And true it was to say so; and right it was to swear it, upon her white
+arms crossed. For oh, Yillah; were you not the earthly semblance of
+that sweet vision, that haunted my earliest thoughts?
+
+At first she had wildly believed, that the nameless affinities between
+us, were owing to our having in times gone by dwelt together in the
+same ethereal region. But thoughts like these were fast dying out. Yet
+not without many strange scrutinies. More intently than ever she gazed
+into my eyes; rested her ear against my heart, and listened to its
+beatings. And love, which in the eye of its object ever seeks to invest
+itself with some rare superiority, love, sometimes induced me to prop
+my failing divinity; though it was I myself who had undermined it.
+
+But if it was with many regrets, that in the sight of Yillah, I
+perceived myself thus dwarfing down to a mortal; it was with quite
+contrary emotions, that I contemplated the extinguishment in her heart
+of the notion of her own spirituality. For as such thoughts were chased
+away, she clung the more closely to me, as unto one without whom she
+would be desolate indeed.
+
+And now, at intervals, she was sad, and often gazed long and fixedly
+into the sea. Nor would she say why it was, that she did so; until at
+length she yielded; and replied, that whatever false things Aleema
+might have instilled into her mind; of this much she was certain: that
+the whirlpool on the coast of Tedaidee prefigured her fate; that in the
+waters she saw lustrous eyes, and beckoning phantoms, and strange
+shapes smoothing her a couch among the mosses.
+
+Her dreams seemed mine. Many visions I had of the green corse of the
+priest, outstretching its arms in the water, to receive pale Yillah, as
+she sunk in the sea.
+
+But these forebodings departed, no happiness in the universe like ours.
+We lived and we loved; life and love were united; in gladness glided
+our days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+World Ho!
+
+
+Five suns rose and set. And Yillah pining for the shore, we turned our
+prow due west, and next morning came in sight of land.
+
+It was innumerable islands; lifting themselves bluely through the azure
+air, and looking upon the distant sea, like haycocks in a hazy field.
+Towering above all, and mid-most, rose a mighty peak; one fleecy cloud
+sloping against its summit; a column wreathed. Beyond, like purple
+steeps in heaven at set of sun, stretched far away, what seemed lands
+on lands, in infinite perspective.
+
+Gliding on, the islands grew more distinct; rising up from the billows
+to greet us; revealing hills, vales, and peaks, grouped within a
+milk-white zone of reef, so vast, that in the distance all was dim. The
+jeweled vapors, ere-while hovering over these violet shores, now seemed
+to be shedding their gems; and as the almost level rays of the sun,
+shooting through the air like a variegated prism, touched the verdant
+land, it trembled all over with dewy sparkles.
+
+Still nearer we came: our sail faintly distended as the breeze died
+away from our vicinity to the isles. The billows rolled listlessly by,
+as if conscious that their long task was nigh done; while gleamed the
+white reef, like the trail of a great fish in a calm. But as yet, no
+sign of paddle or canoe; no distant smoke; no shining thatch. Bravo!
+good comrades, we’ve discovered some new constellation in the sea.
+
+Sweet Yillah, no more of Oroolia; see you not this flowery land?
+Nevermore shall we desire to roam.
+
+Voyaging along the zone, we came to an opening; and quitting the
+firmament blue of the open sea, we glided in upon the still, green
+waters of the wide lagoon. Mapped out in the broad shadows of the
+isles, and tinted here and there with the reflected hues of the sun
+clouds, the mild waters stretched all around us like another sky. Near
+by the break in the reef, was a little island, with palm trees harping
+in the breeze; an aviary of alluring sounds, that seemed calling upon
+us to land. And here, Yillah, whom the sight of the verdure had made
+glad, threw out a merry suggestion. Nothing less, than to plant our
+mast, sail-set, upon the highest hill; and fly away, island and all;
+trees rocking, birds caroling, flowers springing; away, away, across
+the wide waters, to Oroolia! But alas! how weigh the isle’s coral
+anchor, leagues down in the fathomless sea?
+
+We glanced around; but all the islands seemed slumbering in the
+flooding light.
+
+“A canoe! a canoe!” cried Samoa, as three proas showed themselves
+rounding a neighboring shore. Instantly we sailed for them; but after
+shooting to and fro for a time, and standing up and gazing at us, the
+Islanders retreated behind the headland. Hardly were they out of sight,
+when from many a shore roundabout, other proas pushed off. Soon the
+water all round us was enlivened by fleets of canoes, darting hither
+and thither like frighted water-fowls. Presently they all made for one
+island.
+
+From their actions we argued that these people could have had but
+little or no intercourse with whites; and most probably knew not how to
+account for our appearance among them. Desirous, therefore, of a
+friendly meeting, ere any hostile suspicions might arise, we pointed
+our craft for the island, whither all the canoes were now hastening.
+Whereupon, those which had not yet reached their destination, turned
+and fled; while the occupants of the proas that had landed, ran into
+the groves, and were lost to view.
+
+Crossing the distinct outer line of the isle’s shadow on the water, we
+gained the shore; and gliding along its margin, passing canoe after
+canoe, hauled up on the silent beach, which otherwise seemed entirely
+innocent of man.
+
+A dilemma. But I decided at last upon disembarking Jarl and Samoa, to
+seek out and conciliate the natives. So, landing them upon a jutting
+buttress of coral, whence they waded to the shore; I pushed off with
+Yillah into the water beyond, to await the event.
+
+Full an hour must have elapsed; when, to our great joy, loud shouts
+were heard; and there burst into view a tumultuous crowd, in the midst
+of which my Viking was descried, mounted upon the shoulders of two
+brawny natives; while the Upoluan, striding on in advance, seemed
+resisting a similar attempt to elevate him in the world.
+
+Good omens both.
+
+“Come ashore!” cried Jarl. “Aramai!” cried Samoa; while storms of
+interjections went up from the Islanders who with extravagant gestures
+danced about the beach.
+
+Further caution seemed needless: I pointed our prow for the shore. No
+sooner was this perceived, than, raising an applauding shout, the
+Islanders ran up to their waists in the sea. And skimming like a gull
+over the smooth lagoon, the light shallop darted in among them. Quick
+as thought, fifty hands were on the gunwale: and, with all its
+contents, lifted bodily into the air, the little Chamois, upon many a
+dripping shoulder, was borne deep into the groves. Yillah shrieked at
+the rocking motion, and when the boughs of the trees brushed against
+the tent.
+
+With his staff, an old man now pointed to a couple of twin-like trees,
+some four paces apart; and a little way from the ground conveniently
+crotched.
+
+And here, eftsoons, they deposited their burden; lowering the Chamois
+gently between the forks of the trees, whose willow-like foliage
+fringed the tent and its inmate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+The Chamois Ashore
+
+
+Until now, enveloped in her robe, and crouching like a fawn, Yillah had
+been well nigh hidden from view. But presently she withdrew her hood.
+
+What saw the Islanders, that they so gazed and adored in silence: some
+retreating, some creeping nearer, and the women all in a flutter? Long
+they gazed; and following Samoa’s example, stretched forth their arms
+in reverence.
+
+The adoration of the maiden was extended to myself. Indeed, from the
+singular gestures employed, I had all along suspected, that we were
+being received with unwonted honors.
+
+I now sought to get speech of my comrades. But so obstreperous was the
+crowd, that it was next to impossible. Jarl was still in his perch in
+the air; his enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to alight.
+Samoa, however, who had managed to keep out of the saddle, by-and-by
+contrived to draw nearer to the Chamois.
+
+He advised me, by no means to descend for the present; since in any
+event we were sure of remaining unmolested therein; the Islanders
+regarding it as sacred.
+
+The Upoluan attracted a great deal of attention; chiefly from his style
+of tattooing, which, together with other peculiarities, so interested
+the natives, that they were perpetually hanging about him, putting
+eager questions, and all the time keeping up a violent clamor.
+
+But despite the large demand upon his lungs, Samoa made out to inform
+me, that notwithstanding the multitude assembled, there was no high
+chief, or person of consequence present; the king of the place, also
+those of the islands adjacent, being absent at a festival in another
+quarter of the Archipelago. But upon the first distant glimpse of the
+Chamois, fleet canoes had been dispatched to announce the surprising
+event that had happened.
+
+In good time, the crowd becoming less tumultuous, and abandoning the
+siege of Samoa, I availed myself of this welcome lull, and called upon
+him and my Viking to enter the Chamois; desirous of condensing our
+forces against all emergencies.
+
+Samoa now gave me to understand, that from all he could learn, the
+Islanders regarded me as a superior being. They had inquired of him,
+whether I was not white Taji, a sort of half-and-half deity, now and
+then an Avatar among them, and ranking among their inferior ex- officio
+demi-gods. To this, Samoa had said ay; adding, moreover, all he could
+to encourage the idea.
+
+He now entreated me, at the first opportunity, to announce myself as
+Taji: declaring that if once received under that title, the unbounded
+hospitality of our final reception would be certain; and our persons
+fenced about from all harm.
+
+Encouraging this. But it was best to be wary. For although among some
+barbarians the first strangers landing upon their shores, are
+frequently hailed as divine; and in more than one wild land have been
+actually styled gods, as a familiar designation; yet this has not
+exempted the celestial visitants from peril, when too much presuming
+upon the reception extended to them. In sudden tumults they have been
+slain outright, and while full faith in their divinity had in no wise
+abated. The sad fate of an eminent navigator is a well-known
+illustration of this unaccountable waywardness.
+
+With no small anxiety, therefore, we awaited the approach of some of
+the dignitaries of Mardi; for by this collective appellation, the
+people informed us, their islands were known.
+
+We waited not long. Of a sudden, from the sea-side, a single shrill cry
+was heard. A moment more, and the blast of numerous conch shells
+startled the air; a confused clamor drew nearer and nearer; and flying
+our eyes in the direction of these sounds, we impatiently awaited what
+was to follow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+A Gentleman From The Sun
+
+
+Never before had I seen the deep foliage of woodlands navigated by
+canoes. But on they came sailing through the leaves; two abreast; borne
+on men’s shoulders; in each a chief, carried along to the measured
+march of his bearers; paddle blades reversed under arms. As they
+emerged, the multitude made gestures of homage. At the distance of some
+eight or ten paces the procession halted; when the kings alighted to
+the ground.
+
+They were fine-looking men, arrayed in various garbs. Rare the show of
+stained feathers, and jewels, and other adornments. Brave the floating
+of dyed mantles.
+
+The regal bearing of these personages, the deference paid them, and
+their entire self-possession, not a little surprised me. And it seemed
+preposterous, to assume a divine dignity in the presence of these
+undoubted potentates of _terra firma_. Taji seemed oozing from my
+fingers’ ends. But courage! and erecting my crest, I strove to look
+every inch the character I had determined to assume.
+
+For a time, it was almost impossible to tell with what emotions
+precisely the chiefs were regarding me. They said not a word.
+
+But plucking up heart of grace, I crossed my cutlass on my chest, and
+reposing my hand on the hilt, addressed their High Mightinesses thus.
+“Men of Mardi, I come from the sun. When this morning it rose and
+touched the wave, I pushed my shallop from its golden beach, and hither
+sailed before its level rays. I am Taji.”
+
+More would have been added, but I paused for the effect of my exordium.
+
+Stepping back a pace or two, the chiefs eagerly conversed.
+
+Emboldened, I returned to the charge, and labored hard to impress them
+with just such impressions of me and mine, as I deemed desirable. The
+gentle Yillah was a seraph from the sun; Samoa I had picked off a reef
+in my route from that orb; and as for the Skyeman, why, as his name
+imported, he came from above. In a word, we were all strolling
+divinities.
+
+Advancing toward the Chamois, one of the kings, a calm old man, now
+addressed me as follows:—“Is this indeed Taji? he, who according to a
+tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? But that
+period is yet unexpired. What bring’st thou hither then, Taji, before
+thy time? Thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when
+thou dwelt among our sires. But wherefore comest thou, Taji? Truly,
+thou wilt interfere with the worship of thy images, and we have plenty
+of gods besides thee. But comest thou to fight?—We have plenty of
+spears, and desire not thine. Comest thou to dwell?—Small are the
+houses of Mardi. Or comest thou to fish in the sea? Tell us, Taji.”
+
+Now, all this was a series of posers hard to be answered; furnishing a
+curious example, moreover, of the reception given to strange demi- gods
+when they travel without their portmanteaus; and also of the familiar
+manner in which these kings address the immortals. Much I mourned that
+I had not previously studied better my part, and learned the precise
+nature of my previous existence in the land.
+
+But nothing like carrying it bravely.
+
+“Attend. Taji comes, old man, because it pleases him to come. And Taji
+will depart when it suits him. Ask the shades of your sires whether
+Taji thus scurvily greeted them, when they came stalking into his
+presence in the land of spirits. No. Taji spread the banquet. He
+removed their mantles. He kindled a fire to drive away the damp. He
+said not, ‘Come you to fight, you fogs and vapors? come you to dwell?
+or come you to fish in the sea?’ Go to, then, kings of Mardi!”
+
+Upon this, the old king fell back; and his place was supplied by a
+noble chief, of a free, frank bearing. Advancing quickly toward the
+boat, he exclaimed—“I am Media, the son of Media. Thrice welcome, Taji.
+On my island of Odo hast thou an altar. I claim thee for my guest.” He
+then reminded the rest, that the strangers had voyaged far, and needed
+repose. And, furthermore, that he proposed escorting them forthwith to
+his own dominions; where, next day, he would be happy to welcome all
+visitants.
+
+And good as his word, he commanded his followers to range themselves
+under the Chamois. Springing out of our prow, the Upoluan was followed
+by Jarl; leaving Yillah and Taji to be borne therein toward the sea.
+
+Soon, we were once more afloat; by our side, Media sociably seated; six
+of his paddlers, perched upon the gunwale, swiftly urging us over the
+lagoon.
+
+The transition from the grove to the sea was instantaneous. All seemed
+a dream.
+
+The place to which we were hastening, being some distance away, as we
+rounded isle after isle, the extent of the Archipelago grew upon us
+greatly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+Tiffin In A Temple
+
+
+Upon at last drawing nigh to Odo, its appearance somewhat disappointed
+me. A small island, of moderate elevation.
+
+But plumb not the height of the house that feasts you. The beach was
+lined with expectant natives, who, lifting the Chamois, carried us up
+the beach.
+
+Alighting, as they were bearing us along, King Media, designating a
+canoe-house hard by, ordered our craft to be deposited therein. This
+being done, we stepped upon the soil. It was the first we had pressed
+in very many days. It sent a sympathetic thrill through our frames.
+
+Turning his steps inland, Media signed us to follow.
+
+Soon we came to a rude sort of inclosure, fenced in by an imposing
+wall. Here a halt was sounded, and in great haste the natives proceeded
+to throw down a portion of the stones. This accomplished, we were
+signed to enter the fortress thus carried by storm. Upon an artificial
+mound, opposite the breach, stood a small structure of bamboo, open in
+front. Within, was a long pedestal, like a settee, supporting three
+images, also of wood, and about the size of men; bearing, likewise, a
+remote resemblance to that species of animated nature. Before these
+idols was an altar, and at its base many fine mats.
+
+Entering the temple, as if he felt very much at home, Media disposed
+these mats so as to form a very pleasant lounge; where he deferentially
+entreated Yillah to recline. Then deliberately removing the first idol,
+he motioned me to seat myself in its place. Setting aside the middle
+one, he quietly established himself in its stead. The displaced
+ciphers, meanwhile, standing upright before us, and their blank faces
+looking upon this occasion unusually expressive. As yet, not a syllable
+as to the meaning of this cavalier treatment of their wooden godships.
+
+We now tranquilly awaited what next might happen, and I earnestly
+prayed, that if sacrilege was being committed, the vengeance of the
+gods might be averted from an ignoramus like me; notwithstanding the
+petitioner himself hailed from the other world. Perfect silence was
+preserved: Jarl and Samoa standing a little without the temple; the
+first looking quite composed, but his comrade casting wondering glances
+at my sociable apotheosis with Media.
+
+Now happening to glance upon the image last removed, I was not long in
+detecting a certain resemblance between it and our host. Both were
+decorated in the same manner; the carving on the idol exactly
+corresponding with the tattooing of the king.
+
+Presently, the silence was relieved by a commotion without: and a
+butler approached, staggering under an immense wooden trencher; which,
+with profound genuflexions, he deposited upon the altar before us. The
+tray was loaded like any harvest wain; heaped up with good things
+sundry and divers: Bread-fruit, and cocoanuts, and plantains, and
+guavas; all pleasant to the eye, and furnishing good earnest of
+something equally pleasant to the palate.
+
+Transported at the sight of these viands, after so long an estrangement
+from full indulgence in things green, I was forthwith proceeding to
+help Yillah and myself, when, like lightning, a most unwelcome query
+obtruded. Did deities dine? Then also recurred what Media had declared
+about my shrine in Odo. Was this it? Self- sacrilegious demigod that I
+was, was I going to gluttonize on the very offerings, laid before me in
+my own sacred fane? Give heed to thy ways, oh Taji, lest thou stumble
+and be lost.
+
+But hereupon, what saw we, but his cool majesty of Odo tranquilly
+proceeding to lunch in the temple?
+
+How now? Was Media too a god? Egad, it must be so. Else, why his image
+here in the fane, and the original so entirely at his ease, with legs
+full cosily tucked away under the very altar itself. This put to flight
+all appalling apprehensions of the necessity of starving to keep up the
+assumption of my divinity. So without more ado I helped myself right
+and left; taking the best care of Yillah; who over fed her flushed
+beauty with juicy fruits, thereby transferring to her cheek the sweet
+glow of the guava.
+
+Our hunger appeased, and Media in token thereof celestially laying his
+hand upon the appropriate region, we proceeded to quit the inclosure.
+But coming to the wall where the breach had been made, lo, and behold,
+no breach was to be seen. But down it came tumbling again, and forth we
+issued.
+
+This overthrowing of walls, be it known, is an incidental compliment
+paid distinguished personages in this part of Mardi. It would seem to
+signify, that such gentry can go nowhere without creating an
+impression; even upon the most obdurate substances.
+
+But to return to our ambrosial lunch.
+
+Sublimate, as you will, the idea of our ethereality as intellectual
+beings; no sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast
+deal of satisfaction in dining. More: there is a savor of life and
+immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till
+filled.
+
+And well knowing this, nature has provided this jolly round board, our
+globe, which in an endless sequence of courses and crops, spreads a
+perpetual feast. Though, as with most public banquets, there is no
+small crowding, and many go away famished from plenty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+King Media A Host
+
+
+Striking into a grove, about sunset we emerged upon a fine, clear
+space, and spied a city in the woods.
+
+In the middle of all, like a generalissimo’s marquee among tents, was a
+structure more imposing than the rest. Here, abode King Media.
+
+Disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were many palm posts
+staked firmly in the earth. A man’s height from the ground, these
+supported numerous horizontal trunks, upon which lay a flooring of
+habiscus. High over this dais, but resting upon independent supports
+beyond, a gable-ended roof sloped away to within a short distance of
+the ground.
+
+Such was the palace.
+
+We entered it by an arched, arbored entrance, at one of its
+palmetto-thatched ends. But not through this exclusive portal entered
+the Islanders. Humbly stooping, they found ingress under the drooping
+eaves. A custom immemorial, and well calculated to remind all
+contumacious subjects of the dignity of the habitation thus entered.
+
+Three steps led to the summit of the dais, where piles of soft mats,
+and light pillows of woven grass, stuffed with the golden down of a
+wild thistle, invited all loiterers to lounge.
+
+How pleasant the twilight that welled up from under the low eaves,
+above which we were seated. And how obvious now the design of the roof.
+No shade more grateful and complete; the garish sun lingering without
+like some lackey in waiting.
+
+But who is this in the corner, gaping at us like a butler in a
+quandary? Media’s household deity, in the guise of a plethoric monster,
+his enormous head lolling back, and wide, gaping mouth stuffed full of
+fresh fruits and green leaves. Truly, had the idol possessed a soul
+under his knotty ribs, how tantalizing to hold so glorious a mouthful
+without the power of deglutition. Far worse than the inexorable
+lock-jaw, which will not admit of the step preliminary to a swallow.
+
+This jolly Josh image was that of an inferior deity, the god of Good
+Cheer, and often after, we met with his merry round mouth in many other
+abodes in Mardi. Daily, his jaws are replenished, as a flower vase in
+summer.
+
+But did the demi-divine Media thus brook the perpetual presence of a
+subaltern divinity? Still more; did he render it homage? But ere long
+the Mardian mythology will be discussed, thereby making plain what may
+now seem anomalous.
+
+Politely escorting us into his palace, Media did the honors by inviting
+his guests to recline. He then seemed very anxious to impress us with
+the fact, that, by bringing us to his home, and thereby charging the
+royal larder with our maintenance, he had taken no hasty or imprudent
+step. His merry butlers kept piling round us viands, till we were well
+nigh walled in. At every fresh deposit, Media directing our attention
+to the same, as yet additional evidence of his ample resources as a
+host. The evidence was finally closed by dragging under the eaves a
+felled plantain tree, the spike of red ripe fruit, sprouting therefrom,
+blushing all over, at so rude an introduction to the notice of
+strangers.
+
+During this scene, Jarl was privily nudging Samoa, in wonderment, to
+know what upon earth it all meant. But Samoa, scarcely deigning to
+notice interrogatories propounded through the elbow, only let drop a
+vague hint or two.
+
+It was quite amusing, what airs Samoa now gave himself, at least toward
+my Viking. Among the Mardians he was at home. And who, when there,
+stretches not out his legs, and says unto himself, “Who is greater than
+I?”
+
+To be plain: concerning himself and the Skyeman, the tables were
+turned. At sea, Jarl had been the oracle: an old sea-sage, learned in
+hemp and helm. But our craft high and dry, the Upoluan lifted his crest
+as the erudite pagan; master of Gog and Magog, expounder of all things
+heathenish and obscure.
+
+An hour or two was now laughed away in very charming conversation with
+Media; when I hinted, that a couch and solitude would be acceptable.
+Whereupon, seizing a taper, our host escorted us without the palace.
+And ushering us into a handsome unoccupied mansion, gave me to
+understand that the same was mine. Mounting to the dais, he then
+instituted a vigorous investigation, to discern whether every thing was
+in order. Not fancying something about the mats, he rolled them up into
+bundles, and one by one sent them flying at the heads of his servitors;
+who, upon that gentle hint made off with them, soon after returning
+with fresh ones. These, with mathematical precision, Media in person
+now spread on the dais; looking carefully to the fringes or ruffles
+with which they were bordered, as if striving to impart to them a
+sentimental expression.
+
+This done, he withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+Taji Takes Counsel With Himself
+
+
+My brief intercourse with our host, had by this time enabled me to form
+a pretty good notion of the light, in which I was held by him and his
+more intelligent subjects.
+
+His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my
+assumptions, he was no way overawed by them; treating me as familiarly,
+indeed, as if I were a mere mortal, one of the abject generation of
+mushrooms.
+
+The scene in the temple, however, had done much toward explaining this
+demeanor of his. A demi-god in his own proper person, my claims to a
+similar dignity neither struck him with wonder, nor lessened his good
+opinion of himself.
+
+As for any thing foreign in my aspect, and my ignorance of Mardian
+customs—-all this, instead of begetting a doubt unfavorable to my
+pretensions, but strengthened the conviction of them as verities. Thus
+has it been in similar instances; but to a much greater extent. The
+celebrated navigator referred to in a preceding chapter, was hailed by
+the Hawaiians as one of their demi-gods, returned to earth, after a
+wide tour of the universe. And they worshiped him as such, though
+incessantly he was interrogating them, as to who under the sun his
+worshipers were; how their ancestors came on the island; and whether
+they would have the kindness to provide his followers with plenty of
+pork during his stay.
+
+But a word or two concerning the idols in the shrine at Odo. Superadded
+to the homage rendered him as a temporal prince, Media was there
+worshiped as a spiritual being. In his corporeal absence, his effigy
+receiving all oblations intended for him. And in the days of his
+boyhood, listening to the old legends of the Mardian mythology, Media
+had conceived a strong liking for the fabulous Taji; a deity whom he
+had often declared was worthy a niche in any temple extant. Hence he
+had honored my image with a place in his own special shrine; placing it
+side by side with his worshipful likeness.
+
+I appreciated the compliment. But of the close companionship of the
+other image there, I was heartily ashamed. And with reason. The
+nuisance in question being the image of a deified maker of plantain-
+pudding, lately deceased; who had been famed far and wide as the most
+notable fellow of his profession in the whole Archipelago. During his
+sublunary career, having been attached to the household of Media, his
+grateful master had afterward seen fit to crown his celebrity by this
+posthumous distinction: a circumstance sadly subtracting from the
+dignity of an apotheosis. Nor must it here be omitted, that in this
+part of Mardi culinary artists are accounted worthy of high
+consideration. For among these people of Odo, the matter of eating and
+drinking is held a matter of life and of death. “Drag away my queen
+from my arms,” said old Tyty when overcome of Adommo, “but leave me my
+cook.”
+
+Now, among the Mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to keep
+me in countenance. Most of the kings of the Archipelago, besides Media,
+claiming homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of hereditary
+descent, the divine spark being transmissable from father to son. In
+illustration of this, was the fact, that in several instances the
+people of the land addressed the supreme god Oro, in the very same
+terms employed in the political adoration of their sublunary rulers.
+
+Ay: there were deities in Mardi far greater and taller than I: right
+royal monarchs to boot, living in jolly round tabernacles of jolly
+brown clay; and feasting, and roystering, and lording it in yellow
+tabernacles of bamboo. These demi-gods had wherewithal to sustain their
+lofty pretensions. If need were, could crush out of him the infidelity
+of a non-conformist. And by this immaculate union of church and state,
+god and king, in their own proper persons reigned supreme Caesars over
+the souls and bodies of their subjects.
+
+Beside these mighty magnates, I and my divinity shrank into nothing. In
+their woodland ante-chambers plebeian deities were kept lingering. For
+be it known, that in due time we met with several decayed, broken down
+demi-gods: magnificos of no mark in Mardi; having no temples wherein to
+feast personal admirers, or spiritual devotees. They wandered about
+forlorn and friendless. And oftentimes in their dinnerless despair
+hugely gluttonized, and would fain have grown fat, by reflecting upon
+the magnificence of their genealogies. But poor fellows! like shabby
+Scotch lords in London in King James’s time, the very multitude of them
+confounded distinction. And since they could show no rent-roll, they
+were permitted to fume unheeded.
+
+Upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in Mardi,
+that I held my divinity but cheaply. And seeing such a host of
+immortals, and hearing of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their
+nature, haunting woodlands and streams; my views of theology grew
+strangely confused; I began to bethink me of the Jew that rejected the
+Talmud, and his all-permeating principle, to which Goethe and others
+have subscribed.
+
+Instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to palm
+myself off as a god—the way in which the thing first impressed me—I now
+perceived that I might be a god as much as I pleased, and yet not whisk
+a lion’s tail after all at least on that special account.
+
+As for Media’s reception, its graciousness was not wholly owing to the
+divine character imputed to me. His, he believed to be the same. But to
+a whim, a freakishness in his soul, which led him to fancy me as one
+among many, not as one with no peer.
+
+But the apparent unconcern of King Media with respect to my godship, by
+no means so much surprised me, as his unaffected indifference to my
+amazing voyage from the sun; his indifference to the sun itself; and
+all the wonderful circumstances that must have attended my departure.
+Whether he had ever been there himself, that he regarded a solar trip
+with so much unconcern, almost became a question in my mind. Certain it
+is, that as a mere traveler he must have deemed me no very great
+prodigy.
+
+My surprise at these things was enhanced by reflecting, that to the
+people of the Archipelago the map of Mardi was the map of the world.
+With the exception of certain islands out of sight and at an indefinite
+distance, they had no certain knowledge of any isles but their own.
+
+And, no long time elapsed ere I had still additional reasons to cease
+wondering at the easy faith accorded to the story which I had given of
+myself. For these Mardians were familiar with still greater marvels
+than mine; verily believing in prodigies of all sorts. Any one of them
+put my exploits to the blush.
+
+Look to thy ways then, Taji, thought I, and carry not thy crest too
+high. Of a surety, thou hast more peers than inferiors. Thou art
+overtopped all round. Bear thyself discreetly and not haughtily, Taji.
+It will not answer to give thyself airs. Abstain from all consequential
+allusions to the other world, and the genteel deities among whom thou
+hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel
+in Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy Chamois, because it is
+unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree, Taji; for Media himself will
+measure it with thee there by the furlong. Be not a “snob,” Taji.
+
+So then, weighing all things well, and myself severely, I resolved to
+follow my Mentor’s wise counsel; neither arrogating aught, nor abating
+of just dues; but circulating freely, sociably, and frankly, among the
+gods, heroes, high priests, kings, and gentlemen, that made up the
+principalities of Mardi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day
+
+
+During the night following our arrival, many dreams were no doubt
+dreamt in Odo. But my thoughts were wakeful. And while all others
+slept, obeying a restless impulse, I stole without into the magical
+starlight. There are those who in a strange land ever love to view it
+by night.
+
+It has been said, that the opening in the groves where was situated
+Media’s city, was elevated above the surrounding plains. Hence was
+commanded a broad reach of prospect.
+
+Far and wide was deep low-sobbing repose of man and nature. The groves
+were motionless; and in the meadows, like goblins, the shadows advanced
+and retreated. Full before me, lay the Mardian fleet of isles,
+profoundly at anchor within their coral harbor. Near by was one belted
+round by a frothy luminous reef, wherein it lay, like Saturn in its
+ring.
+
+From all their summits, went up a milk-white smoke, as from Indian
+wigwams in the hazy harvest-moon. And floating away, these vapors
+blended with the faint mist, as of a cataract, hovering over the
+circumvallating reef. Far beyond all, and far into the infinite night,
+surged the jet-black ocean.
+
+But how tranquil the wide lagoon, which mirrored the burning spots in
+heaven! Deep down into its innermost heart penetrated the slanting rays
+of Hesperus like a shaft of light, sunk far into mysterious Golcondas,
+where myriad gnomes seemed toiling. Soon a light breeze rippled the
+water, and the shaft was seen no more. But the moon’s bright wake was
+still revealed: a silver track, tipping every wave-crest in its course,
+till each seemed a pearly, scroll-prowed nautilus, buoyant with some
+elfin crew.
+
+From earth to heaven! High above me was Night’s shadowy bower,
+traversed, vine-like, by the Milky Way, and heavy with golden
+clusterings. Oh stars! oh eyes, that see me, wheresoe’er I roam:
+serene, intent, inscrutable for aye, tell me Sybils, what I
+am.—Wondrous worlds on worlds! Lo, round and round me, shining, awful
+spells: all glorious, vivid constellations, God’s diadem ye are! To
+you, ye stars, man owes his subtlest raptures, thoughts unspeakable,
+yet full of faith.
+
+But how your mild effulgence stings the boding heart. Am I a murderer,
+stars?
+
+Hours pass. The starry trance is departed. Long waited for, the dawn
+now comes.
+
+First, breaking along the waking face; peeping from out the languid
+lids; then shining forth in longer glances; till, like the sun, up
+comes the soul, and sheds its rays abroad.
+
+When thus my Yillah did daily dawn, how she lit up my world; tinging
+more rosily the roseate clouds, that in her summer cheek played to and
+fro, like clouds in Italian air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+Their Morning Meal
+
+
+Not wholly is our world made up of bright stars and bright eyes: so now
+to our story.
+
+A conscientious host should ever be up betimes, to look after the
+welfare of his guests, and see to it that their day begin auspiciously.
+King Media announced the advent of the sun, by rustling at my bower’s
+eaves in person.
+
+A repast was spread in an adjoining arbor, which Media’s pages had
+smoothed for our reception, and where his subordinate chiefs were in
+attendance. Here we reclined upon mats. Balmy and fresh blew the breath
+of the morning; golden vapors were upon the mountains, silver sheen
+upon the grass; and the birds were at matins in the groves; their
+bright plumage flashing into view, here and there, as if some rainbow
+were crouching in the foliage.
+
+Spread before us were viands, served in quaint-shaped, curiously-dyed
+gourds, not Sevres, but almost as tasteful; and like true porcelain,
+fire had tempered them. Green and yielding, they are plucked from the
+tree; and emptied of their pulp, are scratched over with minute marks,
+like those of a line engraving. The ground prepared, the various
+figures are carefully etched. And the outlines filled up with delicate
+punctures, certain vegetable oils are poured over them, for coloring.
+Filled with a peculiar species of earth, the gourd is now placed in an
+oven in the ground. And in due time exhumed, emptied of its contents,
+and washed in the stream, it presents a deep-dyed exterior; every
+figure distinctly traced and opaque, but the ground semi-transparent.
+In some cases, owing to the variety of dyes employed, each figure is of
+a different hue.
+
+More glorious goblets than these for the drinking of wine, went never
+from hand to mouth. Capacious as pitchers, they almost superseded
+decanters.
+
+Now, in a tropical climate, fruit, with light wines, forms the only fit
+meal of a morning. And with orchards and vineyards forever in sight,
+who but the Hetman of the Cossacs would desire more? We had plenty of
+the juice of the grape. But of this hereafter; there are some fine old
+cellars, and plenty of good cheer in store.
+
+During the repast, Media, for a time, was much taken up with our
+raiment. He begged me to examine for a moment the texture of his right
+royal robe, and observe how much superior it was to my own. It put my
+mantle to the blush; being tastefully stained with rare devices in red
+and black; and bordered with dyed fringes of feathers, and tassels of
+red birds’ claws.
+
+Next came under observation the Skyeman’s Guayaquil hat; at whose
+preposterous shape, our host laughed in derision; clapping a great
+conical calabash upon the head of an attendant, and saying that now he
+was Jarl. At this, and all similar sallies, Samoa was sure to roar
+louder than any; though mirth was no constitutional thing with him. But
+he seemed rejoiced at the opportunity of turning upon us the ridicule,
+which as a barbarian among whites, he himself had so often experienced.
+
+These pleasantries over, King Media very slightly drew himself up, as
+if to make amends for his previous unbending. He discoursed imperially
+with his chiefs; nodded his sovereign will to his pages; called for
+another gourd of wine; in all respects carrying his royalty bravely.
+
+The repast concluded, we journeyed to the canoe-house, where we found
+the little Chamois stabled like a steed. One solitary depredation had
+been committed. Its sides and bottom had been completely denuded of the
+minute green barnacles, and short sea-grass, which, like so many
+leeches, had fastened to our planks during our long, lazy voyage.
+
+By the people they had been devoured as dainties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+Belshazzar On The Bench
+
+
+Now, Media was king of Odo. And from the simplicity of his manners
+hitherto, and his easy, frank demeanor toward ourselves, had we
+foolishly doubted that fact, no skepticism could have survived an
+illustration of it, which this very day we witnessed at noon.
+
+For at high noon, Media was wont to don his dignity with his symbols of
+state; and sit on his judgment divan or throne, to hear and try all
+causes brought before him, and fulminate his royal decrees.
+
+This divan was elevated at one end of a spacious arbor, formed by an
+avenue of regal palms, which in brave state, held aloft their
+majestical canopy.
+
+The crown of the island prince was of the primitive old Eastern style;
+in shape, similar, perhaps, to that jauntily sported as a foraging cap
+by his sacred majesty King Nimrod, who so lustily followed the hounds.
+It was a plaited turban of red tappa, radiated by the pointed and
+polished white bones of the Ray-fish. These diverged from a bandeau or
+fillet of the most precious pearls; brought up from the sea by the
+deepest diving mermen of Mardi. From the middle of the crown rose a
+tri-foiled spear-head. And a spear- headed scepter graced the right
+hand of the king.
+
+Now, for all the rant of your democrats, a fine king on a throne is a
+very fine sight to behold. He looks very much like a god. No wonder
+that his more dutiful subjects so swore, that their good lord and
+master King Media was demi-divine.
+
+A king on his throne! Ah, believe me, ye Gracchi, ye Acephali, ye
+Levelers, it is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at
+Babylon the Tremendous, when Nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old Scone
+in the days of Macbeth; at Rheims, among Oriflammes, at the coronation
+of Louis le Grand; at Westminster Abbey, when the gentlemanly George
+doffed his beaver for a diadem; or under the soft shade of palm trees
+on an isle in the sea.
+
+Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that
+Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold
+it in heaven. But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the Persians, or
+the conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a
+whit more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently ringing for his
+valet.
+
+A king on his throne! It is Jupiter nodding in the councils of Olympus;
+Satan, seen among the coronets in Hell.
+
+A king on his throne! It is the sun over a mountain; the sun over
+law-giving Sinai; the sun in our system: planets, duke-like, dancing
+attendance, and baronial satellites in waiting.
+
+A king on his throne! After all, but a gentleman seated. And thus sat
+the good lord, King Media.
+
+Time passed. And after trying and dismissing several minor affairs,
+Media called for certain witnesses to testify concerning one Jiromo, a
+foolhardy wight, who had been silly enough to plot against the majesty
+now sitting judge and jury upon him.
+
+His guilt was clear. And the witnesses being heard, from a bunch of
+palm plumes Media taking a leaf, placed it in the hand of a runner or
+pursuivant, saying, “This to Jiromo, where he is prisoned; with his
+king’s compliments; say we here wait for his head.”
+
+It was doffed like a turban before a Dey, and brought back on the
+instant.
+
+Now came certain lean-visaged, poverty-stricken, and hence
+suspicious-looking varlets, grumbling and growling, and amiable as
+Bruin. They came muttering some wild jargon about “bulwarks,”
+“bulkheads,” “cofferdams,” “safeguards,” “noble charters,” “shields,”
+and “paladiums,” “great and glorious birthrights,” and other
+unintelligible gibberish.
+
+Of the pursuivants, these worthies asked audience of Media.
+
+“Go, kneel at the throne,” was the answer.
+
+“Our knee-pans are stiff with sciatics,” was the rheumatic reply.
+
+“An artifice to keep on your legs,” said the pursuivants.
+
+And advancing they salamed, and told Media the excuse of those
+sour-looking varlets. Whereupon my lord commanded them to down on their
+marrow-bones instanter, either before him or the headsman, whichsoever
+they pleased.
+
+They preferred the former. And as they there kneeled, in vain did men
+with sharp ears (who abound in all courts) prick their auriculars, to
+list to that strange crackling and firing off of bone balls and
+sockets, ever incident to the genuflections of rheumatic courtiers.
+
+In a row, then, these selfsame knee-pans did kneel before the king; who
+eyed them as eagles in air do goslings on dunghills; or hunters, hounds
+crouching round their calves.
+
+“Your prayer?” said Media.
+
+It was a petition, that thereafter all differences between man and man
+in Ode, together with all alleged offenses against the state, might be
+tried by twelve good men and true. These twelve to be unobnoxious to
+the party or parties concerned; their peers; and previously unbiased
+touching the matter at issue. Furthermore, that unanimity in these
+twelve should be indispensable to a verdict; and no dinner be
+vouchsafed till unanimity came.
+
+Loud and long laughed King Media in scorn.
+
+“This be your judge,” he cried, swaying his scepter. “What! are twelve
+wise men more wise than one? or will twelve fools, put together, make
+one sage? Are twelve honest men more honest than one? or twelve knaves
+less knavish than one? And if, of twelve men, three be fools, and three
+wise, three knaves, and three upright, how obtain real unanimity from
+such?
+
+“But if twelve judges be better than one, then are twelve hundred
+better than twelve. But take the whole populace for a judge, and you
+will long wait for a unanimous verdict.
+
+“If upon a thing dubious, there be little unanimity in the conflicting
+opinions of one man’s mind, how expect it in the uproar of twelve
+puzzled brains? though much unanimity be found in twelve hungry
+stomachs.
+
+“Judges unobnoxious to the accused! Apply it to a criminal case. Ha!
+ha! if peradventure a Cacti be rejected, because he had seen the
+accused commit the crime for which he is arraigned. Then, his mind
+would be biased: no impartiality from him! Or your testy accused might
+object to another, because of his tomahawk nose, or a cruel squint of
+the eye.
+
+“Of all follies the most foolish! Know ye from me, that true peers
+render not true verdicts. Jiromo was a rebel. Had I tried him by his
+peers, I had tried him by rebels; and the rebel had rebelled to some
+purpose.
+
+“Away! As unerring justice dwells in a unity, and as one judge will at
+last judge the world beyond all appeal; so—though often here below
+justice be hard to attain—does man come nearest the mark, when he
+imitates that model divine. Hence, one judge is better than twelve.”
+
+“And as Justice, in ideal, is ever painted high lifted above the crowd;
+so, from the exaltation of his rank, an honest king is the best of
+those unical judges, which individually are better than twelve. And
+therefore am I, King Media, the best judge in this land.”
+
+“Subjects! so long as I live, I will rule you and judge you alone. And
+though you here kneeled before me till you grew into the ground, and
+there took root, no yea to your petition will you get from this throne.
+I am king: ye are slaves. Mine to command: yours to obey. And this hour
+I decree, that henceforth no gibberish of bulwarks and bulkheads be
+heard in this land. For a dead bulwark and a bulkhead, to dam off
+sedition, will I make of that man, who again but breathes those bulky
+words. Ho! spears! see that these knee-pans here kneel till set of
+sun.”
+
+High noon was now passed; and removing his crown, and placing it on the
+dais for the kneelers to look at during their devotions, King Media
+departed from that place, and once more played the agreeable host.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+An Incognito
+
+
+For the rest of that day, and several that followed, we were
+continually receiving visits from the neighboring islands; whose
+inhabitants in fleets and flotillas flocked round Odo to behold the
+guests of its lord. Among them came many messengers from the
+neighboring kings with soft speeches and gifts.
+
+But it were needless to detail our various interviews, or relate in
+what manifold ways, the royal strangers gave token of their interest
+concerning us.
+
+Upon the third day, however, there was noticed a mysterious figure,
+like the inscrutable incognitos sometimes encountered, crossing the
+tower-shadowed Plaza of Assignations at Lima. It was enveloped in a
+dark robe of tappa, so drawn and plaited about the limbs; and with one
+hand, so wimpled about the face, as only to expose a solitary eye. But
+that eye was a world. Now it was fixed upon Yillah with a sinister
+glance, and now upon me, but with a different expression. However great
+the crowd, however tumultuous, that fathomless eye gazed on; till at
+last it seemed no eye, but a spirit, forever prying into my soul. Often
+I strove to approach it, but it would evade me, soon reappearing.
+
+Pointing out the apparition to Media, I intreated him to take means to
+fix it, that my suspicions might be dispelled, as to its being
+incorporeal. He replied that, by courtesy, incognitos were sacred.
+Insomuch that the close-plaited robe and the wimple were secure as a
+castle. At last, to my relief, the phantom disappeared, and was seen no
+more.
+
+Numerous and fervent the invitations received to return the calls
+wherewith we were honored. But for the present we declined them;
+preferring to establish ourselves firmly in the heart of Media, ere
+encountering the vicissitudes of roaming. In a multitude of
+acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
+
+Now, while these civilities were being received, and on the fourth
+morning after our arrival, there landed on the beach three black-eyed
+damsels, deep brunettes, habited in long variegated robes, and with gay
+blossoms on their heads.
+
+With many salams, the strangers were ushered into my presence by an old
+white-haired servitor of Media’s, who with a parting congé murmured,
+“From Queen Hautia,” then departed. Surprised, I stood mute, and
+welcomed them.
+
+The first, with many smiles and blandishments, waved before me a
+many-tinted Iris: the flag-flower streaming with pennons. Advancing,
+the second then presented three rose-hued purple-veined Circea flowers,
+the dew still clinging to them. The third placed in my hand a moss-rose
+bud; then, a Venus-car.
+
+“Thanks for your favors! now your message.”
+
+Starting at this reception, graciously intended, they conferred a
+moment; when the Iris-bearer said in winning phrase, “We come from
+Hautia, whose moss-rose you hold.”
+
+“All thanks to Hautia then; the bud is very fragrant.”
+
+Then she pointed to the Venus-car.
+
+“This too is sweet; thanks to Hautia for her flowers. Pray, bring me
+more.”
+
+“He mocks our mistress,” and gliding from me, they waved witch- hazels,
+leaving me alone and wondering.
+
+Informing Media of this scene, he smiled; threw out queer hints of
+Hautia; but knew not what her message meant.
+
+At first this affair occasioned me no little uneasiness, with much
+matter for marveling; but in the novel pleasure of our sojourn in Odo,
+it soon slipped from my mind; nor for some time, did I again hear aught
+of Queen Hautia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+Taji Retires From The World
+
+
+After a while, when the strangers came not in shoals as before, I
+proposed to our host, a stroll over his dominions; desirous of
+beholding the same, and secretly induced by the hope of selecting an
+abode, more agreeable to my fastidious taste, than the one already
+assigned me.
+
+The ramble over—a pleasant one it was—it resulted in a determination on
+my part to quit Odo. Yet not to go very far; only ten or twelve yards,
+to a little green tuft of an islet; one of many, which here and there,
+all round the island, nestled like birds’ nests in the branching boughs
+of the coral grove, whose roots laid hold of the foundations of the
+deep. Between these islets and the shore, extended shelving ledges,
+with shallows above, just sufficient to float a canoe. One of these
+islets was wooded and wined; an arbor in the sea. And here, Media
+permitting, I decided to dwell.
+
+Not long was Media in complying; nor long, ere my retreat was in
+readiness. Laced together, the twisting boughs were closely thatched.
+And thatched were the sides also, with deep crimson pandannus leaves;
+whose long, forked spears, lifted by the breeze, caused the whole place
+to blaze, as with flames. Canes, laid on palm trunks, formed the floor.
+How elastic! In vogue all over Odo, among the chiefs, it imparted such
+a buoyancy to the person, that to this special cause may be imputed in
+good part the famous fine spirits of the nobles.
+
+Hypochondriac! essay the elastic flooring! It shall so pleasantly and
+gently jolt thee, as to shake up, and pack off the stagnant humors
+mantling thy pool-like soul.
+
+Such was my dwelling. But I make no mention of sundry little
+appurtenances of tropical housekeeping: calabashes, cocoanut shells,
+and rolls of fine tappa; till with Yillah seated at last in my arbor, I
+looked round, and wanted for naught.
+
+But what of Jarl and Samoa? Why Jarl must needs be fanciful, as well as
+myself. Like a bachelor in chambers, he settled down right opposite to
+me, on the main land, in a little wigwam in the grove.
+
+But Samoa, following not his comrade’s example, still tarried in the
+camp of the Hittites and Jebusites of Odo. Beguiling men of their
+leisure by his marvelous stories: and maidens of their hearts by his
+marvelous wiles.
+
+When I chose, I was completely undisturbed in my arbor; an ukase of
+Media’s forbidding indiscriminate intrusion. But thrice in the day came
+a garrulous old man with my viands.
+
+Thus sequestered, however, I could not entirely elude the pryings of
+the people of the neighboring islands; who often passed by, slowly
+paddling, and earnestly regarding my retreat. But gliding along at a
+distance, and never essaying a landing, their occasional vicinity
+troubled me but little. But now and then of an evening, when thick and
+fleet the shadows were falling, dim glimpses of a canoe would be spied;
+hovering about the place like a ghost. And once, in the stillness of
+the night, hearing the near ripple of a prow, I sallied forth, but the
+phantom quickly departed.
+
+That night, Yillah shuddered as she slept. “The whirl-pool,” she
+murmured, “sweet mosses.” Next day she was lost in reveries, plucking
+pensive hyacinths, or gazing intently into the lagoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+Odo And Its Lord
+
+
+Time now to enter upon some further description of the island and its
+lord.
+
+And first for Media: a gallant gentleman and king. From a goodly stock
+he came. In his endless pedigree, reckoning deities by decimals,
+innumerable kings, and scores of great heroes, chiefs, and priests. Nor
+in person, did he belie his origin. No far-descended dwarf was he, the
+least of a receding race. He stood like a palm tree; about whose
+acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the silken fringes, than
+Media’s locks upon his noble brow. Strong was his arm to wield the
+club, or hurl the javelin; and potent, I ween, round a maiden’s waist.
+
+Thus much here for Media. Now comes his isle.
+
+Our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by itself; full of
+beauties as a garden; chequered by charming groves; watered by roving
+brooks; and fringed all round by a border of palm trees, whose roots
+drew nourishment from the water. But though abounding in other quarters
+of the Archipelago, not a solitary bread-fruit grew in Odo. A
+noteworthy circumstance, observable in these regions, where islands
+close adjoining, so differ in their soil, that certain fruits growing
+genially in one, are foreign to another. But Odo was famed for its
+guavas, whose flavor was likened to the flavor of new-blown lips; and
+for its grapes, whose juices prompted many a laugh and many a groan.
+
+Beside the city where Media dwelt, there were few other clusters of
+habitations in Odo. The higher classes living, here and there, in
+separate households; but not as eremites. Some buried themselves in the
+cool, quivering bosoms of the groves. Others, fancying a marine
+vicinity, dwelt hard by the beach in little cages of bamboo; whence of
+mornings they sallied out with jocund cries, and went plunging into the
+refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the threshold of their
+dwellings. Others still, like birds, built their nests among the sylvan
+nooks of the elevated interior; whence all below, and hazy green, lay
+steeped in languor the island’s throbbing heart.
+
+Thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. The common sort, including
+serfs, and Helots, war-captives held in bondage, lived in secret
+places, hard to find. Whence it came, that, to a stranger, the whole
+isle looked care-free and beautiful. Deep among the ravines and the
+rocks, these beings lived in noisome caves, lairs for beasts, not human
+homes; or built them coops of rotten boughs—living trees were banned
+them—whose mouldy hearts hatched vermin. Fearing infection of some
+plague, born of this filth, the chiefs of Odo seldom passed that way
+and looking round within their green retreats, and pouring out their
+wine, and plucking from orchards of the best, marveled how these swine
+could grovel in the mire, and wear such sallow cheeks. But they offered
+no sweet homes; from that mire they never sought to drag them out; they
+open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the mandates that condemned
+their drudges to a life of deaths. Sad sight! to see those
+round-shouldered Helots, stooping in their trenches: artificial, three
+in number, and concentric: the isle well nigh surrounding. And herein,
+fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from heaven, and bitter sweat from
+men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious Taro.
+
+Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief
+that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man
+toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to
+them—then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with
+these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be the brutes they
+seemed.
+
+Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed,
+and plenty without a pause?—Odo, in whose lurking-places infants turned
+from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.—Odo, in whose inmost
+haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard most dismal
+cries, and voices cursing Media. There, men were scourged; their crime,
+a heresy; the heresy, that Media was no demigod. For this they
+shrieked. Their fathers shrieked before; their fathers, who, tormented,
+said, “Happy we to groan, that our children’s children may be glad.”
+But their children’s children howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous
+generations, and loudly swore, “The pit that’s dug for us may prove
+another’s grave.”
+
+But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo seemed
+a happy land. The palm-trees waved—though here and there you marked one
+sear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed—though dead ones moldered
+in decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee—though, receding, they
+sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.
+
+But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle. Did
+men in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon’s fountain there? For near
+and far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations harvested
+in winrows. In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a gentle
+epitaph; no requiescat-in-pace mocked a sinner damned; no memento-mori
+admonished men to live while yet they might. Here Death hid his skull;
+and hid it in the sea, the common sepulcher of Odo. Not dust to dust,
+but dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. For all who died upon that
+isle were carried out beyond the outer reef, and there were buried with
+their sires’ sires. Hence came the thought, that of gusty nights, when
+round the isles, and high toward heaven, flew the white reef’s rack and
+foam, that then and there, kept chattering watch and ward, the myriads
+that were ocean-tombed.
+
+But why these watery obsequies?
+
+Odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead,
+and Life’s small colony be dislodged by Death’s grim hosts; as the
+gaunt tribes of Tamerlane o’erspread the tented pastures of the Khan?
+
+And now, what follows, said these Islanders: “Why sow corruption in the
+soil which yields us life? We would not pluck our grapes from over
+graves. This earth’s an urn for flowers, not for ashes.”
+
+They said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea.
+
+And what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more sublimely urned? Or do
+the minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of Charlemagne, show more
+of pomp, than all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked mariner?
+
+But no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not their
+company; though full soon we shall all have them for fellows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+Yillah A Phantom
+
+
+For a time we were happy in Odo: Yillah and I in our islet. Nor did the
+pearl on her bosom glow more rosily than the roses in her cheeks;
+though at intervals they waned and departed; and deadly pale was her
+glance, when she murmured of the whirlpool and mosses. As pale my soul,
+bethinking me of Aleema the priest.
+
+But day by day, did her spell weave round me its magic, and all the
+hidden things of her being grew more lovely and strange. Did I commune
+with a spirit? Often I thought that Paradise had overtaken me on earth,
+and that Yillah was verily an angel, and hence the mysteries that
+hallowed her.
+
+But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.—Long memories
+of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours—how common are ye
+to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say—“Lo, thy felicity, my
+soul?” No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back
+upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold.
+
+Sped the hours, the days, the one brief moment of our joys. Fairy bower
+in the fair lagoon, scene of sylvan ease and heart’s repose,—Oh,
+Yillah, Yillah! All the woods repeat the sound, the wild, wild woods of
+my wild soul. Yillah! Yillah! cry the small strange voices in me, and
+evermore, and far and deep, they echo on.
+
+Days passed. When one morning I found the arbor vacant. Gone! A dream.
+I closed my eyes, and would have dreamed her back. In vain. Starting, I
+called upon her name; but none replied. Fleeing from the islet, I
+gained the neighboring shore, and searched among the woods; and my
+comrades meeting, besought their aid. But idle all. No glimpse of
+aught, save trees and flowers. Then Media was sought out; the event
+made known; and quickly, bands were summoned to range the isle.
+
+Noon came; but no Yillah. When Media averred she was no longer in Odo.
+Whither she was gone, or how, he knew not; nor could any imagine.
+
+At this juncture, there chanced to arrive certain messengers from
+abroad; who, presuming that all was well with Taji, came with renewed
+invitations to visit various pleasant places round about. Among these,
+came Queen Hautia’s heralds, with their Iris flag, once more bringing
+flowers. But they came and went unheeded.
+
+Setting out to return, these envoys were accompanied by numerous
+followers of Media, dispatched to the neighboring islands, to seek out
+the missing Yillah. But three days passed; and, one by one, they all
+returned; and stood before me silently.
+
+For a time I raved. Then, falling into outer repose, lived for a space
+in moods and reveries, with eyes that knew no closing, one glance
+forever fixed.
+
+They strove to rouse me. Girls danced and sang; and tales of fairy
+times were told; of monstrous imps, and youths enchanted; of groves and
+gardens in the sea. Yet still I moved not, hearing all, yet noting
+naught. Media cried, “For shame, oh Taji; thou, a god?” and placed a
+spear in my nerveless hand. And Jarl loud called upon me to awake.
+Samoa marveled.
+
+Still sped the days. And at length, my memory was restored. The
+thoughts of things broke over me like returning billows on a beach long
+bared. A rush, a foam of recollections!—Sweet Yillah gone, and I
+bereaved.
+
+Another interval, and that mood was past. Misery became a memory. The
+keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing
+remembered; though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and
+glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life’s sea, that surges still, and
+rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all
+round. Not so with that other grief. Some mourners load the air with
+lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from hollows. Their
+tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells.
+
+At last I turned to Media, saying I must hie from Odo, and rove
+throughout all Mardi; for Yillah might yet be found.
+
+But hereafter, in words, little more of the maiden, till perchance her
+fate be learned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+Taji Makes Three Acquaintances
+
+
+Down to this period, I had restrained Samoa from wandering to the
+neighboring islands, though he had much desired it, in compliance with
+the invitations continually received. But now I informed both him, and
+his comrade, of the tour I purposed; desiring their company.
+
+Upon the announcement of my intention to depart, to my no small
+surprise Media also proposed to accompany me: a proposition gladly
+embraced. It seems, that for some reason, he had not as yet extended
+his travels to the more distant islands. Hence the voyage in prospect
+was particularly agreeable to him. Nor did he forbear any pains to
+insure its prosperity; assuring me, furthermore, that its object must
+eventually be crowned with success. “I myself am interested in this
+pursuit,” said he; “and trust me, Yillah will be found.”
+
+For the tour of the lagoon, the docile Chamois was proposed; but Media
+dissented; saying, that it befitted not the lord of Odo to voyage in
+the equipage of his guest. Therefore, three canoes were selected from
+his own royal fleet.
+
+One for ourselves, and a trio of companions whom he purposed
+introducing to my notice; the rest were reserved for attendants.
+
+Thanks to Media’s taste and heedfulness, the strangers above mentioned
+proved truly acceptable.
+
+The first was Mohi, or Braid-Beard, so called from the manner in which
+he wore that appendage, exceedingly long and gray. He was a venerable
+teller of stories and legends, one of the Keepers of the Chronicles of
+the Kings of Mardi.
+
+The second was Babbalanja, a man of a mystical aspect, habited in a
+voluminous robe. He was learned in Mardian lore; much given to
+quotations from ancient and obsolete authorities: the Ponderings of Old
+Bardianna: the Pandects of Alla-Malolla.
+
+Third and last, was Yoomy, or the Warbler. A youthful, long-haired,
+blue-eyed minstrel; all fits and starts; at times, absent of mind, and
+wan of cheek; but always very neat and pretty in his apparel; wearing
+the most becoming of turbans, a Bird of Paradise feather its plume, and
+sporting the gayest of sashes. Most given was Yoomy to amorous
+melodies, and rondos, and roundelays, very witching to hear. But at
+times disdaining the oaten reed, like a clarion he burst forth with
+lusty lays of arms and battle; or, in mournful strains, sounded elegies
+for departed bards and heroes.
+
+Thus much for Yoomy as a minstrel. In other respects, it would be hard
+to depict him. He was so capricious a mortal; so swayed by contrary
+moods; so lofty, so humble, so sad, so merry; so made up of a thousand
+contradictions, that we must e’en let him depict himself as our story
+progresses. And herein it is hoped he will succeed; since no one in
+Mardi comprehended him.
+
+Now the trio, thus destined for companions on our voyage, had for some
+time been anxious to take the tour of the Archipelago. In particular,
+Babbalanja had often expressed the most ardent desire to visit every
+one of the isles, in quest of some object, mysteriously hinted. He
+murmured deep concern for my loss, the sincerest sympathy; and pressing
+my hand more than once, said lowly, “Your pursuit is mine, noble Taji.
+Where’er you search, I follow.”
+
+So, too, Yoomy addressed me; but with still more feeling. And something
+like this, also, Braid-Beard repeated.
+
+But to my sorrow, I marked that both Mohi and Babbalanja, especially
+the last, seemed not so buoyant of hope, concerning lost Yillah, as the
+youthful Yoomy, and his high-spirited lord, King Media.
+
+As our voyage would embrace no small period of time, it behoved King
+Media to appoint some trustworthy regent, to rule during his absence.
+This regent was found in Almanni, a stem-eyed, resolute warrior, a
+kinsman of the king.
+
+All things at last in readiness, and the ensuing morning appointed for
+a start, Media, on the beach, at eventide, when both light and water
+waned, drew a rude map of the lagoon, to compensate for the
+obstructions in the way of a comprehensive glance at it from Odo.
+
+And thus was sketched the plan of our voyage; which islands first to
+visit; and which to touch at, when we should be homeward bound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail
+
+
+True each to his word, up came the sun, and round to my isle came
+Media.
+
+How glorious a morning! The new-born clouds all dappled with gold, and
+streaked with violet; the sun in high spirits; and the pleasant air
+cooled overnight by the blending circumambient fountains, forever
+playing all round the reef; the lagoon within, the coral-rimmed basin,
+into which they poured, subsiding, hereabouts, into green tranquillity.
+
+But what monsters of canoes! Would they devour an innocent voyager?
+their great black prows curling aloft, and thrown back like trunks of
+elephants; a dark, snaky length behind, like the sea-serpent’s train.
+
+The prow of the foremost terminated in a large, open, shark’s mouth,
+garnished with ten rows of pearly human teeth, curiously inserted into
+the sculptured wood. The gunwale was ornamented with rows of rich
+spotted Leopard and Tiger-shells; here and there, varied by others,
+flat and round, and spirally traced; gay serpents petrified in coils.
+These were imbedded in a grooved margin, by means of a resinous
+compound, exhaling such spices, that the canoes were odoriferous as the
+Indian chests of the Maldives.
+
+The likeness of the foremost canoe to an elephant, was helped by a sort
+of canopied Howdah in its stern, of heavy, russet-dyed tappa, tasselled
+at the corners with long bunches of cocoanut fibres, stained red. These
+swayed to and fro, like the fox-tails on a Tuscarora robe.
+
+But what is this, in the head of the canoe, just under the shark’s
+mouth? A grinning little imp of an image; a ring in its nose; cowrie
+shells jingling at its ears; with an abominable leer, like that of
+Silenus reeling on his ass. It was taking its ease; cosily smoking a
+pipe; its bowl, a duodecimo edition of the face of the smoker. This
+image looked sternward; everlastingly mocking us.
+
+Of these canoes, it may be well to state, that although during our stay
+in Odo, so many barges and shallops had touched there, nothing similar
+to Media’s had been seen. But inquiring whence his sea- equipage came,
+we were thereupon taught to reverence the same as antiquities and
+heir-looms; claw-keeled, dragon-prowed crafts of a bygone generation;
+at present, superseded in general use by the more swan-like canoes,
+significant of the advanced stage of marine architecture in Mardi. No
+sooner was this known, than what had seemed almost hideous in my eyes,
+became merely grotesque. Nor could I help being greatly delighted with
+the good old family pride of our host.
+
+The upper corners of our sails displayed the family crest of Media;
+three upright boars’ tusks, in an heraldic field argent. A fierce
+device: Whom rends he?
+
+All things in readiness, we glided away: the multitude waving adieu;
+and our flotilla disposed in the following order.
+
+First went the royal Elephant, carrying Media, myself, Jarl, and Samoa;
+Mohi the Teller of Legends, Babbalanja, and Yoomy, and six vivacious
+paddlers; their broad paddle-blades carved with the royal boars’ tusks,
+the same tattooed on their chests for a livery.
+
+And thus, as Media had promised, we voyaged in state. To crown all,
+seated sideways in the high, open shark’s-mouth of our prow was a
+little dwarf of a boy, one of Media’s pages, a red conch-shell,
+bugle-wise suspended at his side. Among various other offices, it was
+the duty of little Vee-Vee to announce the advent of his master, upon
+drawing near to the islands in our route. Two short bars, projecting
+from one side of the prow, furnished him the means of ascent to his
+perch.
+
+As we gained the open lagoon with bellied sails, and paddles playing, a
+sheaf of foam borne upright at our prow; Yoomy, standing where the
+spicy spray flew over him, stretched forth his hand and cried—“The dawn
+of day is passed, and Mardi lies all before us: all her isles, and all
+her lakes; all her stores of good and evil. Storms may come, our barks
+may drown. But blow before us, all ye winds; give us a lively blast,
+good clarion; rally round us all our wits; and be this voyage full
+gayly sailed, for Yillah will yet be found.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+Little King Peepi
+
+
+Valapee, or the Isle of Yams, being within plain sight of Media’s
+dominions, we were not very long in drawing nigh to its shores.
+
+Two long parallel elevations, rising some three arrow-flights into the
+air, double-ridge the island’s entire length, lapping between, a
+widening vale, so level withal, that at either extremity, the green of
+its groves blends with the green of the lagoon; and the isle seems
+divided by a strait.
+
+Within several paces of the beach, our canoes keeled the bottom, and
+camel-like mutely hinted that we voyagers must dismount.
+
+Hereupon, the assembled islanders ran into the water, and with bent
+shoulders obsequiously desired the honor of transporting us to land.
+The beach gained, all present wearing robes instantly stripped them to
+the waist; a naked chest being their salute to kings. Very convenient
+for the common people, this; their half-clad forms presenting a
+perpetual and profound salutation.
+
+Presently, Peepi, the ruler of Valapee drew near: a boy, hardly ten
+years old, striding the neck of a burly mute, bearing a long spear
+erect before him, to which was attached a canopy of five broad banana
+leaves, new plucked. Thus shaded, little Peepi advanced, steadying
+himself by the forelock of his bearer.
+
+Besides his bright red robe, the young prince wore nothing but the
+symbol of Valapeean royalty; a string of small, close-fitting, concave
+shells, coiled and ambushed in his profuse, curly hair; one end falling
+over his ear, revealing a serpent’s head, curiously carved from a
+nutmeg.
+
+Quite proverbial, the unembarrassed air of young slips of royalty. But
+there was something so surprisingly precocious in this young Peepi,
+that at first one hardly knew what to conclude.
+
+The first compliments over, the company were invited inland to a shady
+retreat.
+
+As we pursued the path, walking between old Mohi the keeper of
+chronicles and Samoa the Upoluan, Babbalanja besought the former to
+enlighten a stranger concerning the history of this curious Peepi.
+Whereupon the chronicler gave us the following account; for all of
+which he alone is responsible.
+
+Peepi, it seems, had been proclaimed king before he was born; his sire
+dying some few weeks previous to that event; and vacating his divan,
+declared that he left a monarch behind.
+
+Marvels were told of Peepi. Along with the royal dignity, and
+superadded to the soul possessed in his own proper person, the infant
+monarch was supposed to have inherited the valiant spirits of some
+twenty heroes, sages, simpletons, and demi-gods, previously lodged in
+his sire.
+
+Most opulent in spiritual gifts was this lord of Valapee; the legatee,
+moreover, of numerous anonymous souls, bequeathed to him by their late
+loyal proprietors. By a slavish act of his convocation of chiefs, he
+also possessed the reversion of all and singular the immortal spirits,
+whose first grantees might die intestate in Valapee. Servile, yet
+audacious senators! thus prospectively to administrate away the
+inalienable rights of posterity. But while yet unborn, the people of
+Valapee had been deprived of more than they now sought to wrest from
+their descendants. And former Peepies, infant and adult, had received
+homage more profound, than Peepi the Present. Witness the demeanor of
+the chieftains of old, upon every new investiture of the royal serpent.
+In a fever of loyalty, they were wont to present themselves before the
+heir to the isle, to go through with the court ceremony of the Pupera;
+a curious proceeding, so called: inverted endeavors to assume an erect
+posture: the nasal organ the base.
+
+It was to the frequent practice of this ceremony, that most intelligent
+observers imputed the flattened noses of the elderly chiefs of the
+island; who, nevertheless, much gloried therein.
+
+It was these chiefs, also, who still observed the old-fashioned custom
+of retiring from the presence of royalty with their heads between their
+thighs; so that while advancing in the contrary direction, their faces
+might be still deferentially turned toward their lord and master. A
+fine view of him did they obtain. All objects look well through an
+arch.
+
+But to return to Peepi, the inheritor of souls and subjects. It was an
+article of faith with the people of Valapee, that Peepi not only
+actually possessed the souls bequeathed to him; but that his own was
+enriched by their peculiar qualities: The headlong valor of the late
+Tongatona; the pusillanimous discretion of Blandoo; the cunning of
+Voyo; the simplicity of Raymonda; the prodigality of Zonoree; the
+thrift of Titonti.
+
+But had all these, and similar opposite qualities, simultaneously acted
+as motives upon Peepi, certes, he would have been a most pitiable
+mortal, in a ceaseless eddy of resolves, incapable of a solitary act.
+
+But blessed be the gods, it was otherwise. Though it fared little
+better for his subjects as it was. His assorted souls were uppermost
+and active in him, one by one. Today, valiant Tongatona ruled the isle,
+meditating wars and invasions; tomorrow, thrice discreet Blandoo, who,
+disbanding the levies, turned his attention to the terraces of yams.
+And so on in rotation to the end.
+
+Whence, though capable of action, Peepi, by reason of these revolving
+souls in him, was one of the most unreliable of beings. What the
+open-handed Zonoree promised freely to-day, the parsimonious Titonti
+withheld to-morrow; and forever Raymonda was annulling the doings of
+Voyo; and Voyo the doings of Raymonda.
+
+What marvel then, that in Valapee all was legislative uproar and
+confusion; advance and retreat; abrogations and revivals; foundations
+without superstructures; nothing permanent but the island itself.
+
+Nor were there those in the neighboring countries, who failed to reap
+profit from this everlasting transition state of the affairs of the
+kingdom. All boons from Peepi were entreated when the prodigal Zonoree
+was lord of the ascendant. And audacious claims were urged upon the
+state when the pusillanimous Blandoo shrank from the thought of
+resisting them.
+
+Thus subject to contrary impulses, over which he had not the faintest
+control, Peepi was plainly denuded of all moral obligation to virtue.
+He was no more a free agent, than the heart which beat in his bosom.
+Wherefore, his complaisant parliament had passed a law, recognizing
+that curious, but alarming fact; solemnly proclaiming, that King Peepi
+was minus a conscience. Agreeable to truth. But when they went further,
+and vowed by statute, that Peepi could do no wrong, they assuredly did
+violence to the truth; besides, making a sad blunder in their logic.
+For far from possessing an absolute aversion to evil, by his very
+nature it was the hardest thing in the world for Peepi to do right.
+
+Taking all these things into consideration, then, no wonder that this
+wholly irresponsible young prince should be a lad of considerable
+assurance, and the easiest manners imaginable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee
+
+
+Coiling through the thickets, like the track of a serpent, wound along
+the path we pursued. And ere long we came to a spacious grove,
+embowering an oval arbor. Here, we reclined at our ease, and
+refreshments were served.
+
+Little worthy of mention occurred, save this. Happening to catch a
+glimpse of the white even teeth of Hohora one of our attendants, King
+Peepi coolly begged of Media the favor, to have those same dentals
+drawn on the spot, and presented to him.
+
+Now human teeth, extracted, are reckoned among the most valuable
+ornaments in Mardi. So open wide thy strong box, Hohora, and show thy
+treasures. What a gallant array! standing shoulder to shoulder, without
+a hiatus between. A complete set of jewelry, indeed, thought Peepi.
+But, it seems, not destined for him; Media leaving it to the present
+proprietor, whether his dentals should change owners or not.
+
+And here, to prepare the way for certain things hereafter to be
+narrated, something farther needs be said concerning the light in which
+men’s molars are regarded in Mardi.
+
+Strung together, they are sported for necklaces, or hung in drops from
+the ear; they are wrought into dice; in lieu of silken locks, are
+exchanged for love tokens.
+
+As in all lands, men smite their breasts, and tear their hair, when
+transported with grief; so, in some countries, teeth are stricken out
+under the sway of similar emotions. To a very great extent, this was
+once practiced in the Hawaiian Islands, ere idol and altar went down.
+Still living in Oahu, are many old chiefs, who were present at the
+famous obsequies of their royal old generalissimo, Tammahammaha, when
+there is no telling how many pounds of ivory were cast upon his grave.
+
+Ah! had the regal white elephants of Siam been there, doubtless they
+had offered up their long, hooked tusks, whereon they impale the
+leopards, their foes; and the unicorn had surrendered that fixed
+bayonet in his forehead; and the imperial Cachalot-whale, the long
+chain of white towers in his jaw; yea, over that grim warrior’s grave,
+the mooses, and elks, and stags, and fallow-deer had stacked their
+antlers, as soldiers their arms on the field.
+
+Terrific shade of tattooed Tammahammaha! if, from a vile dragon’s
+molars, rose mailed men, what heroes shall spring from the cannibal
+canines once pertaining to warriors themselves!—Am I the witch of
+Endor, that I conjure up this ghost? Or, King Saul, that I so quake at
+the sight? For, lo! roundabout me Tammahammaha’s tattooing expands,
+till all the sky seems a tiger’s skin. But now, the spotted phantom
+sweeps by; as a man-of-war’s main-sail, cloud-like, blown far to
+leeward in a gale.
+
+Banquo down, we return.
+
+In Valapee, prevails not the barbarous Hindoo custom of offering up
+widows to the shades of their lords; for, bereaved, the widows there
+marry again. Nor yet prevails the savage Hawaiian custom of offering up
+teeth to the manes of the dead; for, at the decease of a friend, the
+people rob not their own mouths to testify their woe. On the contrary,
+they extract the teeth from the departed, distributing them among the
+mourners for memorial legacies; as elsewhere, silver spoons are
+bestowed.
+
+From the high value ascribed to dentals throughout the archipelago of
+Mardi, and also from their convenient size, they are circulated as
+money; strings of teeth being regarded by these people very much as
+belts of wampum among the Winnebagoes of the North; or cowries, among
+the Bengalese. So, that in Valapee the very beggars are born with a
+snug investment in their mouths; too soon, however, to be appropriated
+by their lords; leaving them toothless for the rest of their days, and
+forcing them to diet on poee-pudding and banana blanc-mange.
+
+As a currency, teeth are far less clumsy than cocoanuts; which, among
+certain remote barbarians, circulate for coin; one nut being
+equivalent, perhaps, to a penny. The voyager who records the fact,
+chuckles over it hugely; as evincing the simplicity of those heathens;
+not knowing that he himself was the simpleton; since that currency of
+theirs was purposely devised by the men, to check the extravagance of
+their women; cocoanuts, for spending money, being such a burden to
+carry.
+
+It only remains to be added, that the most solemn oath of a native of
+Valapee is that sworn by his tooth. “By this tooth,” said Bondo to
+Noojoomo, “by this tooth I swear to be avenged upon thee, oh Noojoomo!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX.
+The Company Discourse, And Braid-Beard Rehearses A Legend
+
+
+Finding in Valapee no trace of her whom we sought, and but little
+pleased with the cringing demeanor of the people, and the wayward
+follies of Peepi their lord, we early withdrew from the isle.
+
+As we glided away, King Media issued a sociable decree. He declared it
+his royal pleasure, that throughout the voyage, all stiffness and state
+etiquette should be suspended: nothing must occur to mar the freedom of
+the party. To further this charming plan, he doffed his symbols of
+royalty, put off his crown, laid aside his scepter, and assured us that
+he would not wear them again, except when we landed; and not
+invariably, then.
+
+“Are we not all now friends and companions?” he said. “So companions
+and friends let us be. I unbend my bow; do ye likewise.”
+
+“But are we not to be dignified?” asked Babbalanja.
+
+“If dignity be free and natural, be as dignified as you please; but
+away with rigidities.”
+
+“Away they go,” said Babbalanja; “and, my lord, now that you mind me of
+it, I have often thought, that it is all folly and vanity for any man
+to attempt a dignified carriage. Why, my lord,”—frankly crossing his
+legs where he lay—“the king, who receives his ambassadors with a
+majestic toss of the head, may have just recovered from the tooth-
+ache. That thought should cant over the spine he bears so bravely.”
+
+“Have a care, sir! there is a king within hearing.”
+
+“Pardon, my lord; I was merely availing myself of the immunity bestowed
+upon the company. Hereafter, permit a subject to rebel against your
+sociable decrees. I will not be so frank any more.”
+
+“Well put, Babbalanja; come nearer; here, cross your legs by mine; you
+have risen a cubit in my regard. Vee-Vee, bring us that gourd of wine;
+so, pass it round with the cups. Now, Yoomy, a song!”
+
+And a song was sung.
+
+And thus did we sail; pleasantly reclining on the mats stretched out
+beneath the canopied howdah.
+
+At length, we drew nigh to a rock, called Pella, or The Theft. A high,
+green crag, toppling over its base, and flinging a cavernous shadow
+upon the lagoon beneath, bubbling with the moisture that dropped.
+
+Passing under this cliff was like finding yourself, as some sea-
+hunters unexpectedly have, beneath the open, upper jaw of a whale;
+which, descending, infallibly entombs you. But familiar with the rock,
+our paddlers only threw back their heads, to catch the cool, pleasant
+tricklings from the mosses above.
+
+Wiping away several glittering beads from his beard, old Mohi turning
+round where he sat, just outside the canopy, solemnly affirmed, that
+the drinking of that water had cured many a man of ambition.
+
+“How so, old man?” demanded Media.
+
+“Because of its passing through the ashes of ten kings, of yore buried
+in a sepulcher, hewn in the heart of the rock.”
+
+“Mighty kings, and famous, doubtless,” said Babbalanja, “whose bones
+were thought worthy of so noble and enduring as urn. Pray, Mohi, their
+names and terrible deeds.”
+
+“Alas! their sepulcher only remains.”
+
+“And, no doubt, like many others, they made that sepul for themselves.
+They sleep sound, my word for it, old man. But I very much question,
+if, were the rock rent, any ashes would be found. Mohi, I deny that
+those kings ever had any bones to bury.”
+
+“Why, Babbalanja,” said Media, “since you intimate that they never had
+ghosts to give up, you ignore them in toto; denying the very fact of
+their being even defunct.”
+
+“Ten thousand pardons, my lord, no such discourtesy would I do the
+anonymous memory of the illustrious dead. But whether they ever lived
+or not, it is all the same with them now. Yet, grant that they lived;
+then, if death be a deaf-and-dumb death, a triumphal procession over
+their graves would concern them not. If a birth into brightness, then
+Mardi must seem to them the most trivial of reminiscences. Or, perhaps,
+theirs may be an utter lapse of memory concerning sublunary things; and
+they themselves be not themselves, as the butterfly is not the larva.”
+
+Said Yoomy, “Then, Babbalanja, you account that a fit illustration of
+the miraculous change to be wrought in man after death?”
+
+“No; for the analogy has an unsatisfactory end. From its chrysalis
+state, the silkworm but becomes a moth, that very quickly expires. Its
+longest existence is as a worm. All vanity, vanity, Yoomy, to seek in
+nature for positive warranty to these aspirations of ours. Through all
+her provinces, nature seems to promise immortality to life, but
+destruction to beings. Or, as old Bardianna has it, if not against us,
+nature is not for us.”
+
+Said Media, rising, “Babbalanja, you have indeed put aside the
+courtier; talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi-
+god! To renown, for your theme: a more agreeable topic.”
+
+“Pardon, once again, my lord. And since you will, let us discourse of
+that subject. First, I lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that in
+itself all posthumous renown, which is the only renown, is valueless.
+Be not offended, my lord. To the nobly ambitious, renown hereafter may
+be something to anticipate. But analyzed, that feverish typhoid feeling
+of theirs may be nothing more than a flickering fancy, that now, while
+living, they are recognized as those who will be as famous in their
+shrouds, as in their girdles.”
+
+Said Yoomy, “But those great and good deeds, Babbalanja, of which the
+philosophers so often discourse: must it not be sweet to believe that
+their memory will long survive us; and we ourselves in them?”
+
+“I speak now,” said Babbalanja, “of the ravening for fame which even
+appeased, like thirst slaked in the desert, yields no felicity, but
+only relief; and which discriminates not in aught that will satisfy its
+cravings. But let me resume. Not an hour ago, Braid-Beard was telling
+us that story of prince Ottimo, who inodorous while living, expressed
+much delight at the prospect of being perfumed and embalmed, when dead.
+But was not Ottimo the most eccentric of mortals? For few men issue
+orders for their shrouds, to inspect their quality beforehand. Far more
+anxious are they about the texture of the sheets in which their living
+limbs lie. And, my lord, with some rare exceptions, does not all Mardi,
+by its actions, declare, that it is far better to be notorious now,
+than famous hereafter?”
+
+“A base sentiment, my lord,” said Yoomy. “Did not poor Bonja, the
+unappreciated poet, console himself for the neglect of his
+contemporaries, by inspiriting thoughts of the future?”
+
+“In plain words by bethinking him of the glorious harvest of bravos his
+ghost would reap for him,” said Babbalanja; “but Banjo,—Bonjo,—Binjo,—I
+never heard of him.”
+
+“Nor I,” said Mohi.
+
+“Nor I,” said Media.
+
+“Poor fellow!” cried Babbalanja; “I fear me his harvest is not yet
+ripe.”
+
+“Alas!” cried Yoomy; “he died more than a century ago.”
+
+“But now that you speak of unappreciated poets, Yoomy,” said
+Babbalanja, “Shall I give you a piece of my mind?” “Do,” said Mohi,
+stroking his beard.
+
+“He, who on all hands passes for a cypher to-day, if at all remembered
+hereafter, will be sure to pass for the same. For there is more
+likelihood of being overrated while living, than of being underrated
+when dead. And to insure your fame, you must die.”
+
+“A rather discouraging thought for your race. But answer: I assume that
+King Media is but a mortal like you; now, how may I best perpetuate my
+name?”
+
+Long pondered Babbalanja; then said, “Carve it, my lord, deep into a
+ponderous stone, and sink it, face downward, into the sea; for the
+unseen foundations of the deep are more enduring than the palpable tops
+of the mountains.”
+
+Sailing past Pella, we gained a view of its farther side; and seated in
+a lofty cleft, beheld a lonely fisherman; solitary as a seal on an
+iceberg; his motionless line in the water.
+
+“What recks he of the ten kings,” said Babbalanja.
+
+“Mohi,” said Media, “methinks there is another tradition concerning
+that rock: let us have it.”
+
+“In old times of genii and giants, there dwelt in barren lands, not
+very remote from our outer reef, but since submerged, a band of evil-
+minded, envious goblins, furlongs in stature, and with immeasurable
+arms; who from time to time cast covetous glances upon our blooming
+isles. Long they lusted; till at last, they waded through the sea,
+strode over the reef, and seizing the nearest islet, rolled it over and
+over, toward an adjoining outlet.
+
+“But the task was hard; and day-break surprised them in the midst of
+their audacious thieving; while in the very act of giving the devoted
+land another doughty surge and Somerset. Leaving it bottom upward and
+midway poised, gardens under water, its foundations in air, they
+precipitately fled; in their great haste, deserting a comrade, vainly
+struggling to liberate his foot caught beneath the overturned land.”
+
+“This poor fellow now raised such an outcry, as to awaken the god Upi,
+or the Archer, stretched out on a long cloud in the East; who forthwith
+resolved to make an example of the unwilling lingerer. Snatching his
+bow, he let fly an arrow. But overshooting its mark, it pierced through
+and through, the lofty promontory of a neighboring island; making an
+arch in it, which remaineth even unto this day. A second arrow,
+however, accomplished its errand: the slain giant sinking prone to the
+bottom.”
+
+“And now,” added Mohi, “glance over the gunwale, and you will see his
+remains petrified into white ribs of coral.”
+
+“Ay, there they are,” said Yoomy, looking down into the water where
+they gleamed. “A fanciful legend, Braid-beard.”
+
+“Very entertaining,” said Media.
+
+“Even so,” said Babbalanja. “But perhaps we lost time in listening to
+it; for though we know it, we are none the wiser.”
+
+“Be not a cynic,” said Media. “No pastime is lost time.”
+
+Musing a moment, Babbalanja replied, “My lord, that maxim may be good
+as it stands; but had you made six words of it, instead of six
+syllables, you had uttered a better and a deeper.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX.
+The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle-Song; And A Message Is Received
+From Abroad
+
+
+From seaward now came a breeze so blithesome and fresh, that it made us
+impatient of Babbalanja’s philosophy, and Mohi’s incredible legends.
+One and all, we called upon the minstrel Yoomy to give us something in
+unison with the spirited waves wide-foaming around us.
+
+“If my lord will permit, we will give Taji the Paddle-Chant of the
+warriors of King Bello.”
+
+“By all means,” said Media.
+
+So the three canoes were brought side to side; their sails rolled up;
+and paddles in hand, our paddlers seated themselves sideways on the
+gunwales; Yoomy, as leader, occupying the place of the foremast, or
+Bow-Paddler of the royal barge.
+
+Whereupon the six rows of paddle-blades being uplifted, and every eye
+on the minstrel, this song was sung, with actions corresponding; the
+canoes at last shooting through the water, with a violent roll.
+
+        (All.)
+    Thrice waved on high,
+    Our paddles fly:
+Thrice round the head, thrice dropt to feet:
+    And then well timed,
+    Of one stout mind,
+All fall, and back the waters heap!
+
+        (Bow-Paddler.)
+    Who lifts this chant?
+    Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+        (All.)
+The wild sea song, to the billows’ throng,
+    Rising, falling,
+    Hoarsely calling,
+Now high, now low, as fast we go,
+Fast on our flying foe!
+
+        (Bow-Paddler.)
+    Who lifts this chant?
+    Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+        (All.)
+Dip, dip, in the brine our paddles dip,
+Dip, dip, the fins of our swimming ship!
+    How the waters part,
+    As on we dart;
+      Our sharp prows fly,
+      And curl on high,
+As the upright fin of the rushing shark,
+Rushing fast and far on his flying mark!
+    Like him we prey;
+    Like him we slay;
+      Swim on the fog,
+      Our prow a blow!
+
+        (Bow-Paddler.)
+    Who lifts this chant?
+    Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+        (All.)
+Heap back; heap back; the waters back!
+Pile them high astern, in billows black;
+    Till we leave our wake,
+    In the slope we make;
+    And rush and ride,
+    On the torrent’s tide!
+
+
+Here we were overtaken by a swift gliding canoe, which, bearing down
+upon us before the wind, lowered its sail when close by: its occupants
+signing our paddlers to desist.
+
+I started.
+
+The strangers were three hooded damsels the enigmatical Queen Hautia’s
+heralds.
+
+Their pursuit surprised and perplexed me. Nor was there wanting a vague
+feeling of alarm to heighten these emotions. But perhaps I was
+mistaken, and this time they meant not me.
+
+Seated in the prow, the foremost waved her Iris flag. Cried Yoomy,
+“Some message! Taji, that Iris points to you.”
+
+It was then, I first divined, that some meaning must have lurked in
+those flowers they had twice brought me before.
+
+The second damsel now flung over to me Circe flowers; then, a faded
+jonquil, buried in a tuft of wormwood leaves.
+
+The third sat in the shallop’s stern, and as it glided from us, thrice
+waved oleanders.
+
+“What dumb show is this?” cried Media. “But it looks like poetry:
+minstrel, you should know.”
+
+“Interpret then,” said I.
+
+“Shall I, then, be your Flora’s flute, and Hautia’s dragoman? Held
+aloft, the Iris signified a message. These purple-woven Circe flowers
+mean that some spell is weaving. That golden, pining jonquil, which you
+hold, buried in those wormwood leaves, says plainly to you—Bitter love
+in absence.”
+
+Said Media, “Well done, Taji, you have killed a queen.” “Yet no Queen
+Hautia have these eyes beheld.”
+
+Said Babbalanja, “The thrice waved oleanders, Yoomy; what meant they?”
+
+“Beware—beware—beware.”
+
+“Then that, at least, seems kindly meant,” said Babbalanja; “Taji,
+beware of Hautia.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI.
+They Land Upon The Island Of Juam
+
+
+Crossing the lagoon, our course now lay along the reef to Juam; a name
+bestowed upon one of the largest islands hereabout; and also,
+collectively, upon several wooded isles engulfing it, which together
+were known as the dominions of one monarch. That monarch was Donjalolo.
+Just turned of twenty-five, he was accounted not only the handsomest
+man in his dominions, but throughout the lagoon. His comeliness,
+however, was so feminine, that he was sometimes called “Fonoo,” or the
+Girl.
+
+Our first view of Juam was imposing. A dark green pile of cliffs,
+towering some one hundred toises; at top, presenting a range of steep,
+gable-pointed projections; as if some Titanic hammer and chisel had
+shaped the mass.
+
+Sailing nearer, we perceived an extraordinary rolling of the sea; which
+bursting into the lagoon through an adjoining breach in the reef,
+surged toward Juam in enormous billows. At last, dashing against the
+wall of the cliff; they played there in unceasing fountains. But under
+the brow of a beetling crag, the spray came and went unequally. There,
+the blue billows seemed swallowed up, and lost.
+
+Right regally was Juam guarded. For, at this point, the rock was
+pierced by a cave, into which the great waves chased each other like
+lions; after a hollow, subterraneous roaring issuing forth with manes
+disheveled.
+
+Cautiously evading the dangerous currents here ruffling the lagoon, we
+rounded the wall of cliff; and shot upon a smooth expanse; on one side,
+hemmed in by the long, verdent, northern shore of Juam; and across the
+water, sentineled by its tributary islets.
+
+With sonorous Vee-Vee in the shark’s mouth, we swept toward the beach,
+tumultuous with a throng.
+
+Our canoes were secured. And surrounded by eager glances, we passed the
+lower ends of several populous valleys; and crossing a wide, open
+meadow, gradually ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs.
+Here, we wended our way down a narrow defile, almost cleaving this
+quarter of the island to its base. Black crags frowned overhead: among
+them the shouts of the Islanders reverberated. Yet steeper grew the
+defile, and more overhanging the crags till at last, the keystone of
+the arch seemed dropped into its place. We found ourselves in a
+subterranean tunnel, dimly lighted by a span of white day at the end.
+
+Emerging, what a scene was revealed! All round, embracing a circuit of
+some three leagues, stood heights inaccessible, here and there, forming
+buttresses, sheltering deep recesses between. The bosom of the place
+was vivid with verdure.
+
+Shining aslant into this wild hollow, the afternoon sun lighted up its
+eastern side with tints of gold. But opposite, brooded a somber shadow,
+double-shading the secret places between the salient spurs of the
+mountains. Thus cut in twain by masses of day and night, it seemed as
+if some Last Judgment had been enacted in the glen.
+
+No sooner did we emerge from the defile, than we became sensible of a
+dull, jarring sound; and Yoomy was almost tempted to turn and flee,
+when informed that the sea-cavern, whose mouth we had passed, was
+believed to penetrate deep into the opposite hills; and that the
+surface of the amphitheater was depressed beneath that of the lagoon.
+But all over the lowermost hillsides, and sloping into the glen, stood
+grand old groves; still and stately, as if no insolent waves were
+throbbing in the mountain’s heart.
+
+Such was Willamilla, the hereditary abode of the young monarch of Juam.
+
+Was Yillah immured in this strange retreat? But from those around us
+naught could we learn.
+
+Our attention was now directed to the habitations of the glen;
+comprised in two handsome villages; one to the west, the other to the
+east; both stretching along the base of the cliffs.
+
+Said Media, “Had we arrived at Willamilla in the morning, we had found
+Donjalolo and his court in the eastern village; but being afternoon, we
+must travel farther, and seek him in his western retreat; for that is
+now in the shade.”
+
+Wending our way, Media added, that aside from his elevated station as a
+monarch, Donjalolo was famed for many uncommon traits; but more
+especially for certain peculiar deprivations, under which he labored.
+
+Whereupon Braid-Beard unrolled his old chronicles; and regaled us with
+the history, which will be found in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII.
+A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi
+
+
+Many ages ago, there reigned in Juam a king called Teei. This Teei’s
+succession to the sovereignty was long disputed by his brother Marjora;
+who at last rallying round him an army, after many vicissitudes,
+defeated the unfortunate monarch in a stout fight of clubs on the
+beach.
+
+In those days, Willamilla during a certain period of the year was a
+place set apart for royal games and diversions; and was furnished with
+suitable accommodations for king and court. From its peculiar position,
+moreover, it was regarded as the last stronghold of the Juam monarchy:
+in remote times having twice withstood the most desperate assaults from
+without. And when Roonoonoo, a famous upstart, sought to subdue all the
+isles in this part of the Archipelago, it was to Willamilla that the
+banded kings had repaired to take counsel together; and while there
+conferring, were surprised at the sudden onslaught of Roonoonoo in
+person. But in the end, the rebel was captured, he and all his army,
+and impaled on the tops of the hills.
+
+Now, defeated and fleeing for his life, Teei with his surviving
+followers was driven across the plain toward the mountains. But to cut
+him off from all escape to inland Willamilla, Marjora dispatched a
+fleet band of warriors to occupy the entrance of the defile.
+Nevertheless, Teei the pursued ran faster than his pursuers; first
+gained the spot; and with his chiefs, fled swiftly down the gorge,
+closely hunted by Marjora’s men. But arriving at the further end, they
+in vain sought to defend it. And after much desperate fighting, the
+main body of the foe corning up with great slaughter the fugitives were
+driven into the glen.
+
+They ran to the opposite wall of cliff; where turning, they fought at
+bay, blood for blood, and life for life, till at last, overwhelmed by
+numbers, they were all put to the point of the spear.
+
+With fratricidal hate, singled out by the ferocious Marjora, Teei fell
+by that brother’s hand. When stripping from the body the regal girdle,
+the victor wound it round his own loins; thus proclaiming himself king
+over Juam.
+
+Long torn by this intestine war, the island acquiesced in the new
+sovereignty. But at length a sacred oracle declared, that since the
+conqueror had slain his brother in deep Willamilla, so that Teei never
+more issued from that refuge of death; therefore, the same fate should
+be Marjora’s; for never, thenceforth, from that glen, should he go
+forth; neither Marjora; nor any son of his girdled loins; nor his son’s
+sons; nor the uttermost scion of his race.
+
+But except this denunciation, naught was denounced against the usurper;
+who, mindful of the tenure by which he reigned, ruled over the island
+for many moons; at his death bequeathing the girdle to his son.
+
+In those days, the wildest superstitions concerning the interference of
+the gods in things temporal, prevailed to a much greater extent than at
+present. Hence Marjora himself, called sometimes in the traditions of
+the island, The-Heart-of-Black-Coral, even unscrupulous Marjora had
+quailed before the oracle. “He bowed his head,” say the legends. Nor
+was it then questioned, by his most devoted adherents, that had he
+dared to act counter to that edict, he had dropped dead, the very
+instant he went under the shadow of the defile. This persuasion also
+guided the conduct of the son of Marjora, and that of his grandson.
+
+But there at last came to pass a change in the popular fancies
+concerning this ancient anathema. The penalty denounced against the
+posterity of the usurper should they issue from the glen, came to be
+regarded as only applicable to an invested monarch, not to his
+relatives, or heirs.
+
+A most favorable construction of the ban; for all those related to the
+king, freely passed in and out of Willamilla.
+
+From the time of the usurpation, there had always been observed a
+certain ceremony upon investing the heir to the sovereignty with the
+girdle of Teei. Upon these occasions, the chief priests of the island
+were present, acting an important part. For the space of as many days,
+as there had reigned kings of Marjora’s dynasty, the inner mouth of the
+defile remained sealed; the new monarch placing the last stone in the
+gap. This symbolized his relinquishment forever of all purpose of
+passing out of the glen. And without this observance, was no king
+girdled in Juam.
+
+It was likewise an invariable custom, for the heir to receive the regal
+investiture immediately upon the decease of his sire. No delay was
+permitted. And instantly upon being girdled, he proceeded to take part
+in the ceremony of closing the cave; his predecessor yet remaining
+uninterred on the purple mat where he died.
+
+In the history of the island, three instances were recorded; wherein,
+upon the vacation of the sovereignty, the immediate heir had
+voluntarily renounced all claim to the succession, rather than
+surrender the privilege of roving, to which he had been entitled, as a
+prince of the blood.
+
+Said Rani, one of these young princes, in reply to the remonstrances of
+his friends, “What! shall I be a king, only to be a slave? Teei’s
+girdle would clasp my waist less tightly, than my soul would be banded
+by the mountains of Willamilla. A subject, I am free. No slave in Juam
+but its king; for all the tassels round his loins.”
+
+To guard against a similar resolution in the mind of his only son, the
+wise sire of Donjalolo, ardently desirous of perpetuating his dignities
+in a child so well beloved, had from his earliest infancy, restrained
+the boy from passing out of the glen, to contract in the free air of
+the Archipelago, tastes and predilections fatal to the inheritance of
+the girdle.
+
+But as he grew in years, so impatient became young Donjalolo of the
+king his father’s watchfulness over him, though hitherto a most dutiful
+son, that at last he was prevailed upon by his youthful companions to
+appoint a day, on which to go abroad, and visit Mardi. Hearing this
+determination, the old king sought to vanquish it. But in vain. And
+early on the morning of the day, that Donjalolo was to set out, he
+swallowed poison, and died; in order to force his son into the instant
+assumption of the honors thus suddenly inherited.
+
+The event, but not its dreadful circumstances, was communicated to the
+prince; as with a gay party of young chiefs, he was about to enter the
+mouth of the defile.
+
+“My sire dead!” cried Donjalolo. “So sudden, it seems a bolt from
+Heaven.” And bursting into exclamations of grief, he wept upon the
+bosom of Talara his friend.
+
+But starting from his side:—“My fate converges to a point. If I but
+cross that shadow, my kingdom is lost. One lifting of my foot, and the
+girdle goes to my proud uncle Darfi, who would so joy to be my master.
+Haughty Dwarf! Oh Oro! would that I had ere this passed thee, fatal
+cavern; and seen for myself, what outer Mardi is. Say ye true,
+comrades, that Willamilla is less lovely than the valleys without? that
+there is bright light in the eyes of the maidens of Mina? and wisdom in
+the hearts of the old priests of Maramma; that it is pleasant to tread
+the green earth where you will; and breathe the free ocean air? Would,
+oh would, that I were but the least of yonder sun-clouds, that look
+down alike on Willamilla and all places besides, that I might determine
+aright. Yet why do I pause? did not Rani, and Atama, and Mardonna, my
+ancestors, each see for himself, free Mardi; and did they not fly the
+proffered girdle; choosing rather to be free to come and go, than bury
+themselves forever in this fatal glen? Oh Mardi! Mardi! art thou then
+so fair to see? Is liberty a thing so glorious? Yet can I be no king,
+and behold thee! Too late, too late, to view thy charms and then
+return. My sire! my sire! thou hast wrung my heart with this agony of
+doubt. Tell me, comrades,—for ye have seen it,—is Mardi sweeter to
+behold, than it is royal to reign over Juam? Silent, are ye? Knowing
+what ye do, were ye me, would ye be kings? Tell me, Talara.—No king: no
+king:—that were to obey, and not command. And none hath Donjalolo ere
+obeyed but the king his father. A king, and my voice may be heard in
+farthest Mardi, though I abide in narrow Willamilla. My sire! my sire!
+Ye flying clouds, what look ye down upon? Tell me, what ye see abroad?
+Methinks sweet spices breathe from out the cave.”
+
+“Hail, Donjalolo, King of Juam,” now sounded with acclamations from the
+groves.
+
+Starting, the young prince beheld a multitude approaching: warriors
+with spears, and maidens with flowers; and Kubla, a priest, lifting on
+high the tasseled girdle of Teei, and waving it toward him.
+
+The young chiefs fell back. Kubla, advancing, came close to the prince,
+and unclasping the badge of royalty, exclaimed, “Donjalolo, this
+instant it is king or subject with thee: wilt thou be girdled monarch?”
+
+Gazing one moment up the dark defile, then staring vacantly, Donjalolo
+turned and met the eager gaze of Darfi. Stripping off his mantle, the
+next instant he was a king.
+
+Loud shouted the multitude, and exulted; but after mutely assisting at
+the closing of the cavern, the new-girdled monarch retired sadly to his
+dwelling, and was not seen again for many days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII.
+Something More Of The Prince
+
+
+Previous to recording our stay in his dominions, it only remains to be
+related of Donjalolo, that after assuming the girdle, a change came
+over him.
+
+During the lifetime of his father, he had been famed for his temperance
+and discretion. But when Mardi was forever shut out; and he remembered
+the law of his isle, interdicting abdication to its kings; he gradually
+fell into desperate courses, to drown the emotions at times distracting
+him.
+
+His generous spirit thirsting after some energetic career, found itself
+narrowed down within the little glen of Willamilla, where ardent
+impulses seemed idle. But these are hard to die; and repulsed all
+round, recoil upon themselves.
+
+So with Donjalolo; who, in many a riotous scene, wasted the powers
+which might have compassed the noblest designs.
+
+Not many years had elapsed since the death of the king, his father. But
+the still youthful prince was no longer the bright-eyed and elastic boy
+who at the dawn of day had sallied out to behold the landscapes of the
+neighboring isles.
+
+Not more effeminate Sardanapalus, than he. And, at intervals, he was
+the victim of unaccountable vagaries; haunted by specters, and beckoned
+to by the ghosts of his sires.
+
+At times, loathing his vicious pursuits, which brought him no solid
+satisfaction, but ever filled him with final disgust, he would resolve
+to amend his ways; solacing himself for his bitter captivity, by the
+society of the wise and discreet.
+
+But brief the interval of repentance. Anew, he burst into excesses, a
+hundred fold more insane than ever.
+
+Thus vacillating between virtue and vice; to neither constant, and
+upbraided by both; his mind, like his person in the glen, was
+continually passing and repassing between opposite extremes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV.
+Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo
+
+
+From the mouth of the cavern, a broad shaded way over-arched by
+fraternal trees embracing in mid-air, conducted us to a cross-path, on
+either hand leading to the opposite cliffs, shading the twin villages
+before mentioned.
+
+Level as a meadow, was the bosom of the glen. Here, nodding with green
+orchards of the Bread-fruit and the Palm; there, flashing with golden
+plantations of the Banana. Emerging from these, we came out upon a
+grassy mead, skirting a projection of the mountain. And soon we crossed
+a bridge of boughs, spanning a trench, thickly planted with roots of
+the Tara, like alligators, or Hollanders, reveling in the soft
+alluvial. Strolling on, the wild beauty of the mountains excited our
+attention. The topmost crags poured over with vines; which, undulating
+in the air, seemed leafy cascades; their sources the upland groves.
+
+Midway up the precipice, along a shelf of rock, sprouted the
+multitudinous roots of an apparently trunkless tree. Shooting from
+under the shallow soil, they spread all over the rocks below, covering
+them with an intricate net-work. While far aloft, great boughs—each a
+copse—clambered to the very summit of the mountain; then bending over,
+struck anew into the soil; forming along the verge an interminable
+colonnade; all manner of antic architecture standing against the sky.
+
+According to Mohi, this tree was truly wonderful; its seed having been
+dropped from the moon; where were plenty more similar forests, causing
+the dark spots on its surface.
+
+Here and there, the cool fluid in the veins of the mountains gushed
+forth in living springs; their waters received in green mossy tanks,
+half buried in grasses.
+
+In one place, a considerable stream, bounding far out from a wooded
+height, ere reaching the ground was dispersed in a wide misty shower,
+falling so far from the base of the cliff; that walking close
+underneath, you felt little moisture. Passing this fall of vapors, we
+spied many Islanders taking a bath.
+
+But what is yonder swaying of the foliage? And what now issues forth,
+like a habitation astir? Donjalolo drawing nigh to his guests.
+
+He came in a fair sedan; a bower, resting upon three long, parallel
+poles, borne by thirty men, gayly attired; five at each pole-end.
+Decked with dyed tappas, and looped with garlands of newly-plucked
+flowers, from which, at every step, the fragrant petals were blown;
+with a sumptuous, elastic motion the gay sedan came on; leaving behind
+it a long, rosy wake of fluttering leaves and odors.
+
+Drawing near, it revealed a slender, enervate youth, of pallid beauty,
+reclining upon a crimson mat, near the festooned arch of the bower. His
+anointed head was resting against the bosom of a girl; another stirred
+the air, with a fan of Pintado plumes. The pupils of his eyes were as
+floating isles in the sea. In a soft low tone he murmured “Media!”
+
+The bearers paused; and Media advancing; the Island Kings bowed their
+foreheads together.
+
+Through tubes ignited at the end, Donjaloln’s reclining attendants now
+blew an aromatic incense around him. These were composed of the
+stimulating leaves of the “Aina,” mixed with the long yellow blades of
+a sweet-scented upland grass; forming a hollow stem. In general, the
+agreeable fumes of the “Aina” were created by one’s own inhalations;
+but Donjalolo deeming the solace too dearly purchased by any exertion
+of the royal lungs, regaled himself through those of his attendants,
+whose lips were as moss-rose buds after a shower.
+
+In silence the young prince now eyed us attentively; meanwhile gently
+waving his hand, to obtain a better view through the wreaths of vapor.
+He was about to address us, when chancing to catch a glimpse of Samoa,
+he suddenly started; averted his glance; and wildly commanded the
+warrior out of sight. Upon this, his attendants would have soothed him;
+and Media desired the Upoluan to withdraw.
+
+While we were yet lost in wonder at this scene, Donjalolo, with eyes
+closed, fell back into the arms of his damsels. Recovering, he fetched
+a deep sigh, and gazed vacantly around.
+
+It seems, that he had fancied Samoa the noon-day specter of his
+ancestor Marjora; the usurper having been deprived of an arm in the
+battle which gained him the girdle. Poor prince: this was one of those
+crazy conceits, so puzzling to his subjects.
+
+Media now hastened to assure Donjalolo, that Samoa, though no cherub to
+behold, was good flesh and blood, nevertheless. And soon the king
+unconcernedly gazed; his monomania having departed as a dream.
+
+But still suffering from the effects of an overnight feast, he
+presently murmured forth a desire to be left to his women; adding that
+his people would not fail to provide for the entertainment of his
+guests.
+
+The curtains of the sedan were now drawn; and soon it disappeared in
+the groves. Journeying on, ere long we arrived at the western side of
+the glen; where one of the many little arbors scattered among the
+trees, was assigned for our abode. Here, we reclined to an agreeable
+repast. After which, we strolled forth to view the valley at large;
+more especially the far-famed palaces of the prince.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV.
+Time And Temples
+
+
+In the oriental Pilgrimage of the pious old Purchas, and in the fine
+old folio Voyages of Hakluyt, Thevenot, Ramusio, and De Bry, we read of
+many glorious old Asiatic temples, very long in erecting. And veracious
+Gaudentia di Lucca hath a wondrous narration of the time consumed in
+rearing that mighty three-hundred-and-seventy-five- pillared Temple of
+the Year, somewhere beyond Libya; whereof, the columns did signify
+days, and all round fronted upon concentric zones of palaces, cross-cut
+by twelve grand avenues symbolizing the signs of the zodiac, all
+radiating from the sun-dome in their midst. And in that wild eastern
+tale of his, Marco Polo tells us, how the Great Mogul began him a
+pleasure-palace on so imperial a scale, that his grandson had much ado
+to complete it.
+
+But no matter for marveling all this: great towers take time to
+construct.
+
+And so of all else.
+
+And that which long endures full-fledged, must have long lain in the
+germ. And duration is not of the future, but of the past; and eternity
+is eternal, because it has been, and though a strong new monument be
+builded to-day, it only is lasting because its blocks are old as the
+sun. It is not the Pyramids that are ancient, but the eternal granite
+whereof they are made; which had been equally ancient though yet in the
+quarry. For to make an eternity, we must build with eternities; whence,
+the vanity of the cry for any thing alike durable and new; and the
+folly of the reproach—Your granite hath come from the old-fashioned
+hills. For we are not gods and creators; and the controversialists have
+debated, whether indeed the All-Plastic Power itself can do more than
+mold. In all the universe is but one original; and the very suns must
+to their source for their fire; and we Prometheuses must to them for
+ours; which, when had, only perpetual Vestal tending will keep alive.
+
+But let us back from fire to store. No fine firm fabric ever yet grew
+like a gourd. Nero’s House of Gold was not raised in a day; nor the
+Mexican House of the Sun; nor the Alhambra; nor the Escurial; nor
+Titus’s Amphitheater; nor the Illinois Mounds; nor Diana’s great
+columns at Ephesus; nor Pompey’s proud Pillar; nor the Parthenon; nor
+the Altar of Belus; nor Stonehenge; nor Solomon’s Temple; nor Tadmor’s
+towers; nor Susa’s bastions; nor Persepolis’ pediments. Round and
+round, the Moorish turret at Seville was not wound heavenward in the
+revolution of a day; and from its first founding, five hundred years
+did circle, ere Strasbourg’s great spire lifted its five hundred feet
+into the air. No: nor were the great grottos of Elephanta hewn out in
+an hour; nor did the Troglodytes dig Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave in a sun;
+nor that of Trophonius, nor Antiparos; nor the Giant’s Causeway. Nor
+were the subterranean arched sewers of Etruria channeled in a trice;
+nor the airy arched aqueducts of Nerva thrown over their values in the
+ides of a month. Nor was Virginia’s Natural Bridge worn under in a
+year; nor, in geology, were the eternal Grampians upheaved in an age.
+And who shall count the cycles that revolved ere earth’s interior
+sedimentary strata were crystalized into stone. Nor Peak of Piko, nor
+Teneriffe, were chiseled into obelisks in a decade; nor had Mount Athos
+been turned into Alexander’s statue so soon. And the bower of
+Artaxerxes took a whole Persian summer to grow; and the Czar’s Ice
+Palace a long Muscovite winter to congéal. No, no: nor was the Pyramid
+of Cheops masoned in a month; though, once built, the sands left by the
+deluge might not have submerged such a pile. Nor were the broad boughs
+of Charles’ Oak grown in a spring; though they outlived the royal
+dynasties of Tudor and Stuart. Nor were the parts of the great Iliad
+put together in haste; though old Homer’s temple shall lift up its
+dome, when St. Peter’s is a legend. Even man himself lives months ere
+his Maker deems him fit to be born; and ere his proud shaft gains its
+full stature, twenty-one long Julian years must elapse. And his whole
+mortal life brings not his immortal soul to maturity; nor will all
+eternity perfect him. Yea, with uttermost reverence, as to human
+understanding, increase of dominion seems increase of power; and day by
+day new planets are being added to elder-born Saturn, even as six
+thousand years ago our own Earth made one more in this system; so, in
+incident, not in essence, may the Infinite himself be not less than
+more infinite now, than when old Aldebaran rolled forth from his hand.
+And if time was, when this round Earth, which to innumerable mortals
+has seemed an empire never to be wholly explored; which, in its seas,
+concealed all the Indies over four thousand five hundred years; if time
+was, when this great quarry of Assyrias and Romes was not extant; then,
+time may have been, when the whole material universe lived its Dark
+Ages; yea, when the Ineffable Silence, proceeding from its unimaginable
+remoteness, espied it as an isle in the sea. And herein is no
+derogation. For the Immeasurable’s altitude is not heightened by the
+arches of Mahomet’s heavens; and were all space a vacuum, yet would it
+be a fullness; for to Himself His own universe is He.
+
+Thus deeper and deeper into Time’s endless tunnel, does the winged
+soul, like a night-hawk, wend her wild way; and finds eternities before
+and behind; and her last limit is her everlasting beginning.
+
+But sent over the broad flooded sphere, even Noah’s dove came back, and
+perched on his hand. So comes back my spirit to me, and folds up her
+wings.
+
+Thus, then, though Time be the mightiest of Alarics, yet is he the
+mightiest mason of all. And a tutor, and a counselor, and a physician,
+and a scribe, and a poet, and a sage, and a king.
+
+Yea, and a gardener, as ere long will be shown.
+
+But first must we return to the glen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI.
+A Pleasant Place For A Lounge
+
+
+Whether the hard condition of their kingly state, very naturally
+demanding some luxurious requital, prevailed upon the monarchs of Juam
+to house themselves so delightfully as they did; whether buried alive
+in their glen, they sought to center therein a secret world of
+enjoyment; however it may have been, throughout the Archipelago this
+saying was a proverb—“You are lodged like the king in Willamilla.”
+Hereby was expressed the utmost sumptuousness of a palace.
+
+A well warranted saying; for of all the bright places, where my soul
+loves to linger, the haunts of Donjalolo are most delicious.
+
+In the eastern quarter of the glen was the House of the Morning. This
+fanciful palace was raised upon a natural mound, many rods square,
+almost completely filling up a deep recess between deep-green and
+projecting cliffs, overlooking many abodes distributed in the shadows
+of the groves beyond.
+
+Now, if it indeed be, that from the time employed in its construction,
+any just notion may be formed of the stateliness of an edifice, it must
+needs be determined, that this retreat of Donjalolo could not be
+otherwise than imposing.
+
+Full five hundred moons was the palace in completing; for by some
+architectural arborist, its quadrangular foundations had been laid in
+seed-cocoanuts, requiring that period to sprout up into pillars. In
+front, these were horizontally connected, by elaborately carved beams,
+of a scarlet hue, inserted into the vital wood; which, swelling out,
+and over lapping, firmly secured them. The beams supported the rafters,
+inclining from the rear; while over the aromatic grasses covering the
+roof, waved the tufted tops of the Palms, green capitals to their dusky
+shafts.
+
+Through and through this vibrating verdure, bright birds flitted and
+sang; the scented and variegated thatch seemed a hanging-garden; and
+between it and the Palm tops, was leaf-hung an arbor in the air.
+
+Without these columns, stood a second and third colonnade, forming the
+most beautiful bowers; advancing through which, you fancied that the
+palace beyond must be chambered in a fountain, or frozen in a crystal.
+Three sparkling rivulets flowing from the heights were led across its
+summit, through great trunks half buried in the thatch; and emptying
+into a sculptured channel, running along the eaves, poured over in one
+wide sheet, plaited and transparent. Received into a basin beneath,
+they were thence conducted down the vale.
+
+The sides of the palace were hedged by Diomi bushes bearing a flower,
+from its perfume, called Lenora, or Sweet Breath; and within these
+odorous hedges, were heavy piles of mats, richly dyed and embroidered.
+
+Here lounging of a glowing noon, the plaited cascade playing, the
+verdure waving, and the birds melodious, it was hard to say, whether
+you were an inmate of a garden in the glen, or a grotto in the sea.
+
+But enough for the nonce, of the House of the Morning. Cross we the
+hollow, to the House of the Afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII.
+The House Of The Afternoon
+
+
+For the most part, the House of the Afternoon was but a wing built
+against a mansion wrought by the hand of Nature herself; a grotto
+running into the side of the mountain. From high over the mouth of this
+grotto, sloped a long arbor, supported by great blocks of stone, rudely
+chiseled into the likeness of idols, each bearing a carved lizard on
+its chest: a sergeant’s guard of the gods condescendingly doing duty as
+posts.
+
+From the grotto thus vestibuled, issued hilariously forth the most
+considerable stream of the glen; which, seemingly overjoyed to find
+daylight in Willamilla, sprang into the arbor with a cheery, white
+bound. But its youthful enthusiasm was soon repressed; its waters being
+caught in a large stone basin, scooped out of the natural rock; whence,
+staid and decorous, they traversed sundry moats; at last meandering
+away, to join floods with the streams trained to do service at the
+other end of the vale.
+
+Truant streams: the livelong day wending their loitering path to the
+subterraneous outlet, flowing into which, they disappeared. But no
+wonder they loitered; passing such ravishing landscapes. Thus with
+life: man bounds out of night; runs and babbles in the sun; then
+returns to his darkness again; though, peradventure, once more to
+emerge.
+
+But the grotto was not a mere outlet to the stream. Flowing through a
+dark flume in the rock, on both sides it left a dry, elevated shelf, to
+which you ascend from the arbor by three artificially-wrought steps,
+sideways disposed, to avoid the spray of the rejoicing cataract.
+Mounting these, and pursuing the edge of the flume, the grotto
+gradually expands and heightens; your way lighted by rays in the inner
+distance. At last you come to a lofty subterraneous dome, lit from
+above by a cleft in the mountain; while full before you, in the
+opposite wall, from a low, black arch, midway up, and inaccessible, the
+stream, with a hollow ring and a dash, falls in a long, snowy column
+into a bottomless pool, whence, after many an eddy and whirl, it
+entered the flume, and away with a rush. Half hidden from view by an
+overhanging brow of the rock, the white fall looked like the sheeted
+ghost of the grotto.
+
+Yet gallantly bedecked was the cave, as any old armorial hall hung
+round with banners and arras. Streaming from the cleft, vines swung in
+the air; or crawled along the rocks, wherever a tendril could be fixed.
+High up, their leaves were green; but lower down, they were shriveled;
+and dyed of many colors; and tattered and torn with much rustling; as
+old banners again; sore raveled with much triumphing.
+
+In the middle of this hall in the hill was incarcerated the stone image
+of one Demi, the tutelar deity of Willamina. All green and oozy like a
+stone under water, poor Demi looked as if sore harassed with sciatics
+and lumbagos.
+
+But he was cheered from aloft, by the promise of receiving a garland
+all blooming on his crown; the Dryads sporting in the woodlands above,
+forever peeping down the cleft, and essaying to drop him a coronal.
+
+Now, the still, panting glen of Willamilla, nested so close by the
+mountains, and a goodly green mark for the archer in the sun, would
+have been almost untenable were it not for the grotto. Hereby, it
+breathed the blessed breezes of Omi; a mountain promontory buttressing
+the island to the east, receiving the cool stream of the upland Trades;
+much pleasanter than the currents beneath.
+
+At all times, even in the brooding noon-day, a gush of cool air came
+hand-in-hand with the cool waters, that burst with a shout into the
+palace of Donjalolo. And as, after first refreshing the king, as in
+loyalty bound, the stream flowed at large through the glen, and bathed
+its verdure; so, the blessed breezes of Omi, not only made pleasant the
+House of the Afternoon; but finding ample outlet in its wide, open
+front, blew forth upon the bosom of all Willamilla.
+
+“Come let us take the air of Omi,” was a very common saying in the
+glen. And the speaker would hie with his comrade toward the grotto; and
+flinging himself on the turf, pass his hand through his locks, and
+recline; making a joy and a business of breathing; for truly the
+breezes of Omi were as air-wine to the lungs.
+
+Yet was not this breeze over-cool; though at times the zephyrs grew
+boisterous. Especially at the season of high sea, when the strong
+Trades drawn down the cleft in the mountain, rushed forth from the
+grotto with wonderful force. Crossing it then, you had much ado to keep
+your robe on your back.
+
+Thus much for the House of the Afternoon. Whither—after spending the
+shady morning under the eastern cliffs of the glen—daily, at a certain
+hour, Donjalolo in his palanquin was borne; there, finding new shades;
+and there tarrying till evening; when again he was transported whence
+he came: thereby anticipating the revolution of the sun. Thus dodging
+day’s luminary through life, the prince hied to and fro in his
+dominions; on his smooth, spotless brow Sol’s rays never shining.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII.
+Babbalanja Solus
+
+
+Of the House of the Afternoon something yet remains to be said.
+
+It was chiefly distinguished by its pavement, where, according to the
+strange customs of the isle, were inlaid the reputed skeletons of
+Donjalolo’s sires; each surrounded by a mosaic of corals,—red, white,
+and black, intermixed with vitreous stones fallen from the skies in a
+meteoric shower. These delineated the tattooing of the departed. Near
+by, were imbedded their arms: mace, bow, and spear, in similar
+marquetry; and over each skull was the likeness of a scepter.
+
+First and conspicuous lay the half-decayed remains of Marjora, the
+father of these Coral Kings; by his side, the storied, sickle-shaped
+weapon, wherewith he slew his brother Teei.
+
+“Line of kings and row of scepters,” said Babbalanja as he gazed.
+“Donjalolo, come forth and ponder on thy sires. Here they lie, from
+dread Marjora down to him who fathered thee. Here are their bones,
+their spears, and their javelins; their scepters, and the very fashion
+of their tattooing: all that can be got together of what they were.
+Tell me, oh king, what are thy thoughts? Dotest thou on these thy
+sires? Art thou more truly royal, that they were kings? Or more a man,
+that they were men? Is it a fable, or a verity about Marjora and the
+murdered Teei? But here is the mighty conqueror,—ask him. Speak to him:
+son to sire: king to king. Prick him; beg; buffet; entreat; spurn;
+split the globe, he will not budge. Walk over and over thy whole
+ancestral line, and they will not start. They are not here. Ay, the
+dead are not to be found, even in their graves. Nor have they simply
+departed; for they willed not to go; they died not by choice;
+whithersoever they have gone, thither have they been dragged; and if so
+be, they are extinct, their nihilities went not more against their
+grain, than their forced quitting of Mardi. Either way, something has
+become of them that they sought not. Truly, had stout-hearted Marjora
+sworn to live here in Willamilla for ay, and kept the vow, that would
+have been royalty indeed; but here he lies. Marjora! rise! Juam
+revolteth! Lo, I stamp upon thy scepter; base menials tread upon thee
+where thou hest! Up, king, up! What? no reply? Are not these bones
+thine? Oh, how the living triumph over the dead! Marjora! answer. Art
+thou? or art thou not? I see thee not; I hear thee not; I feel thee
+not; eyes, ears, hands, are worthless to test thy being; and if thou
+art, thou art something beyond all human thought to compass. We must
+have other faculties to know thee by. Why, thou art not even a
+sightless sound; not the echo of an echo; here are thy bones.
+Donjalolo, methinks I see thee fallen upon by assassins:—which of thy
+fathers riseth to the rescue? I see thee dying:—which of them telleth
+thee what cheer beyond the grave? But they have gone to the land
+unknown. Meet phrase. Where is it? Not one of Oro’s priests telleth a
+straight story concerning it; ’twill be hard finding their paradises.
+Touching the life of Alma, in Mohi’s chronicles, ’tis related, that a
+man was once raised from the tomb. But rubbed he not his eyes, and
+stared he not most vacantly? Not one revelation did he make. Ye gods!
+to have been a bystander there!
+
+“At best, ’tis but a hope. But will a longing bring the thing desired?
+Doth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative. The fire I
+shrink from, may consume me.—But dead, and yet alive; alive, yet
+dead;—thus say the sages of Maramma. But die we then living? Yet if our
+dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our unborn sons? For
+backward or forward, eternity is the same; already have we been the
+nothing we dread to be. Icy thought! But bring it home,—it will not
+stay. What ho, hot heart of mine: to beat thus lustily awhile, to feel
+in the red rushing blood, and then be ashes,—can this be so? But peace,
+peace, thou liar in me, telling me I am immortal—shall I not be as
+these bones? To come to this! But the balsam-dropping palms, whose
+boles run milk, whose plumes wave boastful in the air, they perish in
+their prime, and bow their blasted trunks. Nothing abideth; the river
+of yesterday floweth not to-day; the sun’s rising is a setting; living
+is dying; the very mountains melt; and all revolve:—systems and
+asteroids; the sun wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a
+revolution. Ah gods! in all this universal stir, am I to prove one
+stable thing?
+
+“Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dust of
+beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and filch
+their skulls. This, great Marjora’s arm? No, some old paralytic’s. Ye,
+kings? ye, men? Where are your vouchers? I do reject your brother-hood,
+ye libelous remains. But no, no; despise them not, oh Babbalanja! Thy
+own skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through this mortal
+life; and aye would view it, but for kind nature’s screen; thou art
+death alive; and e’en to what’s before thee wilt thou come. Ay, thy
+children’s children will walk over thee: thou, voiceless as a calm.”
+
+And over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX.
+The Center Of Many Circumferences
+
+
+Like Donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we pace to
+the House of the Morning.
+
+In its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to less
+public apartments.
+
+Traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you to
+open ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of the
+prince: a square structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, as
+inscrutable. Down to the very ground, its walls are thatched; but on
+the farther side a passage-way opens, which you enter. But not yet are
+you within. Scarce a yard distant, stands an inner thatched wall, blank
+as the first. Passing along the intervening corridor, lighted by narrow
+apertures, you reach the opposite side, and a second opening is
+revealed. This entering, another corridor; lighted as the first, but
+more dim, and a third blank wall. And thus, three times three, you worm
+round and round, the twilight lessening as you proceed; until at last,
+you enter the citadel itself: the innermost arbor of a nest; whereof,
+each has its roof, distinct from the rest.
+
+The heart of the place is but small; illuminated by a range of open
+sky-lights, downward contracting.
+
+Innumerable as the leaves of an endless folio, multitudinous mats cover
+the floor; whereon reclining by night, like Pharaoh on the top of his
+patrimonial pile, the inmate looks heavenward, and heavenward only;
+gazing at the torchlight processions in the skies, when, in state, the
+suns march to be crowned.
+
+And here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered the
+universe-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef- sashed,
+mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped,
+self-hugged, indivisible Donjalolo, absolute monarch of Juam:—the
+husk-inhusked meat in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; the
+juice-nested seed in a goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in an
+effeminate peach; the insphered sphere of spheres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX.
+Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
+
+
+To pretend to relate the manner in which Juam’s ruler passed his
+captive days, without making suitable mention of his harem, would be to
+paint one’s full-length likeness and omit the face. For it was his
+harem that did much to stamp the character of Donjalolo.
+
+And had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous, surely, to
+have overlooked the princess; much more, then, as it is; and by
+how-much the more, a plurality exceeds a unit.
+
+Exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the person of
+the king, he had wives thirty in number, corresponding in name to the
+nights of the moon. For, in Juam, time is not reckoned by days, but by
+nights; each night of the lunar month having its own designation;
+which, relatively only, is extended to the day.
+
+In uniform succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of the king’s
+heart. An arrangement most wise and judicious; precluding much of that
+jealousy and confusion prevalent in ill-regulated seraglios. For as
+thirty spouses must be either more desirable, or less desirable than
+one; so is a harem thirty times more difficult to manage than an
+establishment with one solitary mistress. But Donjalolo’s wives were so
+nicely drilled, that for the most part, things went on very smoothly.
+Nor were his brows much furrowed with wrinkles referable to domestic
+cares and tribulations. Although, as in due time will be seen, from
+these he was not altogether exempt.
+
+Now, according to Braid-Beard, who, among other abstruse political
+researches, had accurately informed himself concerning the internal
+administration of Donjalolo’s harem, the following was the method
+pursued therein.
+
+On the Aquella, or First Night of the month, the queen of that name
+assumes her diadem, and reigns. So too with Azzolino the Second, and
+Velluvi the Third Night of the Moon; and so on, even unto the utter
+eclipse thereof; through Calends, Nones, and Ides.
+
+For convenience, the king is furnished with a card, whereon are copied
+the various ciphers upon the arms of his queens; and parallel thereto,
+the hieroglyphics significant of the corresponding Nights of the month.
+Glancing over this, Donjalolo predicts the true time of the rising and
+setting of all his stars.
+
+This Moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios, which few
+mortals beheld. For, so deeply were they buried in a grove; so
+overpowered with verdure; so overrun with vines; and so hazy with the
+incense of flowers; that they were almost invisible, unless closely
+approached. Certain it was, that it demanded no small enterprise,
+diligence, and sagacity, to explore the mysterious wood in search of
+them. Though a strange, sweet, humming sound, as of the clustering and
+swarming of warm bees among roses, at last hinted the royal honey at
+hand. High in air, toward the summit of the cliff, overlooking this
+side of the glen, a narrow ledge of rocks might have been seen, from
+which, rumor whispered, was to be caught an angular peep at the tip of
+the apex of the roof of the nearest seraglio. But this wild report had
+never been established. Nor, indeed, was it susceptible of a test. For
+was not that rock inaccessible as the eyrie of young eagles? But to
+guard against the possibility of any visual profanation, Donjalolo had
+authorized an edict, forever tabooing that rock to foot of man or
+pinion of fowl. Birds and bipeds both trembled and obeyed; taking a
+wide circuit to avoid the spot.
+
+Access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors leading from
+the palace. The seraglio to the right was denominated “Ravi” (Before),
+that to the left “Zono” (After). The meaning of which was, that upon
+the termination of her reign the queen wended her way to the Zono;
+there tarrying with her predecessors till the Ravi was emptied; when
+the entire Moon of wives, swallow-like, migrated back whence they came;
+and the procession was gone over again.
+
+In due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with their
+respective ciphers. In the Ravi, the mat of the queen-apparent, or next
+in succession, was spread by the portal. In the Zono, the newly-
+widowed queen reposed furthest from it.
+
+But alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned.
+Notwithstanding these excellent arrangements, the mature result of ages
+of progressive improvement in the economy of the royal seraglios in
+Willamilla, it must needs be related, that at times the order of
+precedence became confused, and was very hard to restore.
+
+At intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to the no small
+delight of the remainder; but to their equal vexation her place would
+soon after be supplied by some beautiful stranger; who assuming the
+denomination of the vacated Night of the Moon, thenceforth commenced
+her monthly revolutions in the king’s infallible calendar.
+
+In constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone, thin of leg,
+and puny of frame; whose grateful task it was, to tarry in the garden
+of Donjalolo’s delights, without ever touching the roses. Along with
+innumerable other duties, they were perpetually kept coming and going
+upon ten thousand errands; for they had it in strict charge to obey the
+slightest behests of the damsels; and with all imaginable expedition to
+run, fly, swim, or dissolve into impalpable air, at the shortest
+possible notice.
+
+So laborious their avocations, that none could discharge them for more
+than a twelvemonth, at the end of that period giving up the ghost out
+of pure exhaustion of the locomotive apparatus. It was this constant
+drain upon the stock of masculine old age in the glen, that so
+bethinned its small population of gray-beards and hoary-heads. And any
+old man hitherto exempted, who happened to receive a summons to repair
+to the palace, and there wait the pleasure of the king: this
+unfortunate, at once suspecting his doom, put his arbor in order; oiled
+and suppled his joints; took a long farewell of his friends; selected
+his burial-place; and going resigned to his fate, in due time expired
+like the rest.
+
+Had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance, he
+might possibly have derived some little consolation from the thought,
+that though a slave to the whims of thirty princesses, he was
+nevertheless one of their guardians, and as such, he might ingeniously
+have concluded, their superior. But small consolation this. For the
+damsels were as blithe as larks, more playful than kittens; never
+looking sad and sentimental, projecting clandestine escapes. But
+supplied with the thirtieth part of all that Aspasia could desire;
+glorying in being the spouses of a king; nor in the remotest degree
+anxious about eventual dowers; they were care-free, content, and
+rejoicing, as the rays of the morning.
+
+Poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of your fate, one
+drop of the balm of consolation. For, commissioned to watch over those
+who forever kept you on the trot, affording you no time to hunt up
+peccadilloes; was not this circumstance an aggravation of hard times? a
+sharpening and edge-giving to the steel in your souls?
+
+But much yet remains unsaid.
+
+To dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident to these
+attenuated old warders, they were intensely hated by the damsels.
+Inasmuch, as it was archly opined, for what ulterior purposes they were
+retained.
+
+Nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless old
+bronze dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old men ever and anon
+cried out mightily, by reason of sore pinches and scratches received in
+the dark: And tri-trebly-tri-triply girt about as he was, Donjalolo
+himself started from his slumbers, raced round and round through his
+ten thousand corridors; at last bursting all dizzy among his
+twenty-nine queens, to see what under the seventh-heavens was the
+matter. When, lo and behold! there lay the innocents all sound asleep;
+the dragons moaning over their mysterious bruises.
+
+Ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight and the
+torment of the days and nights of Donjalolo.
+
+And in one special matter was he either eminently miserable, or
+otherwise: for all his multiplicity of wives, he had never an heir. Not
+his, the proud paternal glance of the Grand Turk Solyman, looking round
+upon a hundred sons, all bone of his bone, and squinting with his
+squint.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXI.
+Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The Land Of
+Shades
+
+
+At our morning repast on the second day of our stay in the hollow, our
+party indulged in much lively discourse.
+
+“Samoa,” said I, “those isles of yours, of whose beauty you so often
+make vauntful mention, can those isles, good Samoa, furnish a valley in
+all respects equal to Willamilla?”
+
+Disdainful answer was made, that Willamilla might be endurable enough
+for a sojourn, but as a permanent abode, any glen of his own natal isle
+was unspeakably superior.
+
+“In the great valley of Savaii,” cried Samoa, “for every leaf grown
+here in Willamilla, grows a stately tree; and for every tree here
+waving, in Savaii flourishes a goodly warrior.”
+
+Immeasurable was the disgust of the Upoluan for the enervated subjects
+of Donjalolo; and for Donjalolo himself; though it was shrewdly
+divined, that his annoying reception at the hands of the royalty of
+Juam, had something to do with his disdain.
+
+To Jarl, no similar question was put; for he was sadly deficient in a
+taste for the picturesque. But he cursorily observed, that in his
+blue-water opinion, Willamilla was next to uninhabitable, all view of
+the sea being intercepted.
+
+And here it may be well to relate a comical blunder on the part of
+honest Jarl; concerning which, Samoa, the savage, often afterward
+twitted him; as indicating a rusticity, and want of polish in his
+breeding. It rather originated, however, in his not heeding the
+conventionalities of the strange people among whom he was thrown.
+
+The anecdote is not an epic; but here it is.
+
+Reclining in our arbor, we breakfasted upon a marble slab; so
+frost-white, and flowingly traced with blue veins, that it seemed a
+little lake sheeted over with ice: Diana’s virgin bosom congéaled.
+
+Before each guest was a richly carved bowl and gourd, fruit and wine
+freighted also the empty hemisphere of a small nut, the purpose of
+which was a problem. Now, King Jarl scorned to admit the slightest
+degree of under-breeding in the matter of polite feeding. So nothing
+was a problem to him. At once reminded of the morsel of Arvaroot in his
+mouth, a substitute for another sort of sedative then unattainable, he
+was instantly illuminated concerning the purpose of the nut; and very
+complacently introduced each to the other; in the innocence of his
+ignorance making no doubt that he had acquitted himself with
+discretion; the little hemisphere plainly being intended as a place of
+temporary deposit for the Arva of the guests.
+
+The company were astounded: Samoa more than all. King Jarl, meanwhile,
+looking at all present with the utmost serenity. At length, one of the
+horrified attendants, using two sticks for a forceps, disappeared with
+the obnoxious nut, Upon which, the meal proceeded.
+
+This attendant was not seen again for many days; which gave rise to the
+supposition, that journeying to the sea-side, he had embarked for some
+distant strand; there, to bury out of sight the abomination with which
+he was freighted.
+
+Upon this, his egregious misadventure, calculated to do discredit to
+our party, and bring Media himself into contempt, Babbalanja had no
+scruples in taking Jarl roundly to task. He assured him, that it argued
+but little brains to evince a desire to be thought familiar with all
+things; that however desirable as incidental attainments,
+conventionalities, in themselves, were the very least of arbitrary
+trifles; the knowledge of them, innate with no man. “Moreover Jarl,” he
+added, “in essence, conventionalities are but mimickings, at which
+monkeys succeed best. Hence, when you find yourself at a loss in these
+matters, wait patiently, and mark what the other monkeys do: and then
+follow suit. And by so doing, you will gain a vast reputation as an
+accomplished ape. Above all things, follow not the silly example of the
+young spark Karkeke, of whom Mohi was telling me. Dying, and entering
+the other world with a mincing gait, and there finding certain customs
+quite strange and new; such as friendly shades passing through each
+other by way of a salutation;—Karkeke, nevertheless, resolved to show
+no sign of embarrassment. Accosted by a phantom, with wings folded
+pensively, plumes interlocked across its chest, he off head; and stood
+obsequiously before it. Staring at him for an instant, the spirit cut
+him dead; murmuring to itself, ‘Ah, some terrestrial bumpkin, I fancy,’
+and passed on with its celestial nose in the highly rarified air. But
+silly Karkeke undertaking to replace his head, found that it would no
+more stay on; but forever tumbled off; even in the act of nodding a
+salute; which calamity kept putting him out of countenance. And thus
+through all eternity is he punished for his folly, in having pretended
+to be wise, wherein he was ignorant. Head under arm, he wanders about,
+the scorn and ridicule of the other world.”
+
+Our repast concluded, messengers arrived from the prince, courteously
+inviting our presence at the House of the Morning. Thither we went;
+journeying in sedans, sent across the hollow, for that purpose, by
+Donjalolo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXII.
+How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding Isles; With The Result
+
+
+Ere recounting what was beheld on entering the House of the Morning,
+some previous information is needful. Though so many of Donjalolo’s
+days were consumed by sloth and luxury, there came to him certain
+intervals of thoughtfulness, when all his curiosity concerning the
+things of outer Mardi revived with augmented intensity. In these moods,
+he would send abroad deputations, inviting to Willamilla the kings of
+the neighboring islands; together with the most celebrated priests,
+bards, story-tellers, magicians, and wise men; that he might hear them
+converse of those things, which he could not behold for himself.
+
+But at last, he bethought him, that the various narrations he had
+heard, could not have been otherwise than unavoidably faulty; by reason
+that they had been principally obtained from the inhabitants of the
+countries described; who, very naturally, must have been inclined to
+partiality or uncandidness in their statements. Wherefore he had very
+lately dispatched to the isles special agents of his own; honest of
+heart, keen of eye, and shrewd of understanding; to seek out every
+thing that promised to illuminate him concerning the places they
+visited, and also to collect various specimens of interesting objects;
+so that at last he might avail himself of the researches of others, and
+see with their eyes.
+
+But though two observers were sent to every one of the neighboring
+lands; yet each was to act independently; make his own inquiries; form
+his own conclusions; and return with his own specimens; wholly
+regardless of the proceedings of the other.
+
+It so came to pass, that on the very day of our arrival in the glen,
+these pilgrims returned from their travels. And Donjalolo had set apart
+the following morning to giving them a grand public reception. And it
+was to this, that our party had been invited, as related in the chapter
+preceding.
+
+In the great Palm-hall of the House of the Morning, we were assigned
+distinguished mats, to the right of the prince; his chiefs, attendants,
+and subjects assembled in the open colonnades without.
+
+When all was in readiness, in marched the company of savans and
+travelers; and humbly standing in a semi-circle before the king, their
+numerous hampers were deposited at their feet.
+
+Donjalolo was now in high spirits, thinking of the rich store of
+reliable information about to be furnished.
+
+“Zuma,” said he, addressing the foremost of the company, “you and
+Varnopi were directed to explore the island of Rafona. Proceed now, and
+relate all you know of that place. Your narration heard, we will list
+to Varnopi.”
+
+With a profound inclination the traveler obeyed.
+
+But soon Donjalolo interrupted him. “What say you, Zuma, about the
+secret cavern, and the treasures therein? A very different account,
+this, from all I have heard hitherto; but perhaps yours is the true
+version. Go on.”
+
+But very soon, poor Zuma was again interrupted by exclamations of
+surprise. Nay, even to the very end of his mountings.
+
+But when he had done, Donjalolo observed, that if from any cause Zuma
+was in error or obscure, Varnopi would not fail to set him right.
+
+So Varnopi was called upon.
+
+But not long had Varnopi proceeded, when Donjalolo changed color.
+
+“What!” he exclaimed, “will ye contradict each other before our very
+face. Oh Oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! Fifty accounts
+have I had of Rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here, these two
+varlets, sent expressly to behold and report, these two lying knaves,
+speak crookedly both. How is it? Are the lenses in their eyes
+diverse-hued, that objects seem different to both; for undeniable is
+it, that the things they thus clashingly speak of are to be known for
+the same; though represented with unlike colors and qualities. But dumb
+things can not lie nor err. Unpack thy hampers, Zuma. Here, bring them
+close: now: what is this?”
+
+“That,” tremblingly replied Zuma, “is a specimen of the famous reef-
+bar on the west side of the island of Rafona; your highness perceives
+its deep red dyes.”
+
+Said Donjalolo, “Varnopi, hast thou a piece of this coral, also?”
+
+“I have, your highness,” said Varnopi; “here it is.”
+
+Taking it from his hand, Donjalolo gazed at its bleached, white hue;
+then dashing it to the pavement, “Oh mighty Oro! Truth dwells in her
+fountains; where every one must drink for himself. For me, vain all
+hope of ever knowing Mardi! Away! Better know nothing, than be
+deceived. Break up!”
+
+And Donjalolo rose, and retired.
+
+All present now broke out in a storm of vociferation; some siding with
+Zuma; others with Varnopi; each of whom, in turn, was declared the man
+to be relied upon.
+
+Marking all this, Babbalanja, who had been silently looking on, leaning
+against one of the palm pillars, quietly observed to Media:— “My lord,
+I have seen this same reef at Rafona. In various places, it is of
+various hues. As for Zuma and Varnopi, both are wrong, and both are
+right.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIII.
+They Visit The Tributary Islets
+
+
+In Willamilla, no Yillah being found, on the third day we took leave of
+Donjalolo; who lavished upon us many caresses and, somewhat reluctantly
+on Media’s part, we quitted the vale.
+
+One by one, we now visited the outer villages of Juam; and crossing the
+waters, wandered several days among its tributary isles. There we saw
+the viceroys of him who reigned in the hollow: chieftains of whom
+Donjalolo was proud; so honest, humble, and faithful; so bent upon
+ameliorating the condition of those under their rule. For, be it said,
+Donjalolo was a charitable prince; in his serious intervals, ever
+seeking the welfare of his subjects, though after an imperial view of
+his own. But alas, in that sunny donjon among the mountains, where he
+dwelt, how could Donjalolo be sure, that the things he decreed were
+executed in regions forever remote from his view. Ah! very bland, very
+innocent, very pious, the faces his viceroys presented during their
+monthly visits to Willamilla. But as cruel their visage, when, returned
+to their islets, they abandoned themselves to all the license of
+tyrants; like Verres reveling down the rights of the Sicilians.
+
+Like Carmelites, they came to Donjalolo, barefooted; but in their
+homes, their proud latchets were tied by their slaves. Before their
+king-belted prince, they stood rope-girdled like self-abased monks of
+St. Francis; but with those ropes, before their palaces, they hung
+Innocence and Truth.
+
+As still seeking Yillah, and still disappointed, we roved through the
+lands which these chieftains ruled, Babbalanja exclaimed—“Let us
+depart; idle our search, in isles that have viceroys for kings.”
+
+At early dawn, about embarking for a distant land, there came to us
+certain messengers of Donjalolo, saying that their lord the king,
+repenting of so soon parting company with Media and Taji, besought them
+to return with all haste; for that very morning, in Willamilla, a regal
+banquet was preparing; to which many neighboring kings had been
+invited, most of whom had already arrived.
+
+Declaring that there was no alternative but compliance, Media acceded;
+and with the king’s messengers we returned to the glen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIV.
+Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five-And-Twenty Kings, And A Royal Time
+They Have
+
+
+It was afternoon when we emerged from the defile. And informed that our
+host was receiving his guests in the House of the Afternoon, thither we
+directed our steps.
+
+Soft in our face, blew the blessed breezes of Omi, stirring the leaves
+overhead; while, here and there, through the trees, showed the
+idol-bearers of the royal retreat, hand in hand, linked with festoons
+of flowers. Still beyond, on a level, sparkled the nodding crowns of
+the kings, like the constellation Corona-Borealis, the horizon just
+gained.
+
+Close by his noon-tide friend, the cascade at the mouth of the grotto,
+reposed on his crimson mat, Donjalolo:—arrayed in a vestment of the
+finest white tappa of Mardi, figured all over with bright yellow
+lizards, so curiously stained in the gauze, that he seemed overrun, as
+with golden mice.
+
+Marjora’s girdle girdled his loins, tasseled with the congregated teeth
+of his sires. A jeweled turban-tiara, milk-white, surmounted his brow,
+over which waved a copse of Pintado plumes.
+
+But what sways in his hand? A scepter, similar to those likenesses of
+scepters, imbedded among the corals at his feet. A polished thigh-
+bone; by Braid-Beard declared once Teei’s the Murdered. For to
+emphasize his intention utterly to rule, Marjora himself had selected
+this emblem of dominion over mankind.
+
+But even this last despite done to dead Teei had once been transcended.
+In the usurper’s time, prevailed the belief, that the saliva of kings
+must never touch ground; and Mohi’s Chronicles made mention, that
+during the life time of Marjora, Teei’s skull had been devoted to the
+basest of purposes: Marjora’s, the hate no turf could bury.
+
+Yet, traditions like these ever seem dubious. There be many who deny
+the hump, moral and physical, of Gloster Richard.
+
+Still advancing unperceived, in social hilarity we descried their
+Highnesses, chatting together like the most plebeian of mortals; full
+as merry as the monks of old. But marking our approach, all changed. A
+pair of potentates, who had been playfully trifling, hurriedly adjusted
+their diadems, threw themselves into attitudes, looking stately as
+statues. Phidias turned not out his Jupiter so soon.
+
+In various-dyed robes the five-and-twenty kings were arrayed; and
+various their features, as the rows of lips, eyes and ears in John
+Caspar Lavater’s physiognomical charts. Nevertheless, to a king, all
+their noses were aquiline.
+
+There were long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins,
+like those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and
+wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was
+deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard.
+They were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat and
+lean, cunning and simple.
+
+With animated courtesy our host received us; assigning a neighboring
+bower for Babbalanja and the rest; and among so many right-royal,
+demi-divine guests, how could the demi-gods Media and Taji be otherwise
+than at home?
+
+The unwonted sprightliness of Donjalolo surprised us. But he was in one
+of those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his
+failures in efforts to amend his life. And the bootless issue of his
+late mission to outer Mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry. Nor
+had he lately shunned a wild wine, called Morando.
+
+A slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated
+freely.
+
+Not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the Morando much. A nutty, pungent
+flavor it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the Philippine
+isles. And a marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving the
+crystalization of the brain; leaving nothing but precious little drops
+of good humor, beading round the bowl of the cranium.
+
+Meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars, and
+stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended hangings of
+crimson tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the pavement they
+rustled in the breeze from the grot.
+
+Presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a
+porphyry hue, deep-hollowed out of a tree. Outside, were innumerable
+grotesque conceits; conspicuous among which, for a border, was an
+endless string of the royal lizards circumnavigating the basin in
+inverted chase of their tails.
+
+Peculiar to the groves of Willamilla, the yellow lizard formed part of
+the arms of Juam. And when Donjalolo’s messenger went abroad, they
+carried its effigy, as the emblem of their royal master; themselves
+being known, as the Gentlemen of the Golden Lizard.
+
+The porphyry-hued basin planted full in our midst, the attendants
+forthwith filled the same with the living waters from the cascade; a
+proceeding, for which some of the company were at a loss to account,
+unless his highness, our host, with all the coolness of royalty,
+purposed cooling himself still further, by taking a bath in presence of
+his guests. A conjecture, most premature; for directly, the basin being
+filled to within a few inches of the lizards, the attendants fell to
+launching therein divers goodly sized trenchers, all laden with choice
+viands:—wild boar meat; humps of grampuses; embrowned bread-fruit,
+roasted in odoriferous fires of sandal wood, but suffered to cool; gold
+fish, dressed with the fragrant juices of berries; citron sauce; rolls
+of the baked paste of yams; juicy bananas, steeped in a saccharine oil;
+marmalade of plantains; jellies of guava; confections of the treacle of
+palm sap; and many other dainties; besides numerous stained calabashes
+of Morando, and other beverages, fixed in carved floats to make them
+buoyant.
+
+The guests assigned seats, by the woven handles attached to his purple
+mat, the prince, our host, was now gently moved by his servitors to the
+head of the porphyry-hued basin. Where, flanked by lofty crowned-heads,
+white-tiaraed, and radiant with royalty, he sat; like snow-turbaned
+Mont Blanc, at sunrise presiding over the head waters of the Rhone; to
+right and left, looming the gilded summits of the Simplon, the Gothard,
+the Jungfrau, the Great St. Bernard, and the Grand Glockner.
+
+Yet turbid from the launching of its freight, Lake Como tossed to and
+fro its navies of good cheer, the shadows of the king-peaks wildly
+flitting thereupon.
+
+But no frigid wine and fruit cooler, Lake Como; as at first it did
+seem; but a tropical dining table, its surface a slab of light blue St.
+Pons marble in a state of fluidity.
+
+Now, many a crown was doffed; scepters laid aside; girdles slackened;
+and among those verdant viands the bearded kings like goats did browse;
+or tusking their wild boar’s meat, like mastiffs ate.
+
+And like unto some well-fought fight, beginning calmly, but pressing
+forward to a fiery rush, this well-fought feast did now wax warm.
+
+A few royal epicures, however, there were: epicures intent upon
+concoctions, admixtures, and masterly compoundings; who comported
+themselves with all due deliberation and dignity; hurrying themselves
+into no reckless deglutition of the dainties. Ah! admirable conceit,
+Lake Como: superseding attendants. For, from hand to hand the trenchers
+sailed; no sooner gaining one port, than dispatched over sea to
+another.
+
+Well suited they were for the occasion; sailing high out of water, to
+resist the convivial swell at times ruffling the sociable sea; and
+sharp at both ends, still better adapting them to easy navigation.
+
+But soon, the Morando, in triumphant decanters, went round, reeling
+like barks before a breeze. But their voyages were brief; and ere long,
+in certain havens, the accumulation of empty vessels threatened to
+bridge the lake with pontoons. In those directions, Trade winds were
+setting. But full soon, cut out were all unladen and unprofitable
+gourds; and replaced by jolly-bellied calabashes, for a time sailing
+deep, yawing heavily to the push.
+
+At last, the whole flotilla of trenchers—wrecks and all—were sent
+swimming to the further end of Lake Como; and thence removed, gave
+place to ruddy hillocks of fruit, and floating islands of flowers.
+Chief among the former, a quince-like, golden sphere, that filled the
+air with such fragrance, you thought you were tasting its flavor.
+
+Nor did the wine cease flowing. That day the Juam grape did bleed; that
+day the tendril ringlets of the vines, did all uncurl and grape by
+grape, in sheer dismay, the sun ripe clusters dropped. Grape-glad were
+five-and-twenty kings: five-and-twenty kings were merry.
+
+Morando’s vintage had no end; nor other liquids, in the royal cellar
+stored, somewhere secret in the grot. Oh! where’s the endless Niger’s
+source? Search ye here, or search ye there; on, on, through ravine,
+vega, vale—no head waters will ye find. But why need gain the hidden
+spring, when its lavish stream flows by? At three-fold mouths that
+Delta-grot discharged; rivers golden, white, and red.
+
+But who may sing for aye? Down I come, and light upon the old and prosy
+plain.
+
+Among other decanters set afloat, was a pompous, lordly-looking
+demijohn, but old and reverend withal, that sailed about, consequential
+as an autocrat going to be crowned, or a treasure- freighted argosie
+bound home before the wind. It looked solemn, however, though it
+reeled; peradventure, far gone with its own potent contents.
+
+Oh! russet shores of Rhine and Rhone! oh, mellow memories of ripe old
+vintages! oh, cobwebs in the Pyramids! oh, dust on Pharaoh’s tomb!—all,
+all recur, as I bethink me of that glorious gourd, its contents cogent
+as Tokay, itself as old as Mohi’s legends; more venerable to look at
+than his beard. Whence came it? Buried in vases, so saith the label,
+with the heart of old Marjora, now dead one hundred thousand moons.
+Exhumed at last, it looked no wine, but was shrunk into a subtile
+syrup.
+
+This special calabash was distinguished by numerous trappings,
+caparisoned like the sacred bay steed led before the Great Khan of
+Tartary. A most curious and betasseled network encased it; and the
+royal lizard was jealously twisted about its neck, like a hand on a
+throat containing some invaluable secret.
+
+All Hail, Marzilla! King’s Own Royal Particular! A vinous Percy! Dating
+back to the Conquest! Distilled of yore from purple berries growing in
+the purple valley of Ardair! Thrice hail.
+
+But the imperial Marzilla was not for all; gods only could partake; the
+Kings and demigods of the isles; excluding left-handed descendants of
+sad rakes of immortals, in old times breaking heads and hearts in
+Mardi, bequeathing bars-sinister to many mortals, who now in vain might
+urge a claim to a cup-full of right regal Marzilla.
+
+The Royal Particular was pressed upon me, by the now jovial Donjalolo.
+With his own sceptered hand charging my flagon to the brim, he declared
+his despotic pleasure, that I should quaff it off to the last lingering
+globule. No hard calamity, truly; for the drinking of this wine was as
+the singing of a mighty ode, or frenzied lyric to the soul.
+
+“Drink, Taji,” cried Donjalolo, “drink deep. In this wine a king’s
+heart is dissolved. Drink long; in this wine lurk the seeds of the life
+everlasting. Drink deep; drink long: thou drinkest wisdom and valor at
+every draught. Drink forever, oh Taji, for thou drinkest that which
+will enable thee to stand up and speak out before mighty Oro himself.”
+
+“Borabolla,” he added, turning round upon a domed old king at his left,
+“Was it not the god Xipho, who begged of my great-great- grandsire a
+draught of this same wine, saying he was about to beget a hero?”
+
+“Even so. And thy glorious Marzilla produced thrice valiant Ononna, who
+slew the giants of the reef.”
+
+“Ha, ha, hear’st that, oh Taji?” And Donjalolo drained another cup.
+
+Amazing! the flexibility of the royal elbow, and the rigidity of the
+royal spine! More especially as we had been impressed with a notion of
+their debility. But, sometimes these seemingly enervated young blades
+approve themselves steadier of limb, than veteran revelers of very long
+standing.
+
+“Discharge the basin, and refill it with wine,” cried Donjalolo. “Break
+all empty gourds! Drink, kings, and dash your cups at every draught.”
+
+So saying, he started from his purple mat; and with one foot planted
+unknowingly upon the skull of Marjora; while all the skeletons grinned
+at him from the pavement; Donjalolo, holding on high his blood-red
+goblet, burst forth with the following invocation:—
+
+Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all;
+Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call!
+Fill fast, and fill frill; ’gainst the goblet ne’er sin;
+Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:—
+    Flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim!
+
+Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his cares?
+Who sighs to be wise, when wine in him flares?
+Water sinks down below, in currents full slow;
+But wine mounts on high with its genial glow:—
+    Welling up, till the brain overflow!
+
+As the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul,
+Others golden, with music, revolve round the pole;
+
+So let our cups, radiant with many hued wines,
+Round and round in groups circle, our Zodiac’s Signs:—
+    Round reeling, and ringing their chimes!
+
+Then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment brings;
+It bounds through the veins; there, jubilant sings.
+Let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never grows dim;
+Drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded rim:—
+    Fill up, every cup, to the brim!
+
+
+Caught by all present, the chorus resounded again and again. The beaded
+wine danced on many a beard; the cataract lifted higher its voice; the
+grotto sent back a shout; the ghosts of the Coral Monarchs seemed
+starting from their insulted bones. But ha, ha, ha, roared forth the
+five-and-twenty kings—alive, not dead—holding both hands to their
+girdles, and baying out their laughter from abysses; like Nimrod’s
+hounds over some fallen elk.
+
+Mad and crazy revelers, how ye drank and roared! but kings no more:
+vestures loosed; and scepters rolling on the ground.
+
+Glorious agrarian, thou wine! bringing all hearts on a level, and at
+last all legs to the earth; even those of kings, who, to do them
+justice, have been much maligned for imputed qualities not theirs. For
+whoso has touched flagons with monarchs, bear they their back bones
+never so stiffly on the throne, well know the rascals, to be at bottom
+royal good fellows; capable of a vinous frankness exceeding that of
+base-born men. Was not Alexander a boon companion? And daft Cambyses?
+and what of old Rowley, as good a judge of wine and other matters, as
+ever sipped claret or kisses.
+
+If ever Taji joins a club, be it a Beef-Steak Club of Kings!
+
+Donjalolo emptied yet another cup.
+
+The mirth now blew a gale; like a ship’s shrouds in a Typhoon, every
+tendon vibrated; the breezes of Omi came forth with a rush; the
+hangings shook; the goblets danced fandangos; and Donjalolo, clapping
+his hands, called before him his dancing women.
+
+Forth came from the grotto a reed-like burst of song, making all start,
+and look that way to behold such enchanting strains. Sounds heralding
+sights! Swimming in the air, emerged the nymphs, lustrous arms
+interlocked like Indian jugglers’ glittering snakes. Round the cascade
+they thronged; then paused in its spray. Of a sudden, seemed to spring
+from its midst, a young form of foam, that danced into the soul like a
+thought. At last, sideways floating off, it subsided into the grotto, a
+wave. Evening drawing on apace, the crimson draperies were lifted, and
+festooned to the arms of the idol-pillars, admitting the rosy light of
+the even.
+
+Yielding to the re-action of the banquet, the kings now reclined; and
+two mute damsels entered: one with a gourd of scented waters; the other
+with napkins. Bending over Donjalolo’s steaming head, the first let
+fall a shower of aromatic drops, slowly aborbed by her companion. Thus,
+in turn, all were served; nothing heard but deep breathing.
+
+In a marble vase they now kindled some incense: a handful of spices.
+
+Shortly after, came three of the king’s beautiful smokers; who,
+lighting their tubes at this odorous fire, blew over the company the
+sedative fumes of the Aina.
+
+Steeped in languor, I strove against it long; essayed to struggle out
+of the enchanted mist. But a syren hand seemed ever upon me, pressing
+me back.
+
+Half-revealed, as in a dream, and the last sight that I saw, was
+Donjalolo:—eyes closed, face pale, locks moist, borne slowly to his
+sedan, to cross the hollow, and wake in the seclusion of his harem.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXV.
+After Dinner
+
+
+As in dreams I behold thee again, Willamila! as in dreams, once again I
+stroll through thy cool shady groves, oh fairest of the vallies of
+Mardi! the thought of that mad merry feasting steals over my soul till
+I faint.
+
+Prostrate here and there over the bones of Donjalolo’s sires, the royal
+bacchanals lay slumbering till noon.
+
+“Which are the deadest?” said Babbalanja, peeping in, “the live kings,
+or the dead ones?”
+
+But the former were drooping flowers sought to be revived by watering.
+At intervals the sedulous attendants went to and fro, besprinkling
+their heads with the scented contents of their vases.
+
+At length, one by one, the five-and-twenty kings lifted their ambrosial
+curls; and shaking the dew therefrom, like eagles opened their right
+royal eyes, and dilated their aquiline nostrils, full upon the golden
+rays of the sun.
+
+But why absented himself, Donjalolo? Had he cavalierly left them to
+survive the banquet by themselves? But this apparent incivility was
+soon explained by heralds, announcing to their prone majesties, that
+through the over solicitude of his slaves, their lord the king had been
+borne to his harem, without being a party to the act. But to make
+amends, in his sedan, Donjalolo was even now drawing nigh. Not,
+however, again to make merry; but socially to sleep in company with his
+guests; for, together they had all got high, and together they must all
+lie low.
+
+So at it they went: each king to his bones, and slumbered like heroes
+till evening; when, availing themselves of the cool moonlight
+approaching, the royal guests bade adieu to their host; and summoning
+their followers, quitted the glen.
+
+Early next day, having determined to depart for our canoes, we
+proceeded to the House of the Morning, to take leave of Donjalolo.
+
+An amazing change, one night of solitude had wrought! Pale and languid,
+we found him reclining: one hand on his throbbing temples.
+
+Near an overturned vessel of wine, the royal girdle lay tossed at his
+feet. He had waved off his frightened attendants, who crouched out of
+sight.
+
+We advanced.
+
+“Do ye too leave me? Ready enough are ye to partake of my banquetings,
+which, to such as ye, are but mad incidents in one round of more
+tranquil diversions. But heed me not, Media;—I am mad. Oh, ye gods! am
+I forever a captive?—Ay, free king of Odo, when you list, condescend to
+visit the poor slave in Willamilla. I account them but charity, your
+visits; would fain allure ye by sumptuous fare. Go, leave me; go, and
+be rovers again throughout blooming Mardi. For, me, I am here for
+aye.—Bring me wine, slaves! quick! that I may pledge my guests fitly.
+Alas, Media, at the bottom of this cup are no sparkles as at top. Oh,
+treacherous, treacherous friend! full of smiles and daggers. Yet for
+such as me, oh wine, thou art e’en a prop, though it pierce the side;
+for man must lean. Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a
+foe to all. King Media, let us drink. More cups!—And now, farewell.”
+
+Falling back, he averted his face; and silently we quitted the palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVI.
+Of Those Scamps The Plujii
+
+
+The beach gained, we embarked.
+
+In good time our party recovered from the seriousness into which we had
+been thrown; and a rather long passage being now before us, we whiled
+away the hours as best we might.
+
+Among many entertaining, narrations, old Braid-Beard, crossing his
+calves, and peaking his beard, regaled us with some account of certain
+invisible spirits, ycleped the Plujii, arrant little knaves as ever
+gulped moonshine.
+
+They were spoken of as inhabiting the island of Quelquo, in a remote
+corner of the lagoon; the innocent people of which island were sadly
+fretted and put out by their diabolical proceedings. Not to be wondered
+at; since, dwelling as they did in the air, and completely
+inaccessible, these spirits were peculiarly provocative of ire.
+
+Detestable Plujii! With malice aforethought, they brought about high
+winds that destroyed the banana plantations, and tumbled over the heads
+of its occupants many a bamboo dwelling. They cracked the calabashes;
+soured the “poee;” induced the colic; begat the spleen; and almost rent
+people in twain with stitches in the side. In short, from whatever
+evil, the cause of which the Islanders could not directly impute to
+their gods, or in their own opinion was not referable to themselves,—of
+that very thing must the invisible Plujii be guilty. With horrible
+dreams, and blood-thirsty gnats, they invaded the most innocent
+slumbers.
+
+All things they bedeviled. A man with a wry neck ascribed it to the
+Plujii; he with a bad memory railed against the Plujii; and the boy,
+bruising his finger, also cursed those abominable spirits.
+
+Nor, to some minds, at least, was there wanting strong presumptive
+evidence, that at times, with invisible fingers, the above mentioned
+Plujii did leave direct and tangible traces of their presence; pinching
+and pounding the unfortunate Islanders; pulling their hair; plucking
+their ears, and tweaking their beards and their noses. And thus
+perpetually vexing, incensing, tormenting, and exasperating their
+helpless victims, the atrocious Plujii reveled in their malicious
+dominion over the souls and bodies of the people of Quelquo.
+
+What it was, that induced them to enact such a part, Oro only knew; and
+never but once, it seems, did old Mohi endeavor to find out.
+
+Once upon a time, visiting Quelquo, he chanced to encounter an old
+woman almost doubled together, both hands upon her abdomen; in that
+manner running about distracted.
+
+“My good woman,” said he, “what under the firmament is the matter?”
+
+“The Plujii! the Plujii!” affectionately caressing the field of their
+operations.
+
+“But why do they torment you?” he soothingly inquired. “How should I
+know? and what good would it do me if I did?”
+
+And on she ran.
+
+At this part of his narration, Mohi was interrupted by Media; who, much
+to the surprise of all present, observed, that, unbeknown to him
+(Braid-Beard), he happened to have been on that very island, at that
+very time, and saw that identical old lady in the very midst of those
+abdominal tribulations.
+
+“That she was really in great distress,” he went on to say, “was
+plainly to be seen; but that in that particular instance, your Plujii
+had any hand in tormenting her, I had some boisterous doubts. For,
+hearing that an hour or two previous she had been partaking of some
+twenty unripe bananas, I rather fancied that that circumstance might
+have had something to do with her sufferings. But however it was, all
+the herb-leeches on the island would not have altered her own opinions
+on the subject.”
+
+“No,” said Braid-Beard; “a post-mortem examination would not have
+satisfied her ghost.”
+
+“Curious to relate,” he continued, “the people of that island never
+abuse the Plujii, notwithstanding all they suffer at their hands,
+unless under direct provocation; and a settled matter of faith is it,
+that at such times all bitter words and hasty objurgations are entirely
+overlooked, nay, pardoned on the spot, by the unseen genii against whom
+they are directed.”
+
+“Magnanimous Plujii!” cried Media. “But, Babbalanja, do you, who run a
+tilt at all things, suffer this silly conceit to be uttered with
+impunity in your presence? Why so silent?”
+
+“I have been thinking, my lord,” said Babbalanja, “that though the
+people of that island may at times err, in imputing their calamities to
+the Plujii, that, nevertheless, upon the whole, they indulge in a
+reasonable belief. For, Plujii or no Plujii, it is undeniable, that in
+ten thousand ways, as if by a malicious agency, we mortals are woefully
+put out and tormented; and that, too, by things in themselves so
+exceedingly trivial, that it would seem almost impiety to ascribe them
+to the august gods. No; there must exist some greatly inferior spirits;
+so insignificant, comparatively, as to be overlooked by the supernal
+powers; and through them it must be, that we are thus grievously
+annoyed. At any rate; such a theory would supply a hiatus in my system
+of meta-physics.”
+
+“Well, peace to the Plujii,” said Media; “they trouble not me.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVII.
+Nora-Bamma
+
+
+Still onward gliding, the lagoon a calm.
+
+Hours pass; and full before us, round and green, a Moslem turban by us
+floats—Nora-Bamma, Isle of Nods.
+
+Noon-tide rolls its flood. Vibrates the air, and trembles. And by
+illusion optical, thin-draped in azure haze, drift here and there the
+brilliant lands: swans, peacock-plumaged, sailing through the sky. Down
+to earth hath heaven come; hard telling sun-clouds from the isles.
+
+And high in air nods Nora-Bamma. Nid-nods its tufted summit like three
+ostrich plumes; its beetling crags, bent poppies, shadows, willowy
+shores, all nod; its streams are murmuring down the hills; its wavelets
+hush the shore.
+
+Who dwells in Nora-Bamma? Dreamers, hypochondriacs, somnambulists; who,
+from the cark and care of outer Mardi fleeing, in the poppy’s jaded
+odors, seek oblivion for the past, and ecstasies to come.
+
+Open-eyed, they sleep and dream; on their roof-trees, grapes unheeded
+drop. In Nora-Bamma, whispers are as shouts; and at a zephyr’s breath,
+from the woodlands shake the leaves, as of humming-birds, a flight.
+
+All this spake Braid-Beard, of the isle. How that none ere touched its
+strand, without rendering instant tribute of a nap; how that those who
+thither voyaged, in golden quest of golden gourds, fast dropped asleep,
+ere one was plucked; waking not till night; how that you must needs rub
+hard your eyes, would you wander through the isle; and how that silent
+specters would be met, haunting twilight groves, and dreamy meads;
+hither gliding, thither fading, end or purpose none.
+
+True or false, so much for Mohi’s Nora Bamma.
+
+But as we floated on, it looked the place described. We yawned, and
+yawned, as crews of vessels may; as in warm Indian seas, their
+winnowing sails all swoon, when by them glides some opium argosie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
+In A Calm, Hautia’s Heralds Approach
+
+
+“How still!” cried Babbalanja. “This calm is like unto Oro’s
+everlasting serenity, and like unto man’s last despair.”
+
+But now the silence was broken by a strange, distant, intermitted
+melody in the water.
+
+Gazing over the side, we saw naught but a far-darting ray in its
+depths.
+
+Then Yoomy, before buried in a reverie, burst forth with a verse,
+sudden as a jet from a Geyser.
+
+Like the fish of the bright and twittering fin,
+    Bright fish! diving deep as high soars the lark,
+So, far, far, far, doth the maiden swim,
+    Wild song, wild light, in still ocean’s dark.
+
+
+“What maiden, minstrel?” cried Media.
+
+“None of these,” answered Yoomy, pointing out a shallop gliding near.
+
+“The damsels three:—Taji, they pursue you yet.” That still canoe drew
+nigh, the Iris in its prow.
+
+Gliding slowly by, one damsel flung a Venus-car, the leaves yet fresh.
+
+Said Yoomy—“Fly to love.”
+
+The second maiden flung a pallid blossom, buried in hemlock leaves.
+
+Said Yoomy, starting—“I have wrought a death.”
+
+Then came showering Venus-cars, and glorious moss-roses numberless, and
+odorous handfuls of Verbena.
+
+Said Yoomy—“Yet fly, oh fly to me: all rosy joys and sweets are mine.”
+
+Then the damsels floated on.
+
+“Was ever queen more enigmatical?” cried Media—“Love,—death,—joy,—fly
+to me? But what says Taji?”
+
+“That I turn not back for Hautia; whoe’er she be, that wild witch I
+contemn.”
+
+“Then spread our pinions wide! a breeze! up sails! ply paddles all!
+Come, Flora’s flute, float forth a song.”
+
+To pieces picking the thorny roses culled from Hautia’s gifts, and
+holding up their blighted cores, thus plumed and turbaned Yoomy sang,
+leaning against the mast:—
+
+Oh! royal is the rose,
+    But barbed with many a dart;
+Beware, beware the rose,
+    ’Tis cankered at the heart.
+
+    Sweet, sweet the sunny down,
+Oh! lily, lily, lily down!
+    Sweet, sweet, Verbena’s bloom!
+Oh! pleasant, gentle, musky bloom!
+
+Dread, dread the sunny down;
+    Lo! lily-hooded asp;
+Blooms, blooms no more Verbena;
+    White-withered in your clasp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIX.
+Braid-Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues
+
+
+Judge not things by their names. This, the maxim illustrated respecting
+the isle toward which we were sailing.
+
+Ohonoo was its designation, in other words the Land of Rogues. So what
+but a nest of villains and pirates could one fancy it to be: a
+downright Tortuga, swarming with “Brethren of the coast,”—such as
+Montbars, L’Ollonais, Bartolomeo, Peter of Dieppe, and desperadoes of
+that kidney. But not so. The men of Ohonoo were as honest as any in
+Mardi. They had a suspicious appellative for their island, true; but
+not thus seemed it to them. For, upon nothing did they so much plume
+themselves as upon this very name. Why? Its origin went back to old
+times; and being venerable they gloried therein; though they disclaimed
+its present applicability to any of their race; showing, that words are
+but algebraic signs, conveying no meaning except what you please. And
+to be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
+
+But how came the Ohonoose by their name?
+
+Listen, and Braid-Beard, our Herodotus, will tell.
+
+Long and long ago, there were banished to Ohonoo all the bucaniers,
+flibustiers, thieves, and malefactors of the neighboring islands; who,
+becoming at last quite a numerous community, resolved to make a stand
+for their dignity, and number one among the nations of Mardi. And even
+as before they had been weeded out of the surrounding countries; so
+now, they went to weeding out themselves; banishing all objectionable
+persons to still another island.
+
+These events happened at a period so remote, that at present it was
+uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second
+exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their
+comparative honesty. If the latter, then must the residue have been a
+precious enough set of scoundrels.
+
+However it was, the commonwealth of knaves now mustered together their
+gray-beards, and wise-pates, and knowing-ones, of which last there was
+a plenty, chose a king to rule over them, and went to political
+housekeeping for themselves.
+
+And in the fullness of time, this people became numerous and mighty.
+And the more numerous and mighty they waxed, by so much the more did
+they take pride and glory in their origin, frequently reverting to it
+with manifold boastings. The proud device of their monarch was a hand
+with the forefinger crooked, emblematic of the peculatory propensities
+of his ancestors.
+
+And all this, at greater length, said Mohi.
+
+“It would seem, then, my lord,” said Babbalanja, reclining, “as if
+these men of Ohonoo had canonized the derelictions of their
+progenitors, though the same traits are deemed scandalous among
+themselves. But it is time that makes the difference. The knave of a
+thousand years ago seems a fine old fellow full of spirit and fun,
+little malice in his soul; whereas, the knave of to-day seems a sour-
+visaged wight, with nothing to redeem him. Many great scoundrels of our
+Chronicler’s chronicles are heroes to us:—witness, Marjora the usurper.
+Ay, time truly works wonders. It sublimates wine; it sublimates fame;
+nay, is the creator thereof; it enriches and darkens our spears of the
+Palm; enriches and enlightens the mind; it ripens cherries and young
+lips; festoons old ruins, and ivies old heads; imparts a relish to old
+yams, and a pungency to the Ponderings of old Bardianna; of fables
+distills truths; and finally, smooths, levels, glosses, softens, melts,
+and meliorates all things. Why, my lord, round Mardi itself is all the
+better for its antiquity, and the more to be revered; to the
+cozy-minded, more comfortable to dwell in. Ah! if ever it lay in embryo
+like a green seed in the pod, what a damp, shapeless thing it must have
+been, and how unpleasant from the traces of its recent creation. The
+first man, quoth old Bardianna, must have felt like one going into a
+new habitation, where the bamboos are green. Is there not a legend in
+Maramma, that his family were long troubled with influenzas and
+catarrhs?”
+
+“Oh Time, Time, Time!” cried Yoomy—“it is Time, old midsummer Time,
+that has made the old world what it is. Time hoared the old mountains,
+and balded their old summits, and spread the old prairies, and built
+the old forests, and molded the old vales. It is Time that has worn
+glorious old channels for the glorious old rivers, and rounded the old
+lakes, and deepened the old sea! It is Time—”
+
+“Ay, full time to cease,” cried Media. “What have you to do with
+cogitations not in verse, minstrel? Leave prose to Babbalanja, who is
+prosy enough.”
+
+“Even so,” said Babbalanja, “Yoomy, you have overstepped your province.
+My lord Media well knows, that your business is to make the metal in
+you jingle in tags, not ring in the ingot.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC.
+Rare Sport At Ohonoo
+
+
+Approached from the northward, Ohonoo, midway cloven down to the sea,
+one half a level plain; the other, three mountain terraces—Ohonoo looks
+like the first steps of a gigantic way to the sun. And such, if
+Braid-Beard spoke truth, it had formerly been.
+
+“Ere Mardi was made,” said that true old chronicler, “Vivo, one of the
+genii, built a ladder of mountains whereby to go up and go down. And of
+this ladder, the island of Ohonoo was the base. But wandering here and
+there, incognito in a vapor, so much wickedness did Vivo spy out, that
+in high dudgeon he hurried up his ladder, knocking the mountains from
+under him as he went. These here and there fell into the lagoon,
+forming many isles, now green and luxuriant; which, with those
+sprouting from seeds dropped by a bird from the moon, comprise all the
+groups in the reef.”
+
+Surely, oh, surely, if I live till Mardi be forgotten by Mardi, I shall
+not forget the sight that greeted us, as we drew nigh the shores of
+this same island of Ohonoo; for was not all Ohonoo bathing in the surf
+of the sea?
+
+But let the picture be painted.
+
+Where eastward the ocean rolls surging against the outer reef of Mardi,
+there, facing a flood-gate in the barrier, stands cloven Ohonoo; her
+plains sloping outward to the sea, her mountains a bulwark behind. As
+at Juam, where the wild billows from seaward roll in upon its cliffs;
+much more at Ohonoo, in billowy battalions charge they hotly into the
+lagoon, and fall on the isle like an army from the deep. But charge
+they never so boldly, and charge they forever, old Ohonoo gallantly
+throws them back till all before her is one scud and rack. So charged
+the bright billows of cuirassiers at Waterloo: so hurled them off the
+long line of living walls, whose base was as the sea-beach,
+wreck-strown, in a gale.
+
+Without the break in the reef wide banks of coral shelve off, creating
+the bar, where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in
+water-bolts, that shake the whole reef, till its very spray trembles.
+And then is it, that the swimmers of Ohonoo most delight to gambol in
+the surf.
+
+For this sport, a surf-board is indispensable: some five feet in
+length; the width of a man’s body; convex on both sides; highly
+polished; and rounded at the ends. It is held in high estimation;
+invariably oiled after use; and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling
+of the owner.
+
+Ranged on the beach, the bathers, by hundreds dash in; and diving under
+the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the
+comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here, throwing
+themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that
+suits. Snatching them up, it hurries them landward, volume and speed
+both increasing, till it races along a watery wall, like the smooth,
+awful verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll, looking down from it
+as from a precipice, the bathers halloo; every limb in motion to
+preserve their place on the very crest of the wave. Should they fall
+behind, the squadrons that follow would whelm them; dismounted, and
+thrown forward, as certainly would they be run over by the steed they
+ride. ’Tis like charging at the head of cavalry: you must on.
+
+An expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank; now half striding
+it; and anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in the
+scud, coming on like a man in the air.
+
+At last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts
+like a bomb. Adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out; and
+like seals at the Orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore.
+
+Landing in smooth water, some distance from the scene, we strolled
+forward; and meeting a group resting, inquired for Uhia, their king. He
+was pointed out in the foam. But presently drawing nigh, he embraced
+Media, bidding all welcome.
+
+The bathing over, and evening at hand, Uhia and his subjects repaired
+to their canoes; and we to ours.
+
+Landing at another quarter of the island, we journeyed up a valley
+called Monlova, and were soon housed in a very pleasant retreat of our
+host.
+
+Soon supper was spread. But though the viands were rare, and the red
+wine went round and round like a foaming bay horse in the ring; yet we
+marked, that despite the stimulus of his day’s good sport, and the
+stimulus of his brave good cheer, Uhia our host was moody and still.
+
+Said Babbalanja “My lord, he fills wine cups for others to quaff.”
+
+But whispered King Media, “Though Uhia be sad, be we merry, merry men.”
+
+And merry some were, and merrily went to their mats.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI.
+Of King Uhia And His Subjects
+
+
+As beseemed him, Uhia was royally lodged. Ample his roof. Beneath it a
+hundred attendants nightly laying their heads. But long since, he had
+disbanded his damsels.
+
+Springing from syren embrace—“They shall sap and mine me no more” he
+cried “my destiny commands me. I will don my manhood. By Keevi! no more
+will I clasp a waist.”
+
+“From that time forth,” said Braid-Beard, “young Uhia spread like the
+tufted top of the Palm; his thigh grew brawny as the limb of the
+Banian; his arm waxed strong as the back bone of the shark; yea, his
+voice grew sonorous as a conch.”
+
+“And now he bent his whole soul to the accomplishment of the destiny
+believed to be his. Nothing less than bodily to remove Ohonoo to the
+center of the lagoon, in fulfillment of an old prophecy running
+thus—When a certain island shall stir from its foundations and stand in
+the middle of the still water, then shall the ruler of that island be
+ruler of all Mardi.”
+
+The task was hard, but how glorious the reward! So at it he went, and
+all Ohonoo helped him. Not by hands, but by calling in the magicians.
+Thus far, nevertheless, in vain. But Uhia had hopes.
+
+Now, informed of all this, said Babbalanja to Media, “My lord, if the
+continual looking-forward to something greater, be better than an
+acquiescence in things present; then, wild as it is, this belief of
+Uhia’s he should hug to his heart, as erewhile his wives. But my lord,
+this faith it is, that robs his days of peace; his nights of sweet
+unconsciousness. For holding himself foreordained to the dominion of
+the entire Archipelago, he upbraids the gods for laggards, and curses
+himself as deprived of his rights; nay, as having had wrested from him,
+what he never possessed. Discontent dwarfs his horizon till he spans it
+with his hand. ‘Most miserable of demi-gods,’ he cries, ‘here am I
+cooped up in this insignificant islet, only one hundred leagues by
+fifty, when scores of broad empires own me not for their lord.’ Yet
+Uhia himself is envied. ‘Ah!’ cries Karrolono, one of his chieftains,
+master of a snug little glen, ‘Here am I cabined in this paltry cell
+among the mountains, when that great King Uhia is lord of the whole
+island, and every cubic mile of matter therein.’ But this same
+Karrolono is envied. ‘Hard, oh beggarly lot is mine,’ cries Donno, one
+of his retainers. ‘Here am I fixed and screwed down to this paltry
+plantation, when my lord Karrolono owns the whole glen, ten long
+parasangs from cliff to sea.’ But Donno too is envied. ‘Alas, cursed
+fate!’ cries his servitor Flavona. ‘Here am I made to trudge, sweat,
+and labor all day, when Donno my master does nothing but command.’ But
+others envy Flavona; and those who envy him are envied in turn; even
+down to poor bed- ridden Manta, who dying of want, groans forth,
+‘Abandoned wretch that I am! here I miserably perish, while so many
+beggars gad about and live!’ But surely; none envy Manta! Yes; great
+Uhia himself. ‘Ah!’ cries the king. ‘Here am I vexed and tormented by
+ambition; no peace night nor day; my temples chafed sore by this cursed
+crown that I wear; while that ignoble wight Manta, gives up the ghost
+with none to molest him.’”
+
+In vain we wandered up and down in this isle, and peered into its
+innermost recesses: no Yillah was there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCII.
+The God Keevi And The Precipice Of Mondo
+
+
+One object of interest in Ohonoo was the original image of Keevi the
+god of Thieves; hence, from time immemorial, the tutelar deity of the
+isle.
+
+His shrine was a natural niche in a cliff, walling in the valley of
+Monlova And here stood Keevi, with his five eyes, ten hands, and three
+pair of legs, equipped at all points for the vocation over which he
+presided. Of mighty girth, his arms terminated in hands, every finger a
+limb, spreading in multiplied digits: palms twice five, and fifty
+fingers.
+
+According to the legend, Keevi fell from a golden cloud, burying
+himself to the thighs in the earth, tearing up the soil all round.
+Three meditative mortals, strolling by at the time, had a narrow
+escape.
+
+A wonderful recital; but none of us voyagers durst flout it. Did they
+not show us the identical spot where the idol fell? We descended into
+the hollow, now verdant. Questionless, Keevi himself would have vouched
+for the truth of the miracle, had he not been unfortunately dumb. But
+by far the most cogent, and pointed argument advanced in support of
+this story, is a spear which the priests of Keevi brought forth, for
+Babbalanja to view.
+
+“Let me look at it closer,” said Babbalanja.
+
+And turning it over and over and curiously inspecting it, “Wonderful
+spear,” he cried. “Doubtless, my reverends, this self-same spear must
+have persuaded many recusants!”
+
+“Nay, the most stubborn,” they answered.
+
+“And all afterward quoted as additional authority for the truth of the
+legend?”
+
+“Assuredly.”
+
+From the sea to the shrine of this god, the fine valley of Monlova
+ascends with a gentle gradation, hardly perceptible; but upon turning
+round toward the water, one is surprised to find himself high elevated
+above its surface. Pass on, and the same silent ascent deceives you;
+and the valley contracts; and on both sides the cliffs advance; till at
+last you come to a narrow space, shouldered by buttresses of rock.
+Beyond, through this cleft, all is blue sky. If the Trades blow high,
+and you came unawares upon the spot, you would think Keevi himself
+pushing you forward with all his hands; so powerful is the current of
+air rushing through this elevated defile. But expostulate not with the
+tornado that blows you along; sail on; but soft; look down; the land
+breaks off in one sheer descent of a thousand feet, right down to the
+wide plain below. So sudden and profound this precipice, that you seem
+to look off from one world to another. In a dreamy, sunny day, the
+spangled plain beneath assumes an uncertain fleeting aspect. Had you a
+deep-sea-lead you would almost be tempted to sound the ocean-haze at
+your feet.
+
+This, mortal! is the precipice of Mondo.
+
+From this brink, spear in hand, sprang fifty rebel warriors, driven
+back into the vale by a superior force. Finding no spot to stand at
+bay, with a fierce shout they took the fatal leap.
+
+Said Mohi, “Their souls ascended, ere their bodies touched.”
+
+This tragical event took place many generations gone by, and now a
+dizzy, devious way conducts one, firm of foot, from the verge to the
+plain. But none ever ascended. So perilous, indeed, is the descent
+itself, that the islanders venture not the feat, without invoking
+supernatural aid. Flanking the precipice beneath beetling rocks, stand
+the guardian deities of Mondo; and on altars before them, are placed
+the propitiatory offerings of the traveler.
+
+To the right of the brink of the precipice, and far over it, projects a
+narrow ledge. The test of legitimacy in the Ohonoo monarchs is to stand
+hereon, arms folded, and javelins darting by.
+
+And there in his youth Uhia stood.
+
+“How felt you, cousin?” asked Media.
+
+“Like the King of Ohonoo,” he replied. “As I shall again feel; when
+King of all Mardi.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII.
+Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy Relates A Legend
+
+
+Embarking from Ohonoo, we at length found ourselves gliding by the
+pleasant shores of Tupia, an islet which according to Braid-Beard had
+for ages remained uninhabited by man. Much curiosity being expressed to
+know more of the isle, Mohi was about to turn over his chronicles,
+when, with modesty, the minstrel Yoomy interposed; saying, that if my
+Lord Media permitted, he himself would relate the legend. From its
+nature, deeming the same pertaining to his province as poet; though, as
+yet, it had not been versified. But he added, that true pearl shells
+rang musically, though not strung upon a cord.
+
+Upon this presumptuous interference, Mohi looked highly offended; and
+nervously twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about
+frippery young poetasters being too full of silly imaginings to tell a
+plain tale.
+
+Said Yoomy, in reply, adjusting his turban, “Old Mohi, let us not
+clash. I honor your calling; but, with submission, your chronicles are
+more wild than my cantos. I deal in pure conceits of my own; which have
+a shapeliness and a unity, however unsubstantial; but you, Braid-Beard,
+deal in mangled realities. In all your chapters, you yourself grope in
+the dark. Much truth is not in thee, historian. Besides, Mohi: my songs
+perpetuate many things which you sage scribes entirely overlook. Have
+you not oftentimes come to me, and my ever dewy ballads for
+information, in which you and your musty old chronicles were
+deficient?”
+
+“In much that is precious, Mohi, we poets are the true historians; we
+embalm; you corrode.”
+
+To this Mohi, with some ire, was about to make answer, when, flinging
+over his shoulder a new fold of his mantle, Babbalanja spoke thus:
+“Peace, rivals. As Bardianna has it, like all who dispute upon
+pretensions of their own, you are each nearest the right, when you
+speak of the other; and furthest therefrom, when you speak of
+yourselves.”
+
+Said Mohi and Yoomy in a breath, “Who sought your opinion, philosopher?
+you filcher from old Bardianna, and monger of maxims!”
+
+“You, who have so long marked the vices of Mardi, that you flatter
+yourself you have none of your own,” added Braid-Beard.
+
+“You, who only seem wise, because of the contrasting follies of others,
+and not of any great wisdom in yourself,” continued the minstrel, with
+unwonted asperity.”
+
+“Now here,” said Babballanja, “am I charged upon by a bearded old ram,
+and a lamb. One butting with his carious and brittle old frontlet; the
+other pushing with its silly head before its horns are sprouted. But
+this comes of being impartial. Had I espoused the cause of Yoomy versus
+Mohi, or that of Mohi versus Yoomy, I had been sure to have had at
+least one voice in my favor. The impartialist insulteth all sides,
+saith old Bardianna; but smite with but one hand, and the other shall
+be kissed.—Oh incomparable Bardianna!”
+
+“Will no one lay that troubled old ghost,” exclaimed Media, devoutly.
+“Proceed with thy legend, Yoomy; and see to it, that it be brief; for I
+mistrust me, these legends do but test the patience of the hearers. But
+draw a long breath, and begin.”
+
+“A long bow,” muttered Mohi.
+
+And Yoomy began.
+
+“It is now about ten hundred thousand moons—”
+
+“Great Oro! How long since, say you?” cried Mohi, making Gothic arches
+of his brows.
+
+Looking at him disdainfully, but vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy began over
+again.
+
+“It is now above ten hundred thousand moons, since there died the last
+of a marvelous race, once inhabiting the very shores by which we are
+sailing. They were a very diminutive people, only a few inches high—”
+
+“Stop, minstrel,” cried Mohi; “how many pennyweights did they weigh?”
+
+Continued Yoomy, unheedingly, “They were covered all over with a soft,
+silky down, like that on the rind of the Avee; and there grew upon
+their heads a green, lance-leaved vine, of a most delicate texture. For
+convenience, the manikins reduced their tendrils, sporting, nothing but
+coronals. Whereas, priding themselves upon the redundancy of their
+tresses, the little maidens assiduously watered them with the early dew
+of the morning; so that all wreathed and festooned with verdure, they
+moved about in arbors, trailing after them trains.”
+
+“I can hear no more,” exclaimed Mohi, stopping his ears.
+
+Continued Yoomy, “The damsels lured to their bowers, certain red-
+plumaged insect-birds, and taught them to nestle therein, and warble;
+which, with the pleasant vibrating of the leaves, when the little
+maidens moved, produced a strange blending of sweet, singing sounds.
+The little maidens embraced not with their arms, but with their viny
+locks; whose tendrils instinctively twined about their lovers, till
+both were lost in the bower.”
+
+“And what then?” asked Mohi, who, notwithstanding the fingers in his
+ears, somehow contrived to listen; “What then?”
+
+Vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy went on.
+
+“At a certain age, but while yet the maidens were very young, their
+vines bore blossoms. Ah! fatal symptoms. For soon as they burst, the
+maidens died in their arbors; and were buried in the valleys; and their
+vines spread forth; and the flowers bloomed; but the maidens themselves
+were no more. And now disdaining the earth, the vines shot upward:
+climbing to the topmost boughs of the trees; and flowering in the
+sunshine forever and aye.”
+
+Yoomy here paused for a space; but presently continued:
+
+“The little eyes of the people of Tupia were very strange to behold:
+full of stars, that shone from within, like the Pleiades, deep- bosomed
+in blue. And like the stars, they were intolerant of sunlight; and
+slumbering through the day, the people of Tupia only went abroad by
+night. But it was chiefly when the moon was at full, that they were
+mostly in spirits.
+
+“Then the little manikins would dive down into the sea, and rove about
+in the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. Or, racing round,
+make a mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:—plucking the
+reverend mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells;
+worrying the sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the touchy
+torpedos. Sometimes they went prying about with the starfish, that have
+an eye at the end of each ray; and often with coral files in their
+hands stole upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their weapons. In
+short, these stout little manikins were passionately fond of the sea,
+and swore by wave and billow, that sooner or later they would embark
+thereon in nautilus shells, and spend the rest of their roving days
+thousands of inches from Tupia. Too true, they were shameless little
+rakes. Oft would they return to their sweethearts, sporting musky
+girdles of sea-kelp, tasseled with green little pouches of grass,
+brimful of seed-pearls; and jingling their coin in the ears of the
+damsels, throw out inuendoes about the beautiful and bountiful
+mermaids: how wealthy and amorous they were, and how they delighted in
+the company of the brave gallants of Tupia. Ah! at such heartless
+bravadoes, how mourned the poor little nymphs. Deep into their arbors
+they went; and their little hearts burst like rose-buds, and filled the
+whole air with an odorous grief. But when their lovers were gentle and
+true, no happier maidens haunted the lilies than they. By some mystical
+process they wrought minute balls of light: touchy, mercurial globules,
+very hard to handle; and with these, at pitch and toss, they played in
+the groves. Or mischievously inclined, they toiled all night long at
+braiding the moon-beams together, and entangling the plaited end to a
+bough; so that at night, the poor planet had much ado to set.”
+
+Here Yoomy once more was mute.
+
+“Pause you to invent as you go on?” said old Mohi, elevating his chin,
+till his beard was horizontal.
+
+Yoomy resumed.
+
+“Little or nothing more, my masters, is extant of the legend; only it
+must be mentioned, that these little people were very tasteful in their
+personal adornings; the manikins wearing girdles of fragrant leaves,
+and necklaces of aromatic seeds; and the little damsels, not content
+with their vines, and their verdure, sporting pearls in their ears;
+bracelets of wee little porpoise teeth; and oftentimes dancing with
+their mates in the moonlit glades, coquettishly fanned themselves with
+the transparent wings of the flying fish.”
+
+“Now, I appeal to you, royal Media; to you, noble Taji; to you,
+Babbalanja;” said the chronicler, with an impressive gesture, “whether
+this seems a credible history: Yoomy has invented.”
+
+“But perhaps he has entertained, old Mohi,” said Babbalanja.
+
+“He has not spoken the truth,” persisted the chronicler.
+
+“Mohi,” said Babbalanja, “truth is in things, and not in words: truth
+is voiceless; so at least saith old Bardianna. And I, Babbalanja,
+assert, that what are vulgarly called fictions are as much realities as
+the gross mattock of Dididi, the digger of trenches; for things visible
+are but conceits of the eye: things imaginative, conceits of the fancy.
+If duped by one, we are equally duped by the other.”
+
+“Clear as this water,” said Yoomy.
+
+“Opaque as this paddle,” said Mohi, “But, come now, thou oracle, if all
+things are deceptive, tell us what is truth?”
+
+“The old interrogatory; did they not ask it when the world began? But
+ask it no more. As old Bardianna hath it, that question is more final
+than any answer.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIV.
+Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of His,
+Mondoldo; And Of The Fish-Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish
+
+
+Drawing near Mondoldo, our next place of destination, we were greeted
+by six fine canoes, gayly tricked out with streamers, and all alive
+with the gestures of their occupants. King Borabolla and court were
+hastening to welcome our approach; Media, unbeknown to all, having
+notified him at the Banquet of the Five-and-Twenty Kings, of our
+intention to visit his dominions.
+
+Soon, side by side, these canoes floated with ours; each barge of Odo
+courteously flanked by those of Mondoldo.
+
+Not long were we in identifying Borabolla: the portly, pleasant old
+monarch, seated cross-legged upon a dais, projecting over the bow of
+the largest canoe of the six, close-grappling to the side of the Sea
+Elephant.
+
+Was he not a goodly round sight to behold? Round all over; round of eye
+and of head; and like the jolly round Earth, roundest and biggest about
+the Equator. A girdle of red was his Equinoctial Line, giving a
+compactness to his plumpness.
+
+This old Borabolla permitted naught to come between his head and the
+sun; not even gray hairs. Bald as a gourd, right down on his brazen
+skull, the rays of the luminary converged.
+
+He was all hilarity; full of allusions to the feast at Willamilla,
+where he had done royal execution. Rare old Borabolla! thou wert made
+for dining out; thy ample mouth an inlet for good cheer, and a
+sally-port for good humor.
+
+Bustling about on his dais, he now gave orders for the occupants of our
+canoes to be summarily emptied into his own; saying, that in that
+manner only did he allow guests to touch the beach of Mondoldo.
+
+So, with no little trouble—for the waves were grown somewhat riotous—we
+proceeded to comply; bethinking ourselves all the while, how annoying
+is sometimes an over-strained act of hospitality.
+
+We were now but little less than a mile from the shore. But what of
+that? There was plenty of time, thought Borabolla, for a hasty lunch,
+and the getting of a subsequent appetite ere we effected a landing. So
+viands were produced; to which the guests were invited to pay heedful
+attention; or take the consequences, and famish till the long voyage in
+prospect was ended.
+
+Soon the water shoaled (approaching land is like nearing truth in
+metaphysics), and ere we yet touched the beach, Borabolla declared,
+that we were already landed. Which paradoxical assertion implied, that
+the hospitality of Mondoldo was such, that in all directions it
+radiated far out upon the lagoon, embracing a great circle; so that no
+canoe could sail by the island, without its occupants being so long its
+guests.
+
+In most hospitable vicinity to the water, was a fine large structure,
+inclosed by a stockade; both rather dilapidated; as if the cost of
+entertaining its guests, prevented outlays for repairing the place. But
+it was one of Borabolla’s maxims, that generally your tumble-down old
+homesteads yield the most entertainment; their very dilapidation
+betokening their having seen good service in hospitality; whereas,
+spruce-looking, finical portals, have a phiz full of meaning; for
+niggards are oftentimes neat.
+
+Now, after what has been said, who so silly as to fancy, that because
+Borabolla’s mansion was inclosed by a stockade, that the same was
+intended as a defense against guests? By no means. In the palisade was
+a mighty breach, not an entrance-way, wide enough to admit six Daniel
+Lamberts abreast.
+
+“Look,” cried Borabolla, as landing we stepped toward the place. “Look
+Media! look all. These gates, you here see, lashed back with osiers,
+have been so lashed during my life-time; and just where they stand,
+shall they rot; ay, they shall perish wide open.”
+
+“But why have them at all?” inquired Media.
+
+“Ah! there you have old Borabolla,” cried the other.
+
+“No,” said Babbalanja, “a fence whose gate is ever kept open, seems
+unnecessary, I grant; nevertheless, it gives a notable hint, otherwise
+not so aptly conveyed; for is not the open gate the sign of the open
+heart?”
+
+“Right, right,” cried Borabolla; “so enter both, cousin Media;” and
+with one hand smiting his chest, with the other he waved us on.
+
+But if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure within seemed
+only a roof; for nothing but a slender pillar here and there, supported
+it.
+
+“This is my mode of building,” said Borabolla; “I will have no outside
+to my palaces. Walls are superfluous. And to a high-minded guest, the
+entering a narrow doorway is like passing under a yoke; every time he
+goes in, or comes out, it reminds him, that he is being entertained at
+the cost of another. So storm in all round.”
+
+Within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we looked up to
+endless rows of brown calabashes, and trenchers suspended along the
+rafters; promissory of ample cheer as regiments of old hams in a
+baronial refectory.
+
+They were replenished with both meat and drink; the trenchers readily
+accessible by means of cords; but the gourds containing arrack,
+suspended neck downward, were within easy reach where they swung.
+
+Seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a cautious young
+bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making, Taji stood on his guard.
+And when Borabolla urged him to empty a gourd or two, by way of making
+room in him for the incidental repast about to be served, Taji civilly
+declined; not wishing to cumber the floor, before the cloth was laid.
+
+Jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of the unities of
+time and place, went freely about, from gourd to gourd, concocting in
+him a punch. At which, Samoa expressed much surprise, that he should be
+so unobservant as not to know, that in Mardi, guests might be pressed
+to demean themselves, without its being expected that so they would do.
+A true toss-pot himself, he bode his time.
+
+The second lunch over, Borabolla placed both hands to the ground, and
+giving the sigh of the fat man, after three vigorous efforts, succeeded
+in gaining his pins; which pins of his, were but small for his body;
+insomuch that they hugely staggered about, under the fine old load they
+carried.
+
+The specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture, was to
+put himself in motion, and conduct us to his fish-ponds, famous
+throughout the Archipelago as the hobby of the king of Mondoldo.
+Furthermore, as the great repast of the day, yet to take place, was to
+be a grand piscatory one, our host was all anxiety, that we should have
+a glimpse of our fish, while yet alive and hearty.
+
+We were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors were preparing to
+accompany us with trenchers of edibles. It begat the notion, that our
+trip to the fish-ponds was to prove a long journey. But they were not
+three hundred yards distant; though Borabolla being a veteran traveler,
+never stirred from his abode without his battalion of butlers.
+
+The ponds were four in number, close bordering the water, embracing
+about an acre each, and situated in a low fen, draining several
+valleys. The excavated soil was thrown up in dykes, made tight by being
+beaten all over, while in a soft state, with the heavy, flat ends of
+Palm stalks. Lying side by side, by three connecting trenches, these
+ponds could be made to communicate at pleasure; while two additional
+canals afforded means of letting in upon them the salt waters of the
+lagoon on one hand, or those of an inland stream on the other. And by a
+third canal with four branches, together or separately, they could be
+partially drained. Thus, the waters could be mixed to suit any gills;
+and the young fish taken from the sea, passed through a stated process
+of freshening; so that by the time they graduated, the salt was well
+out of them, like the brains out of some diplomaed collegians.
+
+Fresh-water fish are only to be obtained in Mondoldo by the artificial
+process above mentioned; as the streams and brooks abound not in trout
+or other Waltonian prey.
+
+Taken all floundering from the sea, Borabolla’s fish, passing through
+their regular training for the table, and daily tended by their
+keepers, in course of time became quite tame and communicative. To
+prove which, calling his Head Ranger, the king bade him administer the
+customary supply of edibles.
+
+Accordingly, mouthfuls were thrown into the ponds. Whereupon, the fish
+darted in a shoal toward the margin; some leaping out of the water in
+their eagerness. Crouching on the bank, the Ranger now called several
+by name, patted their scales, carrying on some heathenish nursery-talk,
+like St. Anthony, in ancient Coptic, instilling virtuous principles
+into his finny flock on the sea shore.
+
+But alas, for the hair-shirted old dominie’s backsliding disciples.
+For, of all nature’s animated kingdoms, fish are the most unchristian,
+inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures. At least, so
+seem they to strangers; though at bottom, somehow, they must be all
+right. And truly it is not to be wondered at, that the very reverend
+Anthony strove after the conversion of fish. For, whoso shall
+Christianize, and by so doing, humanize the sharks, will do a greater
+good, by the saving of human life in all time to come, than though he
+made catechumens of the head-hunting Dyaks of Borneo, or the
+blood-bibbing Battas of Sumatra. And are these Dyaks and Battas one
+whit better than tiger-sharks? Nay, are they so good? Were a Batta your
+intimate friend, you would often mistake an orang-outang for him; and
+have orang-outangs immortal souls? True, the Battas believe in a
+hereafter; but of what sort? Full of Blue-Beards and bloody bones. So,
+also, the sharks; who hold that Paradise is one vast Pacific, ploughed
+by navies of mortals, whom an endless gale forever drops into their
+maws.
+
+Not wholly a surmise. For, does it not appear a little unreasonable to
+imagine, that there is any creature, fish, flesh, or fowl, so little in
+love with life, as not to cherish hopes of a future state? Why does man
+believe in it? One reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he desires it. Who
+shall say, then, that the leviathan this day harpooned on the coast of
+Japan, goes not straight to his ancestor, who rolled all Jonah, as a
+sweet morsel, under his tongue?
+
+Though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best hold
+themselves in a state of philosophical suspense. Say they—“That
+catastrophe took place in the Mediterranean; and the only whales
+frequenting the Mediterranean, are of a sort having not a swallow large
+enough to pass a man entire; for those Mediterranean whales feed upon
+small things, as horses upon oats.” But hence, the sailors draw a rash
+inference. Are not the Straits of Gibralter wide enough to admit a
+sperm-whale, even though none have sailed through, since Nineveh and
+the gourd in its suburbs dried up?
+
+As for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature eighty feet
+long without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist before dinner,
+is not inconsiderately to be consigned to annihilation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCV.
+That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face
+
+
+“A very good palace, this, coz, for you and me,” said waddling old
+Borabolla to Media, as, returned from our excursion, he slowly lowered
+himself down to his mat, sighing like a grampus.
+
+By this, he again made known the vastness of his hospitality, which led
+him for the nonce to parcel out his kingdom with his guests.
+
+But apart from these extravagant expressions of good feeling, Borabolla
+was the prince of good fellows. His great tun of a person was
+indispensable to the housing of his bullock-heart; under which, any
+lean wight would have sunk. But alas! unlike Media and Taji, Borabolla,
+though a crowned king, was accounted no demi-god; his obesity excluding
+him from that honor. Indeed, in some quarters of Mardi, certain pagans
+maintain, that no fat man can be even immortal. A dogma! truly, which
+should be thrown to the dogs. For fat men are the salt and savor of the
+earth; full of good humor, high spirits, fun, and all manner of
+jollity. Their breath clears the atmosphere: their exhalations air the
+world. Of men, they are the good measures; brimmed, heaped, pressed
+down, piled up, and running over. They are as ships from Teneriffe;
+swimming deep, full of old wine, and twenty steps down into their
+holds. Soft and susceptible, all round they are easy of entreaty.
+Wherefore, for all their rotundity, they are too often circumnavigated
+by hatchet-faced knaves. Ah! a fat uncle, with a fat paunch, and a fat
+purse, is a joy and a delight to all nephews; to philosophers, a
+subject of endless speculation, as to how many droves of oxen and Lake
+Eries of wine might have run through his great mill during the full
+term of his mortal career. Fat men not immortal! This very instant, old
+Lambert is rubbing his jolly abdomen in Paradise.
+
+Now, to the fact of his not being rated a demi-god, was perhaps
+ascribable the circumstance, that Borabolla comported himself with less
+dignity, than was the wont of their Mardian majesties. And truth to
+say, to have seen him regaling himself with one of his favorite
+cuttle-fish, its long snaky arms and feelers instinctively twining
+round his head as he ate; few intelligent observers would have opined
+that the individual before them was the sovereign lord of Mondoldo.
+
+But what of the banquet of fish? Shall we tell how the old king
+ungirdled himself thereto; how as the feast waxed toward its close,
+with one sad exception, he still remained sunny-sided all round; his
+disc of a face joyous as the South Side of Madeira in the hilarious
+season of grapes? Shall we tell how we all grew glad and frank; and how
+the din of the dinner was heard far into night?
+
+We will.
+
+When Media ate slowly, Borabolla took him to task, bidding him dispatch
+his viands more speedily.
+
+Whereupon said Media “But Borabolla, my round fellow, that would
+abridge the pleasure.”
+
+“Not at all, my dear demi-god; do like me: eat fast and eat long.”
+
+In the middle of the feast, a huge skin of wine was brought in. The
+portly peltry of a goat; its horns embattling its effigy head; its
+mouth the nozzle; and its long beard flowed to its jet-black hoofs.
+With many ceremonial salams, the attendants bore it along, placing it
+at one end of the convivial mats, full in front of Borabolla; where
+seated upon its haunches it made one of the party.
+
+Brimming a ram’s horn, the mellowest of bugles, Borabolla bowed to his
+silent guest, and thus spoke—“In this wine, which yet smells of the
+grape, I pledge you my reverend old toper, my lord Capricornus; you
+alone have enough; and here’s full skins to the rest!”
+
+“How jolly he is,” whispered Media to Babbalanja.
+
+“Ay, his lungs laugh loud; but is laughing, rejoicing?”
+
+“Help! help!” cried Borabolla “lay me down! lay me down! good gods,
+what a twinge!”
+
+The goblet fell from his hand; the purple flew from his wine to his
+face; and Borabolla fell back into the arms of his servitors. “That
+gout! that gout!” he groaned. “Lord! lord! no more cursed wine will I
+drink!”
+
+Then at ten paces distant, a clumsy attendant let fall a trencher—“Take
+it off my foot, you knave!”
+
+Afar off another entered gallanting a calabash—“Look out for my toe,
+you hound!”
+
+During all this, the attendants tenderly nursed him. And in good time,
+with its thousand fangs, the gout-fiend departed for a while.
+
+Reprieved, the old king brightened up; by degrees becoming jolly as
+ever.
+
+“Come! let us be merry again,” he cried, “what shall we eat? and what
+shall we drink? that infernal gout is gone; come, what will your
+worships have?”
+
+So at it once more we went.
+
+But of our feast, little more remains to be related than this;—that out
+of it, grew a wondrous kindness between Borabolla and Jarl. Strange to
+tell, from the first our fat host had regarded my Viking with a most
+friendly eye. Still stranger to add, this feeling was returned. But
+though they thus fancied each other, they were very unlike; Borabolla
+and Jarl. Nevertheless, thus is it ever. And as the convex fits not
+into the convex, but into the concave; so do men fit into their
+opposites; and so fitted Borabolla’s arched paunch into Jarl’s,
+hollowed out to receive it.
+
+But how now? Borabolla was jolly and loud: Jarl demure and silent;
+Borabolla a king: Jarl only a Viking;—how came they together? Very
+plain, to repeat:—because they were heterogeneous; and hence the
+affinity. But as the affinity between those chemical opposites chlorine
+and hydrogen, is promoted by caloric; so the affinity between Borabolla
+and Jarl was promoted by the warmth of the wine that they drank at this
+feast. For of all blessed fluids, the juice of the grape is the
+greatest foe to cohesion. True, it tightens the girdle; but then it
+loosens the tongue, and opens the heart.
+
+In sum, Borabolla loved Jarl; and Jarl, pleased with this sociable
+monarch, for all his garrulity, esteemed him the most sensible old
+gentleman and king he had as yet seen in Mardi. For this reason,
+perhaps; that his talkativeness favored that silence in listeners,
+which was my Viking’s delight in himself.
+
+Repeatedly during the banquet, our host besought Taji to allow his
+henchman to remain on the island, after the rest of our party should
+depart; and he faithfully promised to surrender Jarl, whenever we
+should return to claim him.
+
+But though I harbored no distrust of Borabolla’s friendly intentions, I
+could not so readily consent to his request; for with Jarl for my one
+only companion, had I not both famished and feasted? was he not my only
+link to things past?
+
+Things past!—Ah Yillah! for all its mirth, and though we hunted wide,
+we found thee not in Mondoldo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVI.
+Samoa A Surgeon
+
+
+The second day of our stay in Mondoldo was signalized by a noteworthy
+exhibition of the surgical skill of Samoa; who had often boasted, that
+though well versed in the science of breaking men’s heads, he was
+equally an adept in mending their crockery.
+
+Overnight, Borabolla had directed his corps of sea-divers to repair
+early on the morrow, to a noted section of the great Mardian reef, for
+the purpose of procuring for our regalement some of the fine
+Hawk’s-bill turtle, whose secret retreats were among the cells and
+galleries of that submerged wall of coral, from whose foamy coping no
+plummet dropped ever yet touched bottom.
+
+These turtles were only to be obtained by diving far down under the
+surface; and then swimming along horizontally, and peering into the
+coral honeycomb; snatching at a flipper when seen, as at a pinion in a
+range of billing dove-cotes.
+
+As the king’s divers were thus employed, one of them, Karhownoo by
+name, perceived a Devil-shark, so called, swimming wistfully toward him
+from out his summer grotto in the reef. No way petrified by the sight,
+and pursuing the usual method adopted by these divers in such
+emergencies, Karhownoo, splashing the water, instantly swam toward the
+stranger. But the shark, undaunted, advanced: a thing so unusual, and
+fearful, that, in an agony of fright, the diver shot up for the
+surface. Heedless, he looked not up as he went; and when within a few
+inches of the open air, dashed his head against a projection of the
+reef. He would have sank into the live tomb beneath, were it not that
+three of his companions, standing on the brink, perceived his peril,
+and dragged him into safety.
+
+Seeing the poor fellow was insensible, they endeavored, ineffectually,
+to revive him; and at last, placing him in their canoe, made all haste
+for the shore. Here a crowd soon gathered, and the diver was borne to a
+habitation, close adjoining Borabolla’s; whence, hearing of the
+disaster, we sallied out to render assistance.
+
+Upon entering the hut, the benevolent old king commanded it to be
+cleared; and then proceeded to examine the sufferer.
+
+The skull proved to be very badly fractured; in one place, splintered.
+
+“Let me mend it,” said Samoa, with ardor.
+
+And being told of his experience in such matters, Borabolla surrendered
+the patient.
+
+With a gourd of water, and a tappa cloth, the one-armed Upoluan
+carefully washed the wound; and then calling for a sharp splinter of
+bamboo, and a thin, semi-transparent cup of cocoa-nut shell, he went
+about the operation: nothing less than the “Tomoti” (head-mending), in
+other words the trepan.
+
+The patient still continuing insensible, the fragments were disengaged
+by help of a bamboo scalpel; when a piece of the drinking
+cup—previously dipped in the milk of a cocoanut—was nicely fitted into
+the vacancy, the skin as nicely adjusted over it, and the operation was
+complete.
+
+And now, while all present were crying out in admiration of Samoa’s
+artistic skill, and Samoa himself stood complacently regarding his
+workmanship, Babbalanja suggested, that it might be well to ascertain
+whether the patient survived. When, upon sounding his heart, the diver
+was found to be dead.
+
+The bystanders loudly lamented; but declared the surgeon a man of
+marvelous science.
+
+Returning to Borabolla’s, much conversation ensued, concerning the sad
+scene we had witnessed, which presently branched into a learned
+discussion upon matters of surgery at large.
+
+At length, Samoa regaled the company with a story; for the truth of
+which no one but him can vouch, for no one but him was by, at the time;
+though there is testimony to show that it involves nothing at variance
+with the customs of certain barbarous tribes.
+
+Read on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVII.
+Faith And Knowledge
+
+
+A thing incredible is about to be related; but a thing may be
+incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is
+true. And many infidels but disbelieve the least incredible things; and
+many bigots reject the most obvious. But let us hold fast to all we
+have; and stop all leaks in our faith; lest an opening, but of a hand’s
+breadth, should sink our seventy-fours. The wide Atlantic can rush in
+at one port-hole; and if we surrender a plank, we surrender the fleet.
+Panoplied in all the armor of St. Paul, morion, hauberk, and greaves,
+let us fight the Turks inch by inch, and yield them naught but our
+corpse.
+
+But let us not turn round upon friends, confounding them with foes. For
+dissenters only assent to more than we. Though Milton was a heretic to
+the creed of Athanasius, his faith exceeded that of Athanasius himself;
+and the faith of Athanasius that of Thomas, the disciple, who with his
+own eyes beheld the mark of the nails. Whence it comes that though we
+be all Christians now, the best of us had perhaps been otherwise in the
+days of Thomas.
+
+The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity:
+Gabriel rejects more than we, but out-believes us all. The greatest
+marvels are first truths; and first truths the last unto which we
+attain. Things nearest are furthest off. Though your ear be next-door
+to your brain, it is forever removed from your sight. Man has a more
+comprehensive view of the moon, than the man in the moon himself. We
+know the moon is round; he only infers it. It is because we ourselves
+are in ourselves, that we know ourselves not. And it is only of our
+easy faith, that we are not infidels throughout; and only of our lack
+of faith, that we believe what we do.
+
+In some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers. Do you
+believe that you lived three thousand years ago? That you were at the
+taking of Tyre, were overwhelmed in Gomorrah? No. But for me, I was at
+the subsiding of the Deluge, and helped swab the ground, and build the
+first house. With the Israelites, I fainted in the wilderness; was in
+court, when Solomon outdid all the judges before him. I, it was, who
+suppressed the lost work of Manetho, on the Egyptian theology, as
+containing mysteries not to be revealed to posterity, and things at war
+with the canonical scriptures; I, who originated the conspiracy against
+that purple murderer, Domitian; I, who in the senate moved, that great
+and good Aurelian be emperor. I instigated the abdication of
+Diocletian, and Charles the Fifth; I touched Isabella’s heart, that she
+hearkened to Columbus. I am he, that from the king’s minions hid the
+Charter in the old oak at Hartford; I harbored Goffe and Whalley: I am
+the leader of the Mohawk masks, who in the Old Commonwealth’s harbor,
+overboard threw the East India Company’s Souchong; I am the Vailed
+Persian Prophet; I, the man in the iron mask; I, Junius.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVIII.
+The Tale Of A Traveler
+
+
+It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a
+traveler. But stay-at-homes say travelers lie. Yet a voyage to Ethiopia
+would cure them of that; for few skeptics are travelers; fewer
+travelers liars, though the proverb respecting them lies. It is false,
+as some say, that Bruce was cousin-german to Baron Munchausen; but
+true, as Bruce said, that the Abysinnians cut live steaks from their
+cattle. It was, in good part, his villainous transcribers, who made
+monstrosities of Mandeville’s travels. And though all liars go to
+Gehenna; yet, assuming that Mandeville died before Dante; still, though
+Dante took the census of Hell, we find not Sir John, under the likeness
+of a roasted neat’s tongue, in that infernalest of infernos, The
+Inferno.
+
+But let not the truth be postponed. To the stand, Samoa, and through
+your interpreter, speak.
+
+Once upon a time, during his endless sea-rovings, the Upoluan was
+called upon to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a
+desperate fight of slings.
+
+Upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as the
+cranium itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being over,
+part of its live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan
+accomplished with cocoanut shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured.
+
+This man died not, but lived. But from being a warrior of great sense
+and spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing
+many of the characteristics of his swinish grafting. He survived the
+operation more than a year; at the end of that period, however, going
+mad, and dying in his delirium.
+
+Stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some
+present. But Babbalanja held out to the last.
+
+“Yet, if this story be true,” said he, “and since it is well settled,
+that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why
+human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium
+the contents of a man’s. I have long thought, that men, pigs, and
+plants, are but curious physiological experiments; and that science
+would at last enable philosophers to produce new species of beings, by
+somehow mixing, and concocting the essential ingredients of various
+creatures; and so forming new combinations. My friend Atahalpa, the
+astrologer and alchymist, has long had a jar, in which he has been
+endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being compounded
+according to a receipt of his own.”
+
+But little they heeded Babbalanja. It was the traveler’s tale that most
+arrested attention.
+
+Tough the thews, and tough the tales of Samoa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIX.
+“Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee”
+
+
+During the afternoon of the day of the diver’s decease, preparations
+were making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying them
+by torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in Odo, so was the
+custom here.
+
+Meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally
+arrayed, beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying—“A man is
+dead; let no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh Oro!—Let no canoes put to
+sea till the burial. This night, oh Oro!—Let no food be cooked.”
+
+And ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire;
+with castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang—
+
+Be merry, oh men of Mondoldo,
+    A maiden this night is to wed:
+Be merry, oh damsels of Mardi,—
+    Flowers, flowers for the bridal bed.
+
+
+Informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we
+repaired to the arbor, whither the body had been removed.
+
+Arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed,
+between its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough.
+
+The relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so that
+blood flowed, and spotted their vesture.
+
+Upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the wife
+of the diver, she exclaimed, “Yes; great is the pain, but greater my
+affliction.”
+
+Another, the deaf sire of the dead, went staggering about, and groping;
+saying, that he was now quite blind; for some months previous he had
+lost one eye in the death of his eldest son and now the other was gone.
+
+“I am childless,” he cried; “henceforth call me Roi Mori,” that is,
+Twice-Blind.
+
+While the relatives were thus violently lamenting, the rest of the
+company occasionally scratched themselves with their shells; but very
+slightly, and mostly on the soles of their feet; from long exposure,
+quite callous. This was interrupted, however, when the real mourners
+averted their eyes; though at no time was there any deviation in the
+length of their faces.
+
+But on all sides, lamentations afresh broke forth, upon the appearance
+of a person who had been called in to assist in solemnizing the
+obsequies, and also to console the afflicted.
+
+In rotundity, he was another Borabolla. He puffed and panted.
+
+As he approached the corpse, a sobbing silence ensued; when holding the
+hand of the dead, between his, the stranger thus spoke:—
+
+“Mourn not, oh friends of Karhownoo, that this your brother lives not.
+His wounded head pains him no more; he would not feel it, did a javelin
+pierce him. Yea; Karhownoo is exempt from all the ills and evils of
+this miserable Mardi!”
+
+Hereupon, the Twice-Blind, who being deaf, heard not what was said,
+tore his gray hair, and cried, “Alas! alas! my boy; thou wert the
+merriest man in Mardi, and now thy pranks are over!”
+
+But the other proceeded—“Mourn not, I say, oh friends of Karhownoo; the
+dead whom ye deplore is happier than the living; is not his spirit in
+the aerial isles?”
+
+“True! true!” responded the raving wife, mingling her blood with her
+tears, “my own poor hapless Karhownoo is thrice happy in Paradise!” And
+anew she wailed, and lacerated her cheeks.
+
+“Rave not, I say.”
+
+But she only raved the more.
+
+And now the good stranger departed; saying, he must hie to a wedding,
+waiting his presence in an arbor adjoining.
+
+Understanding that the removal of the body would not take place till
+midnight, we thought to behold the mode of marrying in Mondoldo.
+
+Drawing near the place, we were greeted by merry voices, and much
+singing, which greatly increased when the good stranger was perceived.
+
+Gayly arrayed in fine robes, with plumes on their heads, the bride and
+groom stood in the middle of a joyous throng, in readiness for the
+nuptial bond to be tied.
+
+Standing before them, the stranger was given a cord, so bedecked with
+flowers, as to disguise its stout fibers; and taking: the bride’s
+hands, he bound them together to a ritual chant; about her neck, in
+festoons, disposing the flowery ends of the cord. Then turning to the
+groom, he was given another, also beflowered; but attached thereto was
+a great stone, very much carved, and stained; indeed, so every way
+disguised, that a person not knowing what it was, and lifting it, would
+be greatly amazed at its weight. This cord being attached to the waist
+of the groom, he leaned over toward the bride, by reason of the burden
+of the drop.
+
+All present now united in a chant, and danced about the happy pair, who
+meanwhile looked ill at ease; the one being so bound by the hands, and
+the other solely weighed down by his stone.
+
+A pause ensuing, the good stranger, turning them back to back, thus
+spoke:—
+
+“By thy flowery gyves, oh bride, I make thee a wife; and by thy
+burdensome stone, oh groom, I make thee a husband. Live and be happy,
+both; for the wise and good Oro hath placed us in Mardi to be glad.
+Doth not all nature rejoice in her green groves and her flowers? and
+woo and wed not the fowls of the air, trilling their bliss in their
+bowers? Live then, and be happy, oh bride and groom; for Oro is
+offended with the unhappy, since he meant them to be gay.”
+
+And the ceremony ended with a joyful feast.
+
+But not all nuptials in Mardi were like these. Others were wedded with
+different rites; without the stone and flowery gyves. These were they
+who plighted their troth with tears not smiles, and made responses in
+the heart.
+
+Returning from the house of the merry to the house of the mournful, we
+lingered till midnight to witness the issuing forth of the body.
+
+By torch light, numerous canoes, with paddlers standing by, were drawn
+up on the beach, to accommodate those who purposed following the poor
+diver to his home.
+
+The remains embarked, some confusion ensued concerning the occupancy of
+the rest of the shallops. At last the procession glided off, our party
+included. Two by two, forming a long line of torches trailing round the
+isle, the canoes all headed toward the opening in the reef.
+
+For a time, a decorous silence was preserved; but presently, some
+whispering was heard; perhaps melancholy discoursing touching the close
+of the diver’s career. But we were shocked to discover, that poor
+Karhownoo was not much in their thoughts; they were conversing about
+the next bread-fruit harvest, and the recent arrival of King Media and
+party at Mondoldo. From far in advance, however, were heard the
+lamentations of the true mourners, the relatives of the diver.
+
+Passing the reef, and sailing a little distance therefrom, the canoes
+were disposed in a circle; the one bearing the corpse in the center.
+Certain ceremonies over, the body was committed to the waves; the white
+foam lighting up the last, long plunge of the diver, to see sights more
+strange than ever he saw in the brooding cells of the Turtle Reef.
+
+And now, while in the still midnight, all present were gazing down into
+the ocean, watching the white wake of the corpse, ever and anon
+illuminated by sparkles, an unknown voice was heard, and all started
+and vacantly stared, as this wild song was sung:—
+
+We drop our dead in the sea,
+    The bottomless, bottomless sea;
+Each bubble a hollow sigh,
+    As it sinks forever and aye.
+
+We drop our dead in the sea,—
+    The dead reek not of aught;
+We drop our dead in the sea,—
+    The sea ne’er gives it a thought.
+
+Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink,
+    Far down in the bottomless sea,
+Where the unknown forms do prowl,
+    Down, down in the bottomless sea.
+
+’Tis night above, and night all round,
+    And night will it be with thee;
+As thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye,
+    Deeper down in the bottomless sea.
+
+
+The mysterious voice died away; no sign of the corpse was now seen; and
+mute with amaze, the company long listed to the low moan of the billows
+and the sad sough of the breeze.
+
+At last, without speaking, the obsequies were concluded by sliding into
+the ocean a carved tablet of Palmetto, to mark the place of the burial.
+But a wave-crest received it, and fast it floated away.
+
+Returning to the isle, long silence prevailed. But at length, as if the
+scene in which they had just taken part, afresh reminded them of the
+mournful event which had called them together, the company again
+recurred to it; some present, sadly and incidentally alluding to
+Borabolla’s banquet of turtle, thereby postponed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER C.
+The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
+
+
+Next morning, when much to the chagrin of Borabolla we were preparing
+to quit his isle, came tidings to the palace, of a wonderful event,
+occurring in one of the “Motoos,” or little islets of the great reef;
+which “Motoo” was included in the dominions of the king.
+
+The men who brought these tidings were highly excited; and no sooner
+did they make known what they knew, than all Mondoldo was in a tumult
+of marveling.
+
+Their story was this.
+
+Going at day break to the Motoo to fish, they perceived a strange proa
+beached on its seaward shore; and presently were hailed by voices; and
+saw among the palm trees, three specter-like men, who were not of
+Mardi.
+
+The first amazement of the fishermen over, in reply to their eager
+questions, the strangers related, that they were the survivors of a
+company of men, natives of some unknown island to the northeast; whence
+they had embarked for another country, distant three days’ sail to the
+southward of theirs. But falling in with a terrible adventure, in which
+their sire had been slain, they altered their course to pursue the
+fugitive who murdered him; one and all vowing, never more to see home,
+until their father’s fate was avenged. The murderer’s proa outsailing
+theirs, soon ran out of sight; yet after him they blindly steered by
+day and by night: steering by the blood- red star in Bootes. Soon, a
+violent gale overtook them; driving them to and fro; leaving them they
+knew not where. But still struggling against strange currents, at times
+counteracting their sailing, they drifted on their way; nigh to
+famishing for water; and no shore in sight. In long calms, in vain they
+held up their dry gourds to heaven, and cried “send us a breeze, sweet
+gods!” The calm still brooded; and ere it was gone, all but three
+gasped; and dead from thirst, were plunged into the sea. The breeze
+which followed the calm, soon brought them in sight of a low,
+uninhabited isle; where tarrying many days, they laid in good store of
+cocoanuts and water, and again embarked.
+
+The next land they saw was Mardi; and they landed on the Motoo, still
+intent on revenge.
+
+This recital filled Taji with horror.
+
+Who could these avengers be, but the sons of him I had slain. I had
+thought them far hence, and myself forgotten; and now, like adders,
+they started up in my path, as I hunted for Yillah.
+
+But I dissembled my thoughts.
+
+Without waiting to hear more, Borabolla, all curiosity to behold the
+strangers, instantly dispatched to the Motoo one of his fleetest
+canoes, with orders to return with the voyagers.
+
+Ere long they came in sight; and perceiving that strange pros in tow of
+the king’s, Samoa cried out: “Lo! Taji, the canoe that was going to
+Tedaidee!”
+
+Too true; the same double-keeled craft, now sorely broken, the fatal
+dais in wild disarray: the canoe, the canoe of Aleema! And with it came
+the spearmen three, who, when the Chamois was fleeing from their bow,
+had poised their javelins. But so wan their aspect now, their faces
+looked like skulls.
+
+Then came over me the wild dream of Yillah; and, for a space, like a
+madman, I raved. It seemed as if the mysterious damsel must still be
+there; the rescue yet to be achieved. In my delirium I rushed upon the
+skeletons, as they landed—“Hide not the maiden!” But interposing, Media
+led me aside; when my transports abated.
+
+Now, instantly, the strangers knew who I was; and, brandishing their
+javelins, they rushed upon me, as I had on them, with a yell. But
+deeming us all mad, the crowd held us apart; when, writhing in the arms
+that restrained them, the pale specters foamed out their curses again
+and again: “Oh murderer! white curses upon thee! Bleached be thy soul
+with our hate! Living, our brethren cursed thee; and dying, dry-lipped,
+they cursed thee again. They died not through famishing for water, but
+for revenge upon thee! Thy blood, their thirst would have slaked!”
+
+I lay fainting against the hard-throbbing heart of Samoa, while they
+showered their yells through the air. Once more, in my thoughts, the
+green corpse of the priest drifted by.
+
+Among the people of Mondoldo, a violent commotion now raged. They were
+amazed at Taji’s recognition by the strangers, and at the deadly
+ferocity they betrayed.
+
+Rallying upon this, and perceiving that by divulging all they knew,
+these sons of Aleema might stir up the Islanders against me, I resolved
+to anticipate their story; and, turning to Borabolla, said— “In these
+strangers, oh, king! you behold the survivors of a band we encountered
+on our voyage. From them I rescued a maiden, called Yillah, whom they
+were carrying captive. Little more of their history do I know.”
+
+“Their maledictions?” exclaimed Borabolla.
+
+“Are they not delirious with suffering?” I cried. “They know not what
+they say.”
+
+So, moved by all this, he commanded them to be guarded, and conducted
+within his palisade; and having supplied them with cheer, entered into
+earnest discourse. Yet all the while, the pale strangers on me fixed
+their eyes; deep, dry, crater-like hollows, lurid with flames,
+reflected from the fear-frozen glacier, my soul.
+
+But though their hatred appalled, spite of that spell, again the sweet
+dream of Yillah stole over me, with all the mysterious things by her
+narrated, but left unexplained. And now, before me were those who might
+reveal the lost maiden’s whole history, previous to the fatal affray.
+
+Thus impelled, I besought them to disclose what they knew.
+
+But, “Where now is your Yillah?” they cried. “Is the murderer wedded
+and merry? Bring forth the maiden!”
+
+Yet, though they tore out my heart’s core, I told them not of my loss.
+
+Then, anxious, to learn the history of Yillah, all present commanded
+them to divulge it; and breathlessly I heard what follows.
+
+“Of Yillah, we know only this:—that many moons ago, a mighty canoe,
+full of beings, white, like this murderer Taji, touched at our island
+of Amma. Received with wonder, they were worshiped as gods; were
+feasted all over the land. Their chief was a tower to behold; and with
+him, was a being, whose cheeks were of the color of the red coral; her
+eye, tender as the blue of the sky. Every day our people brought her
+offerings of fruit and flowers; which last she would not retain for
+herself; but hung them round the neck of her child, Yillah; then only
+an infant in her mother’s arms; a bud, nestling close to a flower,
+full-blown. All went well between our people and the gods, till at last
+they slew three of our countrymen, charged with stealing from their
+great canoe. Our warriors retired to the hills, brooding over revenge.
+Three days went by; when by night, descending to the plain, in silence
+they embarked; gained the great vessel, and slaughtered every soul but
+Yillah. The bud was torn from the flower; and, by our father Aleema,
+was carried to the Valley of Ardair; there set apart as a sacred
+offering for Apo, our deity. Many moons passed; and there arose a
+tumult, hostile to our sire’s longer holding custody of Yillah; when,
+foreseeing that the holy glen would ere long be burst open, he embarked
+the maiden in yonder canoe, to accelerate her sacrifice at the great
+shrine of Apo, in Tedaidee.—The rest thou knowest, murderer!”
+
+“Yillah! Yillah!” now hunted again that sound through my soul. “Oh,
+Yillah! too late, too late have I learned what thou art!”
+
+Apprised of the disappearance of their former captive, the meager
+strangers exulted; declaring that Apo had taken her to himself. For me,
+ere long, my blood they would quaff from my skull.
+
+But though I shrunk from their horrible threats, I dissembled anew; and
+turning, again swore that they raved.
+
+“Ay!” they retorted, “we rave and raven for you; and your white heart
+will we have!”
+
+Perceiving the violence of their rage, and persuaded from what I said,
+that much suffering at sea must have maddened them; Borabolla thought
+fit to confine them for the present; so that they could not molest me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CI.
+The Iris
+
+
+That evening, in the groves, came to me three gliding forms:—Hautia’s
+heralds: the Iris mixed with nettles. Said Yoomy, “A cruel message!”
+
+With the right hand, the second syren presented glossy, green wax-
+myrtle berries, those that burn like tapers; the third, a lily of the
+valley, crushed in its own broad leaf.
+
+This done, they earnestly eyed Yoomy; who, after much pondering,
+said—“I speak for Hautia; who by these berries says, I will enlighten
+you.”
+
+“Oh, give me then that light! say, where is Yillah?” and I rushed upon
+the heralds.
+
+But eluding me, they looked reproachfully at Yoomy; and seemed
+offended.
+
+“Then, I am wrong,” said Yoomy. “It is thus:—Taji, you have been
+enlightened, but the lily you seek is crushed.”
+
+Then fell my heart, and the phantoms nodded; flinging upon me
+bilberries, like rose pearls, which bruised against my skin, left
+stains.
+
+Waving oleanders, they retreated.
+
+“Harm! treachery! beware!” cried Yoomy.
+
+Then they glided through the wood: one showering dead leaves along the
+path I trod, the others gayly waving bunches of spring-crocuses,
+yellow, white, and purple; and thus they vanished.
+
+Said Yoomy, “Sad your path, but merry Hautia’s.”
+
+“Then merry may she be, whoe’er she is; and though woe be mine, I turn
+not from that to Hautia; nor ever will I woo her, though she woo me
+till I die;—though Yillah never bless my eyes.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CII.
+They Depart From Mondoldo
+
+
+Night passed; and next morning we made preparations for leaving
+Mondoldo that day.
+
+But fearing anew, lest after our departure, the men of Amma might stir
+up against me the people of the isle, I determined to yield to the
+earnest solicitations of Borabolla, and leave Jarl behind, for a
+remembrance of Taji; if necessary, to vindicate his name. Apprised
+hereof, my follower was loth to acquiesce. His guiltless spirit feared
+not the strangers: less selfish considerations prevailed. He was
+willing to remain on the island for a time, but not without me. Yet,
+setting forth my reasons; and assuring him, that our tour would not be
+long in completing, when we would not fail to return, previous to
+sailing for Odo, he at last, but reluctantly, assented.
+
+At Mondoldo, we also parted with Samoa. Whether it was, that he feared
+the avengers, whom he may have thought would follow on my track; or
+whether the islands of Mardi answered not in attractiveness to the
+picture his fancy had painted; or whether the restraint put upon him by
+the domineering presence of King Media, was too irksome withal; or
+whether, indeed, he relished not those disquisitions with which
+Babbalanja regaled us: however it may have been, certain it was, that
+Samoa was impatient of the voyage. He besought permission to return to
+Odo, there to await my return; and a canoe of Mondoldo being about to
+proceed in that direction, permission was granted; and departing for
+the other side of the island, from thence he embarked.
+
+Long after, dark tidings came, that at early dawn he had been found
+dead in the canoe: three arrows in his side.
+
+Yoomy was at a loss to account for the departure of Samoa; who, while
+ashore, had expressed much desire to roam.
+
+Media, however, declared that he must be returning to some inamorata.
+
+But Babbalanja averred, that the Upoluan was not the first man, who had
+turned back, after beginning a voyage like our own.
+
+To this, after musing, Yoomy assented. Indeed, I had noticed, that
+already the Warbler had abated those sanguine assurances of success,
+with which he had departed from Odo. The futility of our search thus
+far, seemed ominous to him, of the end.
+
+On the eve of embarking, we were accompanied to the beach by Borabolla;
+who, with his own hand, suspended from the shark’s mouth of Media’s
+canoe, three red-ripe bunches of plantains, a farewell gift to his
+guests.
+
+Though he spoke not a word, Jarl was long in taking leave. His eyes
+seemed to say, I will see you no more.
+
+At length we pushed from the strand; Borabolla waving his adieus with a
+green leaf of banana; our comrade ruefully eyeing the receding canoes;
+and the multitude loudly invoking for us a prosperous voyage.
+
+But to my horror, there suddenly dashed through the crowd, the three
+specter sons of Aleema, escaped from their prison. With clenched hands,
+they stood in the water, and cursed me anew. And with that curse in our
+sails, we swept off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CIII.
+As They Sail
+
+
+As the canoes now glided across the lagoon, I gave myself up to
+reverie; and revolving over all that the men of Amma had rehearsed of
+the history of Yillah, I one by one unriddled the mysteries, before so
+baffling. Now, all was made plain: no secret remaining, but the
+subsequent event of her disappearance. Yes, Hautia! enlightened I had
+been but where was Yillah?
+
+Then I recalled that last interview with Hautia’s messengers, so full
+of enigmas; and wondered, whether Yoomy had interpreted aright. Unseen,
+and unsolicited; still pursuing me with omens, with taunts, and with
+wooings, mysterious Hautia appalled me. Vaguely I began to fear her.
+And the thought, that perhaps again and again, her heralds would haunt
+me, filled me with a nameless dread, which I almost shrank from
+acknowledging. Inwardly I prayed, that never more they might appear.
+
+While full of these thoughts, Media interrupted them by saying, that
+the minstrel was about to begin one of his chants, a thing of his own
+composing; and therefore, as he himself said, all critics must be
+lenient; for Yoomy, at times, not always, was a timid youth,
+distrustful of his own sweet genius for poesy.
+
+The words were about a curious hereafter, believed in by some people in
+Mardi: a sort of nocturnal Paradise, where the sun and its heat are
+excluded: one long, lunar day, with twinkling stars to keep company.
+
+THE SONG
+Far off in the sea is Marlena,
+A land of shades and streams,
+A land of many delights.
+Dark and bold, thy shores,
+Marlena; But green, and timorous, thy soft knolls,
+Crouching behind the woodlands.
+All shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs,
+Like eyes in the earth looking at you.
+How charming thy haunts Marlena!—
+Oh, the waters that flow through Onimoo:
+Oh, the leaves that rustle through Ponoo:
+Oh, the roses that blossom in Tarma:
+Come, and see the valley of Vina:
+How sweet, how sweet, the Isles from Hind:
+’Tis aye afternoon of the full, full moon,
+And ever the season of fruit,
+And ever the hour of flowers,
+And never the time of rains and gales,
+All in and about Marlena.
+Soft sigh the boughs in the stilly air,
+Soft lap the beach the billows there;
+And in the woods or by the streams,
+You needs must nod in the Land of Dreams.
+
+
+“Yoomy,” said old Mohi with a yawn, “you composed that song, then, did
+you?”
+
+“I did,” said Yoomy, placing his turban a little to one side.
+
+“Then, minstrel, you shall sing me to sleep every night, especially
+with that song of Marlena; it is soporific as the airs of Nora-Bamma.”
+
+“Mean you, old man, that my lines, setting forth the luxurious repose
+to be enjoyed hereafter, are composed with such skill, that the
+description begets the reality; or would you ironically suggest, that
+the song is a sleepy thing itself?”
+
+“An important discrimination,” said Media; “which mean you, Mohi?”
+
+“Now, are you not a silly boy,” said Babbalanja, “when from the
+ambiguity of his speech, you could so easily have derived something
+flattering, thus to seek to extract unpleasantness from it? Be wise,
+Yoomy; and hereafter, whenever a remark like that seems equivocal, be
+sure to wrest commendation from it, though you torture it to the
+quick.”
+
+“And most sure am I, that I would ever do so; but often I so incline to
+a distrust of my powers, that I am far more keenly alive to censure,
+than to praise; and always deem it the more sincere of the two; and no
+praise so much elates me, as censure depresses.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CIV.
+Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And In His Own Person
+Proves It
+
+
+“A truce!” cried Media, “here comes a gallant before the wind.—Look,
+Taji!”
+
+Turning, we descried a sharp-prowed canoe, dashing on, under the
+pressure of an immense triangular sail, whose outer edges were
+streaming with long, crimson pennons. Flying before it, were several
+small craft, belonging to the poorer sort of Islanders.
+
+“Out of his way there, ye laggards,” cried Media, “or that mad prince,
+Tribonnora, will ride over ye with a rush!”
+
+“And who is Tribonnora,” said Babbalanja, “that he thus bravely diverts
+himself, running down innocent paddlers?”
+
+“A harum-scarum young chief,” replied Media, “heir to three islands; he
+likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at.”
+
+“He must be possessed by a devil,” said Mohi.
+
+Said Babbalanja, “Then he is only like all of us.” “What say you?”
+cried Media.
+
+“I say, as old Bardianna in the Nine hundred and ninety ninth book of
+his immortal Ponderings saith, that all men—”
+
+“As I live, my lord, he has swamped three canoes,” cried Mohi, pointing
+off the beam.
+
+But just then a fiery fin-back whale, having broken into the paddock of
+the lagoon, threw up a high fountain of foam, almost under Tribonnora’s
+nose; who, quickly turning about his canoe, cur-like slunk off; his
+steering-paddle between his legs.
+
+Comments over; “Babbalanja, you were going to quote,” said Media.
+“Proceed.”
+
+“Thank you, my lord. Says old Bardianna, ‘All men are possessed by
+devils; but as these devils are sent into men, and kept in them, for an
+additional punishment; not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in a
+bridewell; so, it may be more just to say, that the devils themselves
+are possessed by men, not men by them.’”
+
+“Faith!” cried Media, “though sometimes a bore, your old Bardianna is a
+trump.”
+
+“I have long been of that mind, my lord. But let me go on. Says
+Bardianna, ‘Devils are divers;—strong devils, and weak devils; knowing
+devils, and silly devils; mad devils, and mild devils; devils, merely
+devils; devils, themselves bedeviled; devils, doubly bedeviled.”
+
+“And in the devil’s name, what sort of a devil is yours?” cried Mohi.
+
+“Of him anon; interrupt me not, old man. Thus, then, my lord, as devils
+are divers, divers are the devils in men. Whence, the wide difference
+we see. But after all, the main difference is this:—that one man’s
+devil is only more of a devil than another’s; and be bedeviled as much
+as you will; yet, may you perform the most bedeviled of actions with
+impunity, so long as you only bedevil yourself. For it is only when
+your deviltry injures another, that the other devils conspire to
+confine yours for a mad one. That is to say, if you be easily handled.
+For there are many bedeviled Bedlamites in Mardi, doing an infinity of
+mischief, who are too brawny in the arms to be tied.”
+
+“A very devilish doctrine that,” cried Mohi. “I don’t believe it.”
+
+“My lord,” said Babbalanja, “here’s collateral proof;—the sage lawgiver
+Yamjamma, who flourished long before Bardianna, roundly asserts, that
+all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good is happiness;
+happiness the object of living; and evil is not good.”
+
+“If the sage Yamjamma said that,” said old Mohi, “the sage Yamjamma
+might have bettered the saying; it’s not quite so plain as it might
+be.”
+
+“Yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended by
+mortals. Like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings. But old Bardianna
+was of another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to the point
+like a javelin; especially when he laid it down for a universal maxim,
+that minus exceptions, all men are bedeviled.”
+
+“Of course, then,” said Media, “you include yourself among the number.”
+
+“Most assuredly; and so did old Bardianna; who somewhere says, that
+being thoroughly bedeviled himself, he was so much the better qualified
+to discourse upon the deviltries of his neighbors. But in another place
+he seems to contradict himself, by asserting, that he is not so
+sensible of his own deviltry as of other people’s.”
+
+“Hold!” cried Media, “who have we here?” and he pointed ahead of our
+prow to three men in the water, urging themselves along, each with a
+paddle.
+
+We made haste to overtake them.
+
+“Who are you?” said Media, “where from, and where bound?”
+
+“From Variora,” they answered, “and bound to Mondoldo.” “And did that
+devil Tribonnora swamp your canoe?” asked Media, offering to help them
+into ours.
+
+“We had no such useless incumbrance to lose,” they replied, resting on
+their backs, and panting with their exertions. “If we had had a canoe,
+we would have had to paddle it along with us; whereas we have only our
+bodies to paddle.”
+
+“You are a parcel of loons,” exclaimed Media. “But go your ways, if you
+are satisfied with your locomotion, well and good.”
+
+“Now, it is an extreme case, I grant,” said Babbalanja, “but those poor
+devils there, help to establish old Bardianna’s position. They belong
+to that species of our bedeviled race, called simpletons; but their
+devils harming none but themselves, are permitted to be at large with
+the fish. Whereas, Tribonnora’s devil, who daily runs down canoes,
+drowning their occupants, belongs to the species of out and out devils;
+but being high in station, and strongly backed by kith and kin,
+Tribonnora can not be mastered, and put in a strait jacket. For myself,
+I think my devil is some where between these two extremes; at any rate,
+he belongs to that class of devils who harm not other devils.”
+
+“I am not so sure of that,” retorted Media. “Methinks this doctrine of
+yours, about all mankind being bedeviled, will work a deal of mischief;
+seeing that by implication it absolves you mortals from moral
+accountability. Further-more; as your doctrine is exceedingly evil, by
+Yamjamma’s theory it follows, that you must be proportionably
+bedeviled; and since it harms others, your devil is of the number of
+those whom it is best to limbo; and since he is one of those that can
+be limboed, limboed he shall be in you.”
+
+And so saying, he humorously commanded his attendants to lay hands upon
+the bedeviled philosopher, and place a bandage upon his mouth, that he
+might no more disseminate his devilish doctrine.
+
+Against this, Babbalanja demurred, protesting that he was no
+orang-outang, to be so rudely handled.
+
+“Better and better,” said Media, “you but illustrate Bardianna’s
+theory; that men are not sensible of their being bedeviled.”
+
+Thus tantalized, Babbalanja displayed few signs of philosophy.
+
+Whereupon, said Media, “Assuredly his devil is foaming; behold his
+mouth!” And he commanded him to be bound hand and foot.
+
+At length, seeing all resistance ineffectual, Babbalanja submitted; but
+not without many objurgations.
+
+Presently, however, they released him; when Media inquired, how he
+relished the application of his theory; and whether he was still’ of
+old Bardianna’s mind?
+
+To which, haughtily adjusting his robe, Babbalanja replied, “The strong
+arm, my lord, is no argument, though it overcomes all logic.”
+
+ END OF VOL. I. 
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER ***
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
+United States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
+  you are located before using this eBook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that:
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
+widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
diff --git a/old/13720-0.zip b/old/13720-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3aab6da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/13720-0.zip
diff --git a/old/13720-h.zip b/old/13720-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0f574d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/13720-h.zip
diff --git a/old/13720-h/13720-h.htm b/old/13720-h/13720-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9373da3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/13720-h/13720-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,15033 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mardi: and a Voyage Thither, by Herman Melville</title>
+
+<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
+       margin-right: 20%;
+       text-align: justify; }
+
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
+normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+h1 {font-size: 300%;
+    margin-top: 0.6em;
+    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
+    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
+    word-spacing: 0.2em;
+    text-indent: 0em;}
+h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;}
+h4 {font-size: 120%;}
+h5 {font-size: 110%;}
+
+.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}
+
+hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+p {text-indent: 1em;
+   margin-top: 0.25em;
+   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+
+p.poem {text-indent: 0%;
+        margin-left: 10%;
+        font-size: 90%;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:hover {color:red}
+
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, by Herman Melville</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Mardi: and A Voyage Thither<br />
+  Vol. I (of II)</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Herman Melville</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 12, 2004 [eBook #13720]<br />
+[Most recently updated: June 14, 2022]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Geoff Palmer</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER ***</div>
+
+<h1>MARDI:<br />
+AND A VOYAGE THITHER</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">By Herman Melville</h2>
+
+<h4>In Two Volumes</h4>
+
+<h3>Vol. I</h3>
+
+<h4>1864</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h4>DEDICATED<br />
+TO<br />
+My Brother,<br />
+ALLAN MELVILLE.</h4>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2H_PREF">PREFACE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0003">MARDI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER I &mdash; Foot in Stirrup</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER II &mdash; A Calm</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER III &mdash; A King for a Comrade</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER IV &mdash; A Chat in the Clouds</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER V &mdash; Seats secured and Portmanteaus packed</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER VI &mdash; Eight Bells</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER VII &mdash; A Pause</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER VIII &mdash; They push off, Velis et Remis</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER IX &mdash; The Watery World is all before Them</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER X &mdash; They arrange their Canopies And Lounges, and try to Make Things comfortable</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER XI &mdash; Jarl afflicted with the Lockjaw</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER XII &mdash; More about being in an open Boat</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0013">CHAPTER XIII &mdash; Of the Chondropterygii, and other uncouth Hordes infesting the South Seas</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0014">CHAPTER XIV &mdash; Jarl&rsquo;s Misgivings</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0015">CHAPTER XV &mdash; A Stitch in time saves Nine</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0016">CHAPTER XVI &mdash; They are Becalmed</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0017">CHAPTER XVII &mdash; In high Spirits, they push on for the Terra Incognita</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0018">CHAPTER XVIII &mdash; My Lord Shark and his Pages</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0019">CHAPTER XIX &mdash; Who goes there?</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0020">CHAPTER XX &mdash; Noises and Portents</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0021">CHAPTER XXI &mdash; Man ho!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0022">CHAPTER XXII &mdash; What befel the Brigantine at the Pearl Shell Islands</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0023">CHAPTER XXIII &mdash; Sailing from the Island they pillage the Cabin</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0024">CHAPTER XXIV &mdash; Dedicated to the College of Physicians and Surgeons</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0025">CHAPTER XXV &mdash; Peril A Peace-Maker</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0026">CHAPTER XXVI &mdash; Containing a Pennyweight Of Philosophy</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0027">CHAPTER XXVII &mdash; In which the past History of the Parki is concluded</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0028">CHAPTER XXVIII &mdash; Suspicions laid, and something about the Calmuc</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0029">CHAPTER XXIX &mdash; What they lighted upon in further searching the Craft, and the Resolution they came to</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0030">CHAPTER XXX &mdash; Hints for a full length of Samoa</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0031">CHAPTER XXXI &mdash; Rovings Alow and Aloft</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0032">CHAPTER XXXII &mdash; Xiphius Platypterus</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0033">CHAPTER XXXIII &mdash; Otard</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0034">CHAPTER XXXIV &mdash; How they steered on their Way</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0035">CHAPTER XXXV &mdash; Ah, Annatoo!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0036">CHAPTER XXXVI &mdash; The Parki gives up the Ghost</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0037">CHAPTER XXXVII &mdash; Once more they take to the Chamois</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0038">CHAPTER XXXVIII &mdash; The Sea on Fire</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0039">CHAPTER XXXIX &mdash; They fall in with Strangers</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0040">CHAPTER XL &mdash; Sire and Sons</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0041">CHAPTER XLI &mdash; A Fray</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0042">CHAPTER XLII &mdash; Remorse</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0043">CHAPTER XLIII &mdash; The Tent entered</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0044">CHAPTER XLIV &mdash; Away!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0045">CHAPTER XLV &mdash; Reminiscences</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0046">CHAPTER XLVI &mdash; The Chamois with a roving Commission</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0047">CHAPTER XLVII &mdash; Yillah, Jarl, and Samoa</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0048">CHAPTER XLVIII &mdash; Something under the Surface</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0049">CHAPTER XLIX &mdash; Yillah</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0050">CHAPTER L &mdash; Yillah in Ardair</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0051">CHAPTER LI &mdash; The Dream begins to fade</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0052">CHAPTER LII &mdash; World ho!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0053">CHAPTER LIII &mdash; The Chamois Ashore</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0054">CHAPTER LIV &mdash; A Gentleman from the Sun</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0055">CHAPTER LV &mdash; Tiffin in a Temple</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0056">CHAPTER LVI &mdash; King Media a Host</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0057">CHAPTER LVII &mdash; Taji takes Counsel with himself</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0058">CHAPTER LVIII &mdash; Mardi by Night and Yillah by Day</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0059">CHAPTER LIX &mdash; Their Morning Meal</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0060">CHAPTER LX &mdash; Belshazzar on the Bench</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0061">CHAPTER LXI &mdash; An Incognito</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0062">CHAPTER LXII &mdash; Taji retires from the World</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0063">CHAPTER LXIII &mdash; Odo and its Lord</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0064">CHAPTER LXIV &mdash; Yillah a Phantom</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0065">CHAPTER LXV &mdash; Taji makes three Acquaintances</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0066">CHAPTER LXVI &mdash; With a fair Wind, at Sunrise they sail</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0067">CHAPTER LXVII &mdash; Little King Peepi</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0068">CHAPTER LXVIII &mdash; How Teeth were regarded in Valapee</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0069">CHAPTER LXIX &mdash; The Company discourse, and Braid-Beard rehearses a Legend</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0070">CHAPTER LXX &mdash; The Minstrel leads off with a Paddle-Song; and a Message is received from Abroad</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0071">CHAPTER LXXI &mdash; They land upon the Island of Juam</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0072">CHAPTER LXXII &mdash; A Book from the Chronicles of Mohi</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0073">CHAPTER LXXIII &mdash; Something more of the Prince</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0074">CHAPTER LXXIV &mdash; Advancing deeper into the Vale, they encounter Donjalolo</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0075">CHAPTER LXXV &mdash; Time and Temples</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0076">CHAPTER LXXVI &mdash; A pleasant Place for a Lounge</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0077">CHAPTER LXXVII &mdash; The House of the Afternoon</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0078">CHAPTER LXXVIII &mdash; Babbalanja solus</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0079">CHAPTER LXXIX &mdash; The Center of many Circumferences</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0080">CHAPTER LXXX &mdash; Donjalolo in the Bosom of his Family</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0081">CHAPTER LXXXI &mdash; Wherein Babbalanja relates the Adventure of one Karkeke in the Land of Shades</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0082">CHAPTER LXXXII &mdash; How Donjalolo, sent Agents to the Surrounding Isles; with the Result</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0083">CHAPTER LXXXIII &mdash; They visit the Tributary Islets</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0084">CHAPTER LXXXIV &mdash; Taji sits down to Dinner with five-And-Twenty Kings, and a royal Time they have</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0085">CHAPTER LXXXV &mdash; After Dinner</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0086">CHAPTER LXXXVI &mdash; Of those Scamps the Plujii</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0087">CHAPTER LXXXVII &mdash; Nora-Bamma</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0088">CHAPTER LXXXVIII &mdash; In a Calm, Hautia&rsquo;s Heralds approach</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0089">CHAPTER LXXXIX &mdash; Braid-Beard rehearses the Origin of the Isle of Rogues</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0090">CHAPTER XC &mdash; Rare Sport at Ohonoo</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0091">CHAPTER XCI &mdash; Of King Uhia and his Subjects</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0092">CHAPTER XCII &mdash; The God Keevi and the Precipice of Mondo</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0093">CHAPTER XCIII &mdash; Babbalanja steps in between Mohi and Yoomy; and Yoomy relates a Legend</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0094">CHAPTER XCIV &mdash; Of that jolly old Lord, Borabolla; and that jolly Island of his, Mondoldo; and of the Fish-Ponds, and the Hereafters of Fish</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0095">CHAPTER XCV &mdash; That jolly old Lord Borabolla laughs on both Sides of his Face</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0096">CHAPTER XCVI &mdash; Samoa a Surgeon</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0097">CHAPTER XCVII &mdash; Faith and Knowledge</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0098">CHAPTER XCVIII &mdash; The Tale of a Traveler</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0099">CHAPTER XCIX &mdash; &ldquo;Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0100">CHAPTER C &mdash; The Pursuer himself is pursued</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0101">CHAPTER CI &mdash; The Iris</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0102">CHAPTER CII &mdash; They depart from Mondoldo</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0103">CHAPTER CIII &mdash; As they sail</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#link2HCH0104">CHAPTER CIV &mdash; Wherein Babbalanja broaches a diabolical Theory, and in his Own Person proves it</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2H_PREF"></a>
+PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>
+Not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the Pacific, which,
+in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought occurred to me,
+of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian adventure, and publishing it as such;
+to see whether, the fiction might not, possibly, be received for a verity: in
+some degree the reverse of my previous experience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in Mardi. New York,
+January, 1849.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2H_4_0003"></a>
+MARDI </h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0001"></a>
+CHAPTER I.<br/>
+Foot In Stirrup</h2>
+
+<p>
+We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from
+the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows
+us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out spreads the canvas&mdash;alow,
+aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun&rsquo; sail; till like a
+hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and reelingly
+cleave the brine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from the
+tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn&rsquo;s island, where
+the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped ashore some few
+months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for the whale, whose brain
+enlightens the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the Enchanted
+Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there met.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish
+bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm whale, at
+certain seasons abounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the sea-gull,
+straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of the trade winds, ships
+bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai are fain to take something
+of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so. First, in pursuit of the variable
+winds, they make all haste to the south; and there, at length picking up a
+stray breeze, they stand for the main: then, making their easting, up helm, and
+away down the coast, toward the Line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a weary one
+it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous; thank fate, never
+since.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But bravo! in two weeks&rsquo; time, an event. Out of the gray of the morning,
+and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of the sea;
+standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft, and creamy
+breakers frothing round its base.&mdash;We turned aside, and, at length, when
+day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass, we spied two or three hermit goats
+winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a signal: a tattered flag
+upon a summit beyond. Well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the
+island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain
+had no mind to comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have
+erred in not sending a boat off with his card.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few days more and we &ldquo;took the trades.&rdquo; Like favors snappishly
+conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp squall; the
+shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat old cook off his
+legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few leagues west
+of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing across the Line, to and
+fro, in unavailing search for our prey. For some of their hunters believe, that
+whales, like the silver ore in Peru, run in veins through the ocean. So, day
+after day, daily; and week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same
+longitudinal intersection of the self-same Line; till we were almost ready to
+swear that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary
+locality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way straight
+along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right, and peering left,
+but seeing naught.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of that
+bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to the
+adventures herein recounted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. The sailors
+were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped at the islands
+included. Nevertheless, they were not precisely to my mind. There was no soul a
+magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle sympathies; save in deploring the
+calms with which we were now and then overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when
+it came. Under other and livelier auspices the tarry knaves might have
+developed qualities more attractive. Had we sprung a leak, been
+&ldquo;stove&rdquo; by a whale, or been blessed with some despot of a captain
+against whom to stir up some spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might
+have proved limber lads, and men of mettle. But as it was, there was naught to
+strike fire from their steel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board very hard
+to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood upon no quarter-deck
+dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do him justice, furthermore: he
+took a sort of fancy for me in particular; was sociable, nay, loquacious, when
+I happened to stand at the helm. But what of that? Could he talk sentiment or
+philosophy? Not a bit. His library was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and
+Hamilton Moore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation from
+Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of long-drawn
+yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan sung by our full
+forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly dull. Not
+only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have borne; but in every
+other respect. The days went slowly round and round, endless and uneventful as
+cycles in space. Time, and time- pieces; How many centuries did my hammock
+tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the ship&rsquo;s dull roll, and ticked the
+hours and ages. Sacred forever be the Arcturion&rsquo;s fore-hatch&mdash;alas!
+sea-moss is over it now&mdash;and rusty forever the bolts that held together
+that old sea hearth-stone, about which we so often lounged. Nevertheless, ye
+lost and leaden hours, I will rail at ye while life lasts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel&rsquo;s stories
+were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed into each
+other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad&rsquo;s songs were sung till the
+echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the sails. My poor
+patience was clean gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line in high
+disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of sun-strokes,
+typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far worse. We were going,
+it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory concerning the damned and the
+comets;&mdash;hurried from equinoctial heats to arctic frosts. To be short,
+with the true fickleness of his tribe, our skipper had abandoned all thought of
+the Cachalot. In desperation, he was bent upon bobbing for the Right whale on
+the Nor&rsquo;-West Coast and in the Bay of Kamschatska.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this juncture may
+perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say: that Right whaling on
+the Nor&rsquo;-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the sullen inert monsters
+rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs on the Rhine, and submitting
+to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks to the knife; this horrid and
+indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly
+Cachalot in southern and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears
+upon blank Greenland icebergs to zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively
+quarry bounds before you through leafy glades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to measure
+the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit contravention of the
+agreement between us. That agreement needs not to be detailed. And having
+shipped but for a single cruise, I had embarked aboard his craft as one might
+put foot in stirrup for a day&rsquo;s following of the hounds. And here, Heaven
+help me, he was going to carry me off to the Pole! And on such a vile errand
+too! For there was something degrading in it. Your true whaleman glories in
+keeping his harpoon unspotted by blood of aught but Cachalot. By my halidome,
+it touched the knighthood of a tar. Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the
+wheel one day, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very hard to carry me off this way to
+purgatory. I shipped to go elsewhere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and so did I,&rdquo; was his reply. &ldquo;But it can&rsquo;t be
+helped. Sperm whales are not to be had. We&rsquo;ve been out now three years,
+and something or other must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and her
+hold a gulf to look into. But cheer up my boy; once in the Bay of Kamschatka,
+and we&rsquo;ll be all afloat with what we want, though it be none of the
+best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Worse and worse! The oleaginous prospect extended into an immensity of
+Macassar. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I did not ship for it; put me
+ashore somewhere, I beseech.&rdquo; He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and
+for a moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain,
+to the prejudice of the more kindly nature of the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not so. Taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand on the wheel,
+and said, &ldquo;Right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must. Putting you
+ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till this ship is full to the
+combings of her hatchways. However, you may leave her if you can.&rdquo; And so
+saying he entered his cabin, like Julius Caesar into his tent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear like a
+bravado. It savored of the turnkey&rsquo;s compliments to the prisoner in
+Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave the ship if I can!&rdquo; Leave the ship when neither sail nor
+shore was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For on
+board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows, whom two
+years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open boat, far from the
+farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a long yarn about being the only
+survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to the water&rsquo;s edge. But who credited
+their tale? Like many others, they were keepers of a secret: had doubtless
+contracted a disgust for some ugly craft still afloat and hearty, and stolen
+away from her, off soundings. Among seamen in the Pacific such adventures not
+seldom occur. Nor are they accounted great wonders. They are but incidents, not
+events, in the career of the brethren of the order of South Sea rovers. For
+what matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a good whale-boat be
+under foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas before? And herein lies the
+difference between the Atlantic and Pacific:&mdash;that once within the
+Tropics, the bold sailor who has a mind to quit his ship round Cape Horn, waits
+not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty harbor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I resolved to
+weigh well the chances. It&rsquo;s worth noticing, this way we all have of
+pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a bagatelle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or wrong of
+abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to split no hairs on this point,
+let me say, that were I placed in the same situation again, I would repeat the
+thing I did then. The captain well knew that he was going to detain me
+unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was he himself who threw out the very
+hint, which I merely adopted, with many thanks to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my allotted
+two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day, serene and
+beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and away, away, illimitably
+rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were was perhaps the most unfrequented
+and least known portion of these seas. Westward, however, lay numerous groups
+of islands, loosely laid down upon the charts, and invested with all the charms
+of dream-land. But soon these regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze
+exchanged for cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship, silent
+from stem to stern; then abroad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon high piled
+with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and minarets; as if the
+yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast Alhambra. Vistas seemed
+leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all over the towers of this Nineveh
+in the sky, flew troops of birds. Watching them long, one crossed my sight,
+flew through a low arch, and was lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in
+with it; for directly, as in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows
+laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and
+the lulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up aloft.
+But coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so, that thenceforth my
+desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a frenzy.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0002"></a>
+CHAPTER II.<br/>
+A Calm</h2>
+
+<p>
+Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of the
+ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in me my old
+impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this phenomenon of the sea.
+Those impressions may merit a page.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his abdomen, but
+unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal fitness of
+things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of existence
+where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself in his coat, to see
+whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to test the reality of the
+glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by way of experiment, and for the
+sake of witnessing the effect. If a reader of books, Priestley on Necessity
+occurs to him; and he believes in that old Sir Anthony Absolute to the very
+last chapter. His faith in Malte Brun, however, begins to fail; for the
+geography, which from boyhood he had implicitly confided in, always assured
+him, that though expatiating all over the globe, the sea was at least margined
+by land. That over against America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm,
+and he grows madly skeptical.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what they are
+merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the earth&rsquo;s
+surface.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar; for no
+place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be lighted upon in
+the watery waste.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain&rsquo;s competency to
+navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into the
+outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull, introductory to
+a positive vacuity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning his soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and
+portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the
+esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a
+live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows of his
+very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be
+stunned; like the man in the bass drum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But more than all else is the consciousness of his utter helplessness. Succor
+or sympathy there is none. Penitence for embarking avails not. The final
+satisfaction of despairing may not be his with a relish. Vain the idea of
+idling out the calm. He may sleep if he can, or purposely delude himself into a
+crazy fancy, that he is merely at leisure. All this he may compass; but he may
+not lounge; for to lounge is to be idle; to be idle implies an absence of any
+thing to do; whereas there is a calm to be endured: enough to attend to, Heaven
+knows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes a
+fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. Even his undoubted
+vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of volition, become as naught.
+For of what use? He wills to go: to get away from the calm: as ashore he would
+avoid the plague. But he can not; and how foolish to revolve expedients. It is
+more hopeless than a bad marriage in a land where there is no Doctors&rsquo;
+Commons. He has taken the ship to wife, for better or for worse, for calm or
+for gale; and she is not to be shuffled off. With yards akimbo, she says unto
+him scornfully, as the old beldam said to the little dwarf:&mdash;&ldquo;Help
+yourself&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And all this, and more than this, is a calm.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0003"></a>
+CHAPTER III.<br/>
+A King For A Comrade</h2>
+
+<p>
+At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than sixty degrees
+to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a desirable longitude, we
+were standing northward for our arctic destination: around us one wide sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and south an
+almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but little known; and
+mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go almost every where. Beginning at
+the southerly termination of this great chain, it comprises the islands loosely
+known as Ellice&rsquo;s group; then, the Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and
+Mulgrave clusters. These islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral
+formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. The language
+of the people was said to be very similar to that or the Navigator&rsquo;s
+islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have emigrated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of the islands
+in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all; and that our path
+thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a reliable Trade-wind. The
+distance, though great, was merely an extension of water; so much blankness to
+be sailed over; and in a craft, too, that properly managed has been known to
+outlive great ships in a gale. For this much is true of a whale-boat, the
+cunningest thing in its way ever fabricated by man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon one of the Kingsmill islands, then, I determined to plant my foot, come
+what come would. And I was equally determined that one of the ship&rsquo;s
+boats should float me thither. But I had no idea of being without a companion.
+It would be a weary watch to keep all by myself, with naught but the horizon in
+sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one could
+tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and defective.
+&ldquo;Man and boy,&rdquo; said honest Jarl, &ldquo;I have lived ever since I
+can remember.&rdquo; And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To
+ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it is so
+hard to die, ere the world itself is departed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jarl hailed from the isle of Skye, one of the constellated Hebrides. Hence,
+they often called him the Skyeman. And though he was far from being piratical
+of soul, he was yet an old Norseman to behold. His hands were brawny as the
+paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm roaring round the old peak of Mull;
+and his long yellow hair waved round his head like a sunset. My life for it,
+Jarl, thy ancestors were Vikings, who many a time sailed over the salt German
+sea and the Baltic; who wedded their Brynhildas in Jutland; and are now
+quaffing mead in the halls of Valhalla, and beating time with their cans to the
+hymns of the Scalds. Ah! how the old Sagas run through me!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet Jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless mariner on
+the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he led. But so it has
+been, and forever will be. What yeoman shall swear that he is not descended
+from Alfred? what dunce, that he is not sprung of old Homer? King Noah, God
+bless him! fathered us all. Then hold up your heads, oh ye Helots, blood
+potential flows through your veins. All of us have monarchs and sages for
+kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels for cousins; since in antediluvian days,
+the sons of God did verily wed with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of
+Eve. Thus all generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the
+hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones and principalities
+in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout space; the nations and families,
+flocks and folds of the earth; one and all, brothers in essence&mdash;oh, be we
+then brothers indeed! All things form but one whole; the universe a Judea, and
+God Jehovah its head. Then no more let us start with affright. In a theocracy,
+what is to fear? Let us compose ourselves to death as fagged horsemen sleep in
+the saddle. Let us welcome even ghosts when they rise. Away with our stares and
+grimaces. The New Zealander&rsquo;s tattooing is not a prodigy; nor the
+Chinaman&rsquo;s ways an enigma. No custom is strange; no creed is absurd; no
+foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. In heaven, at last, our good, old,
+white-haired father Adam will greet all alike, and sociality forever prevail.
+Christian shall join hands between Gentile and Jew; grim Dante forget his
+Infernos, and shake sides with fat Rabelais; and monk Luther, over a flagon of
+old nectar, talk over old times with Pope Leo. Then, shall we sit by the sages,
+who of yore gave laws to the Medes and Persians in the sun; by the cavalry
+captains in Perseus, who cried, &ldquo;To horse!&rdquo; when waked by their
+Last Trump sounding to the charge; by the old hunters, who eternities ago,
+hunted the moose in Orion; by the minstrels, who sang in the Milky Way when
+Jesus our Saviour was born. Then shall we list to no shallow gossip of
+Magellans and Drakes; but give ear to the voyagers who have circumnavigated the
+Ecliptic; who rounded the Polar Star as Cape Horn. Then shall the Stagirite and
+Kant be forgotten, and another folio than theirs be turned over for wisdom;
+even the folio now spread with horoscopes as yet undeciphered, the heaven of
+heavens on high.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, in old Jarl&rsquo;s lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal tar is
+too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with seamen of all
+tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo-Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and Danes, wear away in
+good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink your clan; down goes your
+nation; you speak a world&rsquo;s language, jovially jabbering in the
+Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+True to his calling, the Skyeman was very illiterate; witless of Salamanca,
+Heidelberg, or Brazen-Nose; in Delhi, had never turned over the books of the
+Brahmins. For geography, in which sailors should be adepts, since they are
+forever turning over and over the great globe of globes, poor Jarl was
+deplorably lacking. According to his view of the matter, this terraqueous world
+had been formed in the manner of a tart; the land being a mere marginal crust,
+within which rolled the watery world proper. Such seemed my good Viking&rsquo;s
+theory of cosmography. As for other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full as
+much as Chrysostom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the secret
+operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings of
+Spinoza&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and but
+seldom will speak for himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for he loved
+me; from the first had cleaved to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive a very
+strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an attachment so
+devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless originating in that
+heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as they grow aged; impelling them
+to fasten upon some chance object of regard. But however it was, my Viking, thy
+unbidden affection was the noblest homage ever paid me. And frankly, I am more
+inclined to think well of myself, as in some way deserving thy devotion, than
+from the rounded compliments of more cultivated minds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they are. No
+school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of one man with
+another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You wear your character as
+loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain all endeavors to assume qualities not
+yours; or to conceal those you possess. Incognitos, however desirable, are out
+of the question. And thus aboard of all ships in which I have sailed, I have
+invariably been known by a sort of thawing-room title. Not,&mdash;let me hurry
+to say,&mdash;that I put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended
+the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better than my
+vocation; and mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a
+hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine upbraid
+me with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of
+main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that ever howled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly was. It
+was because of something in me that could not be hidden; stealing out in an
+occasional polysyllable; an otherwise incomprehensible deliberation in dining;
+remote, unguarded allusions to Belles-Lettres affairs; and other trifles
+superfluous to mention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Arcturion&rsquo;s
+crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a
+&ldquo;nob.&rdquo; But Jarl seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one
+of the House of Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles Edward the
+Pretender, who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a vagrant. At any rate, his
+loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my laundress and tailor; a most expert
+one, too; and when at meal-times my turn came round to look out at the
+mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered for me among the
+&ldquo;kids&rdquo; in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity. Many&rsquo;s the
+good lump of &ldquo;duff&rdquo; for which I was indebted to my good
+Viking&rsquo;s good care of me. And like Sesostris I was served by a monarch.
+Yet in some degree the obligation was mutual. For be it known that, in
+sea-parlance, we were <i>chummies.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now this <i>chummying</i> among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting
+between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a
+Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership of chests
+and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual championship of the
+absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses remind me of sundry lazy,
+ne&rsquo;er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable chummies; chummies, who at
+meal times were last at the &ldquo;kids,&rdquo; when their unfortunate partners
+were high upon the spars; chummies, who affected awkwardness at the needle, and
+conscientious scruples about dabbling in the suds; so that chummy the simple
+was made to do all the work of the firm, while chummy the cunning played the
+sleeping partner in his hammock. Out upon such chummies!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning. Never mind
+if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan charity bind up the
+rents, and pour needle and thread into the frightful gashes that agonized my
+hapless nether integuments, which thou calledst
+&ldquo;ducks;&rdquo;&mdash;Didst thou not expressly declare, that all these
+things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint thimble,
+fashioned from the ivory tusk of a whale? Nay; could I even wrest from thy
+willful hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it steaming in an unsavory
+pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated cask? Full well thou knowest, Jarl,
+that these things are true; and I am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking
+desire to reap advantage from thy great good nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and my Viking
+alone.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0004"></a>
+CHAPTER IV.<br/>
+A Chat In The Clouds</h2>
+
+<p>
+The Skyeman seemed so earnest and upright a seaman, that to tell the plain
+truth, in spite of his love for me, I had many misgivings as to his readiness
+to unite in an undertaking which apparently savored of a moral dereliction. But
+all things considered, I deemed my own resolution quite venial; and as for
+inducing another to join me, it seemed a precaution so indispensable, as to
+outweigh all other considerations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Therefore I resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special purpose
+paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air, he happened to be
+perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on the lookout for whales never
+seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a time,
+swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the Channel in a
+balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have a fellow feeling for
+the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up there, smoking our dwarfish
+&ldquo;dudeens,&rdquo; any sea-gull passing by might have taken us for Messrs.
+Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing their after-dinner Bagdads, bound to
+Calais, via Heaven, from Dover. Honest Jarl, I acquainted with all: my
+conversation with the captain, the hint implied in his last words, my firm
+resolve to quit the ship in one of her boats, and the facility with which I
+thought the thing could be done. Then I threw out many inducements, in the
+shape of pleasant anticipations of bearing right down before the wind upon the
+sunny isles under our lee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He listened attentively; but so long remained silent that I almost fancied
+there was something in Jarl which would prove too much for me and my eloquence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he had never
+known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case the runaways had
+never afterwards been heard of. He entreated me to renounce my determination,
+not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to the ship, and go home in her like a
+man. Verily, my Viking talked to me like my uncle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to all this I turned a deaf ear; affirming that my mind was made up; and
+that as he refused to accompany me, and I fancied no one else for a comrade, I
+would go stark alone rather than not at all. Upon this, seeing my resolution
+immovable, he bluntly swore that he would follow me through thick and thin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thanks, Jarl! thou wert one of those devoted fellows who will wrestle hard to
+convince one loved of error; but failing, forthwith change their wrestling to a
+sympathetic hug.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now his elderly prudence came into play. Casting his eye over the boundless
+expanse below, he inquired how far off were the islands in question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A thousand miles and no less.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With a fair trade breeze, then, and a boat sail, that is a good twelve
+days&rsquo; passage, but calms and currents may make it a month, perhaps
+more.&rdquo; So saying, he shook his old head, and his yellow hair streamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But trying my best to chase away these misgivings, he at last gave them over.
+He assured me I might count upon him to his uttermost keel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My Viking secured, I felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered how the
+enterprise might best be accomplished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no time to be lost. Every hour was carrying us farther and farther
+from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our route to the westward.
+So, with all possible dispatch, I matured my plans, and communicated them to
+Jarl, who gave several old hints&mdash;having ulterior probabilities in
+view&mdash;which were not neglected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Strange to relate, it was not till my Viking, with a rueful face, reminded me
+of the fact, that I bethought me of a circumstance somewhat alarming at the
+first blush. We must push off without chart or quadrant; though, as will
+shortly be seen, a compass was by no means out of the question. The chart, to
+be sure, I did not so much lay to heart; but a quadrant was more than
+desirable. Still, it was by no means indispensable. For this reason. When we
+started, our latitude would be exactly known; and whether, on our voyage
+westward, we drifted north or south therefrom, we could not, by any
+possibility, get so far out of our reckoning, as to fail in striking some one
+of a long chain of islands, which, for many degrees, on both sides of the
+equator, stretched right across our track.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage we daily
+knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the place we desired
+to reach. So what could be plainer than this: that if westward we patiently
+held on our way, we must eventually achieve our destination?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they intimidated us not.
+In a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an indifferent look-out
+would preclude all danger on that score. At all events, the thing seemed
+feasible enough, notwithstanding old Jarl&rsquo;s superstitious reverence for
+nautical instruments, and the philosophical objections which might have been
+urged by a pedantic disciple of Mercator.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most startling,
+and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no alarms, if thus we
+addressed the setting sun&mdash;&ldquo;Be thou, old pilot, our guide!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0005"></a>
+CHAPTER V.<br/>
+Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed</h2>
+
+<p>
+But thoughts of sextants and quadrants were the least of our cares.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Right from under the very arches of the eyebrows of thirty men&mdash;captain,
+mates, and crew&mdash;a boat was to be abstracted; they knowing nothing of the
+event, until all knowledge would prove unavailing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hark ye:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At sea, the boats of a South Sea-man (generally four in number, spare ones
+omitted,) are suspended by tackles, hooked above, to curved timbers called
+&ldquo;davits,&rdquo; vertically fixed to the ship&rsquo;s sides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, no fair one with golden locks is more assiduously waited upon, or more
+delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale- boat by her crew.
+And out of its element, it seems fragile enough to justify the utmost
+solicitude. For truly, like a fine lady, the fine whale-boat is most delicate
+when idle, though little coy at a pinch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides the &ldquo;davits,&rdquo; the following supports are provided Two small
+cranes are swung under the keel, on which the latter rests, preventing the
+settling of the boat&rsquo;s middle, while hanging suspended by the bow and
+stern. A broad, braided, hempen band, usually worked in a tasteful pattern, is
+also passed round both gunwales; and secured to the ship&rsquo;s bulwarks,
+firmly lashes the craft to its place. Being elevated above the ship&rsquo;s
+rail, the boats are in plain sight from all parts of the deck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, one of these boats was to be made way with. No facile matter, truly.
+Harder than for any dashing young Janizary to run off with a sultana from the
+Grand Turk&rsquo;s seraglio. Still, the thing could be done, for, by Jove, it
+had been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What say you to slyly loosing every thing by day; and when night comes, cast
+off the band and swing in the cranes? But how lower the tackles, even in the
+darkest night, without a creaking more fearful than the death rattle? Easily
+avoided. Anoint the ropes, and they will travel deftly through the subtle
+windings of the blocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though I had heard of this plan being pursued, there was a degree of risk
+in it, after all, which I was far from fancying. Another plan was hit upon;
+still bolder; and hence more safe. What it was, in the right place will be
+seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In selecting my craft for this good voyage, I would fain have traversed the
+deck, and eyed the boats like a cornet choosing his steed from out a goodly
+stud. But this was denied me. And the &ldquo;bow boat&rdquo; was, perforce,
+singled out, as the most remote from the quarter-deck, that region of sharp
+eyes and relentless purposes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, our larder was to be thought of; also, an abundant supply of water;
+concerning which last I determined to take good heed. There were but two to be
+taken care of; but I resolved to lay in sufficient store of both meat and drink
+for four; at the same time that the supplemental twain thus provided for were
+but imaginary. And if it came to the last dead pinch, of which we had no fear,
+however, I was food for no man but Jarl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little time was lost in catering for our mess. Biscuit and salt beef were our
+sole resource; and, thanks to the generosity of the Arcturion&rsquo;s owners,
+our ship&rsquo;s company had a plentiful supply. Casks of both, with heads
+knocked out, were at the service of all. In bags which we made for the purpose,
+a sufficiency of the biscuit was readily stored away, and secreted in a corner
+of easy access. The salt beef was more difficult to obtain; but, little by
+little, we managed to smuggle out of the cask enough to answer our purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for water, most luckily a day or two previous several &ldquo;breakers&rdquo;
+of it had been hoisted from below for the present use of the ship&rsquo;s
+company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These &ldquo;breakers&rdquo; are casks, long and slender, but very strong. Of
+various diameters, they are made on purpose to stow into spaces intervening
+between the immense butts in a ship&rsquo;s hold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The largest we could find was selected, first carefully examining it to detect
+any leak. On some pretense or other, we then rolled them all over to that side
+of the vessel where our boat was suspended, the selected breaker being placed
+in their middle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our compendious wardrobes were snugly packed into bundles and laid aside for
+the present. And at last, by due caution, we had every thing arranged
+preliminary to the final start. Let me say, though, perhaps to the credit of
+Jarl, that whenever the most strategy was necessary, he seemed ill at ease, and
+for the most part left the matter to me. It was well that he did; for as it
+was, by his untimely straight-forwardness, he once or twice came near spoiling
+every thing. Indeed, on one occasion he was so unseasonably blunt, that
+curiously enough, I had almost suspected him of taking that odd sort of
+interest in one&rsquo;s welfare, which leads a philanthropist, all other
+methods failing, to frustrate a project deemed bad; by pretending clumsily to
+favor it. But no inuendoes; Jarl was a Viking, frank as his fathers; though not
+so much of a bucanier.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0006"></a>
+CHAPTER VI.<br/>
+Eight Bells</h2>
+
+<p>
+The moon must be monstrous coy, or some things fall out opportunely, or else
+almanacs are consulted by nocturnal adventurers; but so it is, that when
+Cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds are done. Though true
+it may be, that of moonlight nights, jewelers&rsquo; caskets and maidens&rsquo;
+hearts have been burglariously broken into&mdash;and rifled, for aught
+Copernicus can tell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The gentle planet was in her final quarter, and upon her slender horn I hung my
+hopes of withdrawing from the ship undetected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, making a tranquil passage across the ocean, we kept at this time what are
+called among whalemen &ldquo;boatscrew-watches.&rdquo; That is, instead of the
+sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck every four
+hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat&rsquo;s crew, the
+&ldquo;headsman&rdquo; (always one of the mates) excepted. To the officers,
+this plan gives uninterrupted repose&mdash;&ldquo;all-night-in,&rdquo; as they
+call it, and of course greatly lightens the duties of the crew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The harpooneers head the boats&rsquo; crews, and are responsible for the ship
+during the continuance of their watches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, my Viking being a stalwart seaman, pulled the midship oar of the boat of
+which I was bowsman. Hence, we were in the same watch; to which, also, three
+others belonged, including Mark, the harpooner. One of these seamen, however,
+being an invalid, there were only two left for us to manage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voyaging in these seas, you may glide along for weeks without starting tack or
+sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and constant are the Trades. At
+night, the watch seldom trouble themselves with keeping much of a look-out;
+especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy in these lonely waters. In
+some ships, for weeks in and weeks out, you are puzzled to tell when your
+nightly turn on deck really comes round; so little heed is given to the
+standing of watches, where in the license of presumed safety, nearly every one
+nods without fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But remiss as you may be in the boats-crew-watch of a heedless whaleman, the
+man who heads it is bound to maintain his post on the quarter-deck until
+regularly relieved. Yet drowsiness being incidental to all natures, even to
+Napoleon, beside his own sentry napping in the snowy bivouac; so, often, in
+snowy moonlight, or ebon eclipse, dozed Mark, our harpooneer. Lethe be his
+portion this blessed night, thought I, as during the morning which preceded our
+enterprise, I eyed the man who might possibly cross my plans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let me come closer to this part of my story. During what are called at sea
+the &ldquo;dog-watches&rdquo; (between four o&rsquo;clock and eight in the
+evening), sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits even flow far
+into the first of the long &ldquo;night-watches;&rdquo; but upon its expiration
+at &ldquo;eight bells&rdquo; (midnight), silence begins to reign; if you hear a
+voice it is no cherub&rsquo;s: all exclamations are oaths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At eight bells, the mariners on deck, now relieved from their cares, crawl out
+from their sleepy retreats in old monkey jackets, or coils of rigging, and hie
+to their hammocks, almost without interrupting their dreams: while the
+sluggards below lazily drag themselves up the ladder to resume their slumbers
+in the open air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For these reasons then, the moonless sea midnight was just the time to escape.
+Hence, we suffered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting for the night, when
+the star board-quarter-boats&rsquo;-watch, to which we belonged, would be
+summoned on deck at the eventful eight of the bell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But twenty-four hours soon glide away; and &ldquo;Starboleens ahoy; eight bells
+there below;&rdquo; at last started me from a troubled doze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sprang from my hammock, and would have lighted my pipe. But the forecastle
+lamp had gone out. An old sea-dog was talking about sharks in his sleep. Jarl
+and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way into their trowsers. And
+little was heard but the humming of the still sails aloft; the dash of the
+waves against the bow; and the deep breathing of the dreaming sailors around.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0007"></a>
+CHAPTER VII.<br/>
+A Pause</h2>
+
+<p>
+Good old Arcturion! Maternal craft; that rocked me so often in thy heart of
+oak, I grieve to tell how I deserted thee on the broad deep. So far from home,
+with such a motley crew, so many islanders, whose heathen babble echoing
+through thy Christian hull, must have grated harshly on every carline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old ship! where sails thy lone ghost now? For of the stout Arcturion no word
+was ever heard, from the dark hour we pushed from her fated planks. In what
+time of tempest, to what seagull&rsquo;s scream, the drowning eddies did their
+work, knows no mortal man. Sunk she silently, helplessly, into the calm depths
+of that summer sea, assassinated by the ruthless blade of the swordfish? Such
+things have been. Or was hers a better fate? Stricken down while gallantly
+battling with the blast; her storm-sails set; helm manned; and every sailor at
+his post; as sunk the Hornet, her men at quarters, in some distant gale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But surmises are idle. A very old craft, she may have foundered; or laid her
+bones upon some treacherous reef; but as with many a far rover, her fate is a
+mystery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pray Heaven, the spirit of that lost vessel roaming abroad through the troubled
+mists of midnight gales&mdash;as old mariners believe of missing
+ships&mdash;may never haunt my future path upon the waves. Peacefully may she
+rest at the bottom of the sea; and sweetly sleep my shipmates in the lowest
+watery zone, where prowling sharks come not, nor billows roll.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By quitting the Arcturion when we did, Jarl and I unconsciously eluded a
+sailor&rsquo;s grave. We hear of providential deliverances. Was this one? But
+life is sweet to all, death comes as hard. And for myself I am almost tempted
+to hang my head, that I escaped the fate of my shipmates; something like him
+who blushed to have escaped the fell carnage at Thermopylae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though I can not repress a shudder when I think of that old ship&rsquo;s end,
+it is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our deserting her could
+have been in any way instrumental in her loss. Nevertheless, I would to heaven
+the Arcturion still floated; that it was given me once more to tread her
+familiar decks.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0008"></a>
+CHAPTER VIII.<br/>
+They Push Off, Velis Et Remis</h2>
+
+<p>
+And now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand miles from
+land, we embarked upon this western voyage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the helm now
+coming on was of course to be avoided. On some plausible pretense, I induced
+our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving myself untrammeled, and at
+the same time satisfactorily disposing of him. For being a rather fat fellow,
+an enormous consumer of &ldquo;duff,&rdquo; and with good reason supposed to be
+the son of a farmer, I made no doubt, he would pursue his old course and fall
+to nodding over the wheel. As for the leader of the watch&mdash;our
+harpooner&mdash;he fell heir to the nest of old jackets, under the lee of the
+mizzen-mast, left nice and warm by his predecessor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no trace of a
+moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at night near the Line,
+half shrouded the stars from view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch had gone
+below, I motioned to Jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our feet. He then
+descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft toward the quarter-deck. All
+was still. Thrice did I pass my hand full before the face of the slumbering
+lubber at the helm, and right between him and the light of the binnacle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. I feared to approach him. He
+lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more delay. Risks must be run,
+when time presses. And our ears were a pointer&rsquo;s to catch a sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To work we went, without hurry, but swiftly and silently. Our various stores
+were dragged from their lurking-places, and placed in the boat, which hung from
+the ship&rsquo;s lee side, the side depressed in the water, an indispensable
+requisite to an attempt at escape. And though at sundown the boat was to
+windward, yet, as we had foreseen, the vessel having been tacked during the
+first watch, brought it to leeward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Endeavoring to manhandle our clumsy breaker, and lift it into the boat, we
+found, that by reason of the intervention of the shrouds, it could not be done
+without, risking a jar; besides straining the craft in lowering. An expedient,
+however, though at the eleventh hour, was hit upon. Fastening a long rope to
+the breaker, which was perfectly tight, we cautiously dropped it overboard;
+paying out enough line, to insure its towing astern of the ship, so as not to
+strike against the copper. The other end of the line we then secured to the
+boat&rsquo;s stern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fortunately, this was the last thing to be done; for the breaker, acting as a
+clog to the vessel&rsquo;s way in the water, so affected her steering as to
+fling her perceptibly into the wind. And by causing the helm to work, this must
+soon rouse the lubber there stationed, if not already awake. But our dropping
+overboard the breaker greatly aided us in this respect: it diminished the
+ship&rsquo;s headway; which owing to the light breeze had not been very great
+at any time during the night. Had it been so, all hope of escaping without
+first arresting the vessel&rsquo;s progress, would have been little short of
+madness. As it was, the sole daring of the deed that night achieved, consisted
+in our lowering away while the ship yet clove the brine, though but moderately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All was now ready: the cranes swung in, the lashings adrift, and the boat
+fairly suspended; when, seizing the ends of the tackle ropes, we silently
+stepped into it, one at each end. The dead weight of the breaker astern now
+dragged the craft horizontally through the air, so that her tackle ropes
+strained hard. She quivered like a dolphin. Nevertheless, had we not feared her
+loud splash upon striking the wave, we might have quitted the ship almost as
+silently as the breath the body. But this was out of the question, and our
+plans were laid accordingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All ready, Jarl?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man overboard!&rdquo; I shouted at the top of my compass; and like
+lightning the cords slid through our blistering hands, and with a tremendous
+shock the boat bounded on the sea&rsquo;s back. One mad sheer and plunge, one
+terrible strain on the tackles as we sunk in the trough of the waves, tugged
+upon by the towing breaker, and our knives severed the tackle ropes&mdash;we
+hazarded not unhooking the blocks&mdash;our oars were out, and the good boat
+headed round, with prow to leeward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Man overboard!&rdquo; was now shouted from stem to stern. And directly
+we heard the confused tramping and shouting of the sailors, as they rushed from
+their dreams into the almost inscrutable darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Man overboard! Man overboard!&rdquo; My heart smote me as the human cry
+of horror came out of the black vaulted night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Down helm!&rdquo; was soon heard from the chief mate. &ldquo;Back the
+main-yard! Quick to the boats! How&rsquo;s this? One down already? Well done!
+Hold on, then, those other boats!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile several seamen were shouting as they strained at the braces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cut! cut all! Lower away! lower away!&rdquo; impatiently cried the
+sailors, who already had leaped into the boats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heave the ship to, and hold fast every thing,&rdquo; cried the captain,
+apparently just springing to the deck. &ldquo;One boat&rsquo;s enough. Steward;
+show a light there from the mizzen-top. Boat ahoy!&mdash;Have you got that
+man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No reply. The voice came out of a cloud; the ship dimly showing like a ghost.
+We had desisted from rowing, and hand over hand were now hauling in upon the
+rope attached to the breaker, which we soon lifted into the boat, instantly
+resuming our oars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pull! pull, men! and save him!&rdquo; again shouted the captain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, ay, sir,&rdquo; answered Jarl instinctively, &ldquo;pulling as hard
+as ever we can, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And pull we did, till nothing could be heard from the ship but a confused
+tumult; and, ever and anon, the hoarse shout of the captain, too distant to be
+understood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We now set our sail to a light air; and right into the darkness, and dead to
+leeward, we rowed and sailed till morning dawned.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0009"></a>
+CHAPTER IX.<br/>
+The Watery World Is All Before Them</h2>
+
+<p>
+At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a speck to
+windward broke the even line of the horizon. It was the ship wending her way
+north-eastward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters as that
+which the Arcturion&rsquo;s crew must have imputed to the night past (did not
+the skipper suspect the truth) I would have regarded that little speck with
+many compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it was, did I feel in any very serene
+humor. For the consciousness of being deemed dead, is next to the presumable
+unpleasantness of being so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully
+tenanting a defunct carcass. Even Jarl&rsquo;s glance seemed so queer, that I
+begged him to look another way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he most
+probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of returning to the
+ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution that had thus far nerved me,
+began to succumb in a measure to the awful loneliness of the scene. Ere this, I
+had regarded the ocean as a slave, the steed that bore me whither I listed, and
+whose vicious propensities, mighty though they were, often proved harmless,
+when opposed to the genius of man. But now, how changed! In our frail boat, I
+would fain have built an altar to Neptune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly shouldered us from crest
+to crest, as from hand to hand lost souls may be tossed along by the chain of
+shades which enfilade the route to Tartarus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But drown or swim, here&rsquo;s overboard with care! Cheer up, Jarl! Ha! Ha!
+how merrily, yet terribly, we sail! Up, up&mdash;slowly up&mdash;toiling up the
+long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on a rail;
+and down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till arrested, we glide
+upward again. And thus did we go. Now buried in watery hollows&mdash;our sail
+idly flapping; then lifted aloft&mdash;canvas bellying; and beholding the
+furthest horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had not our familiarity with the business of whaling divested our craft&rsquo;s
+wild motions of its first novel horrors, we had been but a rueful pair. But
+day-long pulls after whales, the ship left miles astern; and entire dark nights
+passed moored to the monsters, killed too late to be towed to the ship far to
+leeward:&mdash;all this, and much more, accustoms one to strange things. Death,
+to be sure, has a mouth as black as a wolf&rsquo;s, and to be thrust into his
+jaws is a serious thing. But true it most certainly is&mdash;and I speak from
+no hearsay&mdash;that to sailors, as a class, the grisly king seems not half
+so hideous as he appears to those who have only regarded him on shore, and at a
+deferential distance. Like many ugly mortals, his features grow less frightful
+upon acquaintance; and met over often and sociably, the old adage holds true,
+about familiarity breeding contempt. Thus too with soldiers. Of the quaking
+recruit, three pitched battles make a grim grenadier; and he who shrank from
+the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready to yield his mustache for a sponge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant souls will taunt him
+while they may. Yet rather, should the wise regard him as the inflexible
+friend, who, even against our own wills, from life&rsquo;s evils triumphantly
+relieves us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And there is but little difference in the manner of dying. To die, is all. And
+death has been gallantly encountered by those who never beheld blood that was
+red, only its light azure seen through the veins. And to yield the ghost
+proudly, and march out of your fortress with all the honors of war, is not a
+thing of sinew and bone. Though in prison, Geoffry Hudson, the dwarf, died more
+bravely than Goliah, the giant; and the last end of a butterfly shames us all.
+Some women have lived nobler lives, and died nobler deaths, than men.
+Threatened with the stake, mitred Cranmer recanted; but through her fortitude,
+the lorn widow of Edessa stayed the tide of Valens&rsquo; persecutions.
+&rsquo;Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased
+all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the
+swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one&rsquo;s bed,
+transcends the death of Epaminondas.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0010"></a>
+CHAPTER X.<br/>
+They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make Things Comfortable</h2>
+
+<p>
+Our little craft was soon in good order. From the spare rigging brought along,
+we made shrouds to the mast, and converted the boat- hook into a handy boom for
+the jib. Going large before the wind, we set this sail wing-and-wing with the
+main-sail. The latter, in accordance with the customary rig of whale-boats, was
+worked with a sprit and sheet. It could be furled or set in an instant. The
+bags of bread we stowed away in the covered space about the loggerhead, a
+useless appurtenance now, and therefore removed. At night, Jarl used it for a
+pillow; saying, that when the boat rolled it gave easy play to his head. The
+precious breaker we lashed firmly amidships; thereby much improving our
+sailing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, previous to leaving the ship, we had seen to it well, that our craft was
+supplied with all those equipments, with which, by the regulations of the
+fishery, a whale-boat is constantly provided: night and day, afloat or
+suspended. Hanging along our gunwales inside, were six harpoons, three lances,
+and a blubber-spade; all keen as razors, and sheathed with leather. Besides
+these, we had three waifs, a couple of two-gallon water-kegs, several bailers,
+the boat-hatchet for cutting the whale-line, two auxiliary knives for the like
+purpose, and several minor articles, also employed in hunting the leviathan.
+The line and line-tub, however, were on ship-board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here it may be mentioned, that to prevent the strain upon the boat when
+suspended to the ship&rsquo;s side, the heavy whale-line, over two hundred
+fathoms in length, and something more than an inch in diameter, when not in use
+is kept on ship-board, coiled away like an endless snake in its tub. But this
+tub is always in readiness to be launched into the boat. Now, having no use for
+the line belonging to our craft, we had purposely left it behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But well had we marked that by far the most important item of a
+whale-boat&rsquo;s furniture was snugly secured in its place. This was the
+water-tight keg, at both ends firmly headed, containing a small compass,
+tinder-box and flint, candles, and a score or two of biscuit. This keg is an
+invariable precaution against what so frequently occurs in pursuing the sperm
+whale&mdash;prolonged absence from the ship, losing sight of her, or never
+seeing her more, till years after you reach home again. In this same keg of
+ours seemed coopered up life and death, at least so seemed it to honest Jarl.
+No sooner had we got clear from the Arcturion, than dropping his oar for an
+instant, he clutched at it in the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And when day at last came, we knocked out the head of the keg with the little
+hammer and chisel, always attached to it for that purpose, and removed the
+compass, that glistened to us like a human eye. Then filling up the vacancy
+with biscuit, we again made all tight, driving down the hoops till they would
+budge no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first we were puzzled to fix our compass. But at last the Skyeman out knife,
+and cutting a round hole in the after-most thwart, or seat of the boat, there
+inserted the little brass case containing the needle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the stern of the boat, with some old canvas which my Viking&rsquo;s
+forethought had provided, we spread a rude sort of awning, or rather
+counterpane. This, however, proved but little or no protection from the glare
+of the sun; for the management of the main-sail forbade any considerable
+elevation of the shelter. And when the breeze was fresh, we were fain to strike
+it altogether; for the wind being from aft, and getting underneath the canvas,
+almost lifted the light boat&rsquo;s stem into the air, vexing the counterpane
+as if it were a petticoat turning a gusty corner. But when a mere breath
+rippled the sea, and the sun was fiery hot, it was most pleasant to lounge in
+this shady asylum. It was like being transferred from the roast to cool in the
+cupboard. And Jarl, much the toughest fowl of the two, out of an abundant
+kindness for his comrade, during the day voluntarily remained exposed at the
+helm, almost two hours to my one. No lady-like scruples had he, the old Viking,
+about marring his complexion, which already was more than bronzed. Over the
+ordinary tanning of the sailor, he seemed masked by a visor of japanning,
+dotted all over with freckles, so intensely yellow, and symmetrically circular,
+that they seemed scorched there by a burning glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the tragico-comico moods which at times overtook me, I used to look upon the
+brown Skyeman with humorous complacency. If we fall in with cannibals, thought
+I, then, ready-roasted Norseman that thou art, shall I survive to mourn thee;
+at least, during the period I revolve upon the spit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But of such a fate, it needs hardly be said, we had no apprehension.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0011"></a>
+CHAPTER XI.<br/>
+Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw</h2>
+
+<p>
+If ever again I launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, I shall take
+good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with a rattle-box head. Be he
+never so silly, his very silliness, so long as he be lively at it, shall be its
+own excuse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon occasion, who likes not a lively loon, one of your giggling, gamesome
+oafs, whose mouth is a grin? Are not such, well-ordered dispensations of
+Providence? filling up vacuums, in intervals of social stagnation relieving the
+tedium of existing? besides keeping up, here and there, in very many quarters
+indeed, sundry people&rsquo;s good opinion of themselves? What, if at times
+their speech is insipid as water after wine? What, if to ungenial and irascible
+souls, their very &ldquo;mug&rdquo; is an exasperation to behold, their clack
+an inducement to suicide? Let us not be hard upon them for this; but let them
+live on for the good they may do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Jarl, dear, dumb Jarl, thou wert none of these. Thou didst carry a phiz
+like an excommunicated deacon&rsquo;s. And no matter what happened, it was ever
+the same. Quietly, in thyself, thou didst revolve upon thine own sober axis,
+like a wheel in a machine which forever goes round, whether you look at it or
+no. Ay, Jarl! wast thou not forever intent upon minding that which so many
+neglect&mdash;thine own especial business? Wast thou not forever at it, too,
+with no likelihood of ever winding up thy moody affairs, and striking a balance
+sheet?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at times how wearisome to me these everlasting reveries in my one solitary
+companion. I longed for something enlivening; a burst of words; human vivacity
+of one kind or other. After in vain essaying to get something of this sort out
+of Jarl, I tried it all by myself; playing upon my body as upon an instrument;
+singing, halloing, and making empty gestures, till my Viking stared hard; and I
+myself paused to consider whether I had run crazy or no.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how account for the Skyeman&rsquo;s gravity? Surely, it was based upon no
+philosophic taciturnity; he was nothing of an idealist; an aerial architect; a
+constructor of flying buttresses. It was inconceivable, that his reveries were
+Manfred-like and exalted, reminiscent of unutterable deeds, too mysterious even
+to be indicated by the remotest of hints. Suppositions all out of the question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His ruminations were a riddle. I asked him anxiously, whether, in any part of
+the world, Savannah, Surat, or Archangel, he had ever a wife to think of; or
+children, that he carried so lengthy a phiz. Nowhere neither. Therefore, as by
+his own confession he had nothing to think of but himself, and there was little
+but honesty in him (having which, by the way, he may be thought full to the
+brim), what could I fall back upon but my original theory: namely, that in
+repose, his intellects stepped out, and left his body to itself.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0012"></a>
+CHAPTER XII.<br/>
+More About Being In An Open Boat</h2>
+
+<p>
+On the third morning, at break of day, I sat at the steering oar, an hour or
+two previous having relieved Jarl, now fast asleep. Somehow, and suddenly, a
+sense of peril so intense, came over me, that it could hardly have been
+aggravated by the completest solitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On a ship&rsquo;s deck, the mere feeling of elevation above the water, and the
+reach of prospect you command, impart a degree of confidence which disposes you
+to exult in your fancied security. But in an open boat, brought down to the
+very plane of the sea, this feeling almost wholly deserts you. Unless the
+waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip upon one of their lordly
+crests, your sphere of vision is little larger than it would be at the bottom
+of a well. At best, your most extended view in any one direction, at least, is
+in a high, slow-rolling sea; when you descend into the dark, misty spaces,
+between long and uniform swells. Then, for the moment, it is like looking up
+and down in a twilight glade, interminable; where two dawns, one on each hand,
+seem struggling through the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, lingering not long in those silent vales, from watery cliff to cliff, a
+sea-chamois, sprang our solitary craft,&mdash;a goat among the Alps!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How undulated the horizon; like a vast serpent with ten thousand folds coiled
+all round the globe; yet so nigh, apparently, that it seemed as if one&rsquo;s
+hand might touch it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What loneliness; when the sun rose, and spurred up the heavens, we hailed him
+as a wayfarer in Sahara the sight of a distant horseman. Save ourselves, the
+sun and the Chamois seemed all that was left of life in the universe. We
+yearned toward its jocund disk, as in strange lands the traveler joyfully
+greets a face from home, which there had passed unheeded. And was not the sun a
+fellow-voyager? were we not both wending westward? But how soon he daily
+overtook and passed us; hurrying to his journey&rsquo;s end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a week had gone by, sailing steadily on, by day and by night, and nothing
+in sight but this self-same sea, what wonder if disquieting thoughts at last
+entered our hearts? If unknowingly we should pass the spot where, according to
+our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what shoreless sea would we launch? At
+times, these forebodings bewildered my idea of the positions of the groups
+beyond. All became vague and confused; so that westward of the Kingsmil isles
+and the Radack chain, I fancied there could be naught but an endless sea.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0013"></a>
+CHAPTER XIII.<br/>
+Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas</h2>
+
+<p>
+At intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which diversified the
+scene; especially when the constellation Pisces was in the ascendant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It&rsquo;s famous botanizing, they say, in Arkansas&rsquo; boundless prairies;
+I commend the student of Ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean moors of
+the Pacific. As your craft glides along, what strange monsters float by.
+Elsewhere, was never seen their like. And nowhere are they found in the books
+of the naturalists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown. And whoso
+crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The sea-serpent is not a
+fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a garden worm. There are more wonders
+than the wonders rejected, and more sights unrevealed than you or I ever ever
+dreamt of. Moles and bats alone should be skeptics; and the only true
+infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead. Be Sir Thomas Brown our
+ensample; who, while exploding &ldquo;Vulgar Errors,&rdquo; heartily hugged all
+the mysteries in the Pentateuch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But look! fathoms down in the sea; where ever saw you a phantom like that? An
+enormous crescent with antlers like a reindeer, and a Delta of mouths. Slowly
+it sinks, and is seen no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctor Faust saw the devil; but you have seen the &ldquo;Devil Fish.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Look again! Here comes another. Jarl calls it a Bone Shark. Full as large as a
+whale, it is spotted like a leopard; and tusk-like teeth overlap its jaws like
+those of the walrus. To seamen, nothing strikes more terror than the near
+vicinity of a creature like this. Great ships steer out of its path. And well
+they may; since the good craft Essex, and others, have been sunk by
+sea-monsters, as the alligator thrusts his horny snout through a Carribean
+canoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from the
+extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by hundreds; but by
+thousands and by myriads. Trust me, there are more sharks in the sea than
+mortals on land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs. But by
+the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening the sharks, have
+bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are classed under one
+family; which family, according to Muller, king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch
+of the ancient and famous tribe of the Chondropterygii.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To begin. There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so called by
+sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard knocks
+received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar. At times, these
+gentry swim in herds; especially about the remains of a slaughtered whale. They
+are the vultures of the deep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we often encountered the dandy Blue Shark, a long, taper and mighty
+genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a Bond- street beau, and the
+whitest tiers of teeth imaginable. This dainty spark invariably lounged by with
+a careless fin and an indolent tail. But he looked infernally heartless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude, savage swagger
+of the Tiger Shark; a round, portly gourmand; with distended mouth and
+collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom he might devour. These
+gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in the South Seas,
+picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a tit-bit, a stray sailor.
+No wonder, then, that sailors denounce them. In substance, Jarl once assured
+me, that under any temporary misfortune, it was one of his sweetest
+consolations to remember, that in his day, he had murdered, not killed, shoals
+of Tiger Sharks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet this is all wrong. As well hate a seraph, as a shark. Both were made by the
+same hand. And that sharks are lovable, witness their domestic endearments. No
+Fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable side. In the wild wilderness, a
+leopard-mother caresses her cub, as Hagar did Ishmael; or a queen of France the
+dauphin. We know not what we do when we hate. And I have the word of my
+gentlemanly friend Stanhope, for it; that he who declared he loved a good hater
+was but a respectable sort of Hottentot, at best. No very genteel epithet this,
+though coming from the genteelest of men. But when the digger of dictionaries
+said that saying of his, he was assuredly not much of a Christian. However, it
+is hard for one given up to constitutional hypos like him; to be filled with
+the milk and meekness of the gospels. Yet, with deference, I deny that my old
+uncle Johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him. Love a hater,
+indeed! Who smacks his lips over gall? Now hate is a thankless thing. So, let
+us only hate hatred; and once give love play, we will fall in love with a
+unicorn. Ah! the easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must work hard.
+Love is a delight; but hate a torment. And haters are thumbscrews, Scotch
+boots, and Spanish inquisitions to themselves. In five words&mdash;would they
+were a Siamese diphthong&mdash;he who hates is a fool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For several days our Chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid Tiger
+Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our wake, side
+by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till you come to the
+cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a bootless errand, they dropped
+farther and farther astern, until completely out of sight. Much to the
+Skyeman&rsquo;s chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance poised for a dart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But of all sharks, save me from the ghastly White Shark. For though we should
+hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and disliking is not hating.
+And never yet could I bring myself to be loving, or even sociable, with a White
+Shark. He is not the sort of creature to enlist young affections.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by night than
+by day. Timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding along just under the
+surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a milky hue; with glimpses now and
+then of his bottomless white pit of teeth. No need of a dentist hath he. Seen
+at night, stealing along like a spirit in the water, with horrific serenity of
+aspect, the White Shark sent many a thrill to us twain in the Chamois.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the ponderous
+sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he fetched a long breath
+after napping below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the
+chain-plate armor and golden scales; the Nimrod of the seas, to whom so many
+flying fish fall a prey. Flying from their pursuers, many of them flew into our
+boat. But invariably they died from the shock. No nursing could restore them.
+One of their wings I removed, spreading it out to dry under a weight. In two
+days&rsquo; time the thin membrane, all over tracings like those of a leaf, was
+transparent as isinglass, and tinted with brilliant hues, like those of a
+changing silk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost every day, we spied Black Fish; coal-black and glossy. They seemed to
+swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel; their dorsal
+fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of a somewhat similar species, but smaller, and clipper-built about the nose,
+were the Algerines; so called, probably, from their corsair propensities;
+waylaying peaceful fish on the high seas, and plundering them of body and soul
+at a gulp. Atrocious Turks! a crusade should be preached against them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides all these, we encountered Killers and Thrashers, by far the most
+spirited and &ldquo;spunky&rdquo; of the finny tribes. Though little larger
+than a porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan himself.
+They bait the monster, as dogs a bull. The Killers seizing the Right whale by
+his immense, sulky lower lip, and the Thrashers fastening on to his back, and
+beating him with their sinewy tails. Often they come off conquerors, worrying
+the enemy to death. Though, sooth to say, if leviathan gets but one sweep al
+them with his terrible tail, they go flying into the air, as if tossed from
+Taurus&rsquo; horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sight we beheld. Had old Wouvermans, who once painted a bull bait, been
+along with us, a rare chance, that, for his pencil. And Gudin or Isabey might
+have thrown the blue rolling sea into the picture. Lastly, one of
+Claude&rsquo;s setting summer suns would have glorified the whole. Oh, believe
+me, God&rsquo;s creatures fighting, fin for fin, a thousand miles from land,
+and with the round horizon for an arena; is no ignoble subject for a
+masterpiece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such are a few of the sights of the great South Sea. But there is no telling
+all. The Pacific is populous as China.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0014"></a>
+CHAPTER XIV.<br/>
+Jarl&rsquo;s Misgivings</h2>
+
+<p>
+About this time an event took place. My good Viking opened his mouth, and
+spoke. The prodigy occurred, as, jacknife in hand, he was bending over the
+midship oar; on the loom, or handle, of which he kept our almanac; making a
+notch for every set sun. For some forty-eight hours past, the wind had been
+light and variable. It was more than suspected that a current was sweeping us
+northward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, marking these things, Jarl threw out the thought, that the more wind, and
+the less current, the better; and if a long calm came on, of which there was
+some prospect, we had better take to our oars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Take to our oars! as if we were crossing a ferry, and no ocean leagues to
+traverse. The idea indirectly suggested all possible horrors. To be rid of them
+forthwith, I proceeded to dole out our morning meal. For to make away with such
+things, there is nothing better than bolting something down on top of them;
+albeit, oft repeated, the plan is very apt to beget dyspepsia; and the
+dyspepsia the blues.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what of our store of provisions? So far as enough to eat was concerned, we
+felt not the slightest apprehension; our supplies proving more abundant than we
+had anticipated. But, curious to tell, we felt but little inclination for food.
+It was water, bright water, cool, sparkling water, alone, that we craved. And
+of this, also, our store at first seemed ample. But as our voyage lengthened,
+and breezes blew faint, and calms fell fast, the idea of being deprived of the
+precious fluid grew into something little short of a mono- mania; especially
+with Jarl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every hour or two with the hammer and chisel belonging to the tinder box keg,
+he tinkered away at the invaluable breaker; driving down the hoops, till in his
+over solicitude, I thought he would burst them outright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the breaker lay on its bilge, in the middle of the boat, where more or less
+sea-water always collected. And ever and anon, dipping his finger therein, my
+Viking was troubled with the thought, that this sea-water tasted less brackish
+than that alongside. Of course the breaker must be leaking. So, he would turn
+it over, till its wet side came uppermost; when it would quickly become dry as
+a bone. But now, with his knife, he would gently probe the joints of the
+staves; shake his head; look up; look down; taste of the water in the bottom of
+the boat; then that of the sea; then lift one end of the breaker; going through
+with every test of leakage he could dream of. Nor was he ever fully satisfied,
+that the breaker was in all respects sound. But in reality it was tight as the
+drum-heads that beat at Cerro- Gordo. Oh! Jarl, Jarl: to me in the boat&rsquo;s
+quiet stern, steering and philosophizing at one time and the same, thou and thy
+breaker were a study.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides the breaker, we had, full of water, the two boat-kegs, previously
+alluded to. These were first used. We drank from them by their leaden spouts;
+so many swallows three times in the day; having no other means of measuring an
+allowance. But when we came to the breaker, which had only a bung-hole, though
+a very large one, dog- like, it was so many laps apiece; jealously counted by
+the observer. This plan, however, was only good for a single day; the water
+then getting beyond the reach of the tongue. We therefore daily poured from the
+breaker into one of the kegs; and drank from its spout. But to obviate the
+absorption inseparable from decanting, we at last hit upon something
+better,&mdash;my comrade&rsquo;s shoe, which, deprived of its quarters,
+narrowed at the heel, and diligently rinsed out in the sea, was converted into
+a handy but rather limber ladle. This we kept suspended in the bung-hole of the
+breaker, that it might never twice absorb the water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now pewter imparts flavor to ale; a Meerschaum bowl, the same to the tobacco of
+Smyrna; and goggle green glasses are deemed indispensable to the bibbing of
+Hock. What then shall be said of a leathern goblet for water? Try it, ye
+mariners who list.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One morning, taking his wonted draught, Jarl fished up in his ladle a deceased
+insect; something like a Daddy-long-legs, only more corpulent. Its fate? A
+sea-toss? Believe it not; with all those precious drops clinging to its lengthy
+legs. It was held over the ladle till the last globule dribbled; and even then,
+being moist, honest Jarl was but loth to drop it overboard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For our larder, we could not endure the salt beef; it was raw as a live
+Abyssinian steak, and salt as Cracow. Besides, the Feegee simile would not have
+held good with respect to it. It was far from being &ldquo;tender as a dead
+man.&rdquo; The biscuit only could we eat; not to be wondered at; for even on
+shipboard, seamen in the tropics are but sparing feeders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here let not, a suggestion be omitted, most valuable to any future castaway
+or sailaway as the case may be. Eat not your biscuit dry; but dip it in the
+sea: which makes it more bulky and palatable. During meal times it was soak and
+sip with Jarl and me: one on each side of the Chamois dipping our biscuit in
+the brine. This plan obviated finger-glasses at the conclusion of our repast.
+Upon the whole, dwelling upon the water is not so bad after all. The Chinese
+are no fools. In the operation of making your toilet, how handy to float in
+your ewer!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0015"></a>
+CHAPTER XV.<br/>
+A Stitch In Time Saves Nine</h2>
+
+<p>
+Like most silent earnest sort of people, my good Viking was a pattern of
+industry. When in the boats after whales, I have known him carry along a roll
+of sinnate to stitch into a hat. And the boats lying motionless for half an
+hour or so, waiting the rising of the chase, his fingers would be plying at
+their task, like an old lady knitting. Like an experienced old-wife too, his
+digits had become so expert and conscientious, that his eyes left them alone;
+deeming optic supervision unnecessary. And on this trip of ours, when not
+otherwise engaged, he was quite as busy with his fingers as ever: unraveling
+old Cape Horn hose, for yarn wherewith to darn our woolen frocks; with great
+patches from the skirts of a condemned reefing jacket, panneling the seats of
+our &ldquo;ducks;&rdquo; in short, veneering our broken garments with all
+manner of choice old broadcloths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the true forethought of an old tar, he had brought along with him nearly
+the whole contents of his chest. His precious &ldquo;Ditty Bag,&rdquo;
+containing his sewing utensils, had been carefully packed away in the bottom of
+one of his bundles; of which he had as many as an old maid on her travels. In
+truth, an old salt is very much of an old maid, though, strictly speaking, far
+from deserving that misdeemed appellative. Better be an old maid, a woman with
+herself for a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints
+that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one. When
+playing the sempstress, Jarl&rsquo;s favorite perch was the triangular little
+platform in the bow; which being the driest and most elevated part of the boat,
+was best adapted to his purpose. Here for hours and hours together the honest
+old tailor would sit darning and sewing away, heedless of the wide ocean
+around; while forever, his slouched Guayaquil hat kept bobbing up and down
+against the horizon before us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a most solemn avocation with him. Silently he nodded like the still
+statue in the opera of Don Juan. Indeed he never spoke, unless to give pithy
+utterance to the wisdom of keeping one&rsquo;s wardrobe in repair. But herein
+my Viking at times waxed oracular. And many&rsquo;s the hour we glided along,
+myself deeply pondering in the stem, hand upon helm; while crosslegged at the
+other end of the boat Jarl laid down patch upon patch, and at long intervals
+precept upon precept; here several saws, and there innumerable stitches.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0016"></a>
+CHAPTER XVI.<br/>
+They Are Becalmed</h2>
+
+<p>
+On the eighth day there was a calm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It came on by night: so that waking at daybreak, and folding my arms over the
+gunwale, I looked out upon a scene very hard to describe. The sun was still
+beneath the horizon; perhaps not yet out of sight from the plains of Paraguay.
+But the dawn was too strong for the stars; which, one by one, had gone out,
+like waning lamps after a ball.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character from what it
+reflects; so in a calm in the Tropics, a colorless sky overhead, the ocean,
+upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of existence. The deep blue is gone;
+and the glassy element lies tranced; almost viewless as the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed collapsed
+into a vague ellipsis. And alike, the Chamois seemed drifting in the atmosphere
+as in the sea. Every thing was fused into the calm: sky, air, water, and all.
+Not a fish was to be seen. The silence was that of a vacuum. No vitality lurked
+in the air. And this inert blending and brooding of all things seemed gray
+chaos in conception.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few
+cat&rsquo;s-paws of wind varied the scene. They were faint as the breath of one
+dying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At times the heat was intense. The heavens, at midday, glowing like an ignited
+coal mine. Our skin curled up like lint; our vision became dim; the brain
+dizzy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To our consternation, the water in the breaker became lukewarm, brackish, and
+slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept our spare clothing piled upon the
+breaker, to shield it from the sun. At last, Jarl enlarged the vent, carefully
+keeping it exposed. To this precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then
+thought. It was now deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the
+smallest modicum consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling
+all desire for more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor was this all. The upper planking of the boat began to warp; here and there,
+cracking and splintering. But though we kept it moistened with brine, one of
+the plank-ends started from its place; and the sharp, sudden sound, breaking
+the scorching silence, caused us both to spring to our feet. Instantly the sea
+burst in; but we made shift to secure the rebellious plank with a cord, not
+having a nail; we then bailed out the boat, nearly half full of water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its being
+pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells now overtaking
+us. Leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging, some tempest must have
+been sending to us its last dying waves. For as a pebble dropped into a pond
+ruffles it to its marge; so, on all sides, a sea-gale operates as if an
+asteroid had fallen into the brine; making ringed mountain billows,
+interminably expanding, instead of ripples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great September waves breaking at the base of the Neversink Highlands, far
+in advance of the swiftest pilot-boat, carry tidings. And full often, they know
+the last secret of many a stout ship, never heard of from the day she left
+port. Every wave in my eyes seems a soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As there was no steering to be done, Jarl and I sheltered ourselves as well as
+we could under the awning. And for the first two days, one at a time, and every
+three or four hours, we dropped overboard for a bath, clinging to the gun-wale;
+a sharp look-out being kept for prowling sharks. A foot or two below the
+surface, the water felt cool and refreshing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the third day a change came over us. We relinquished bathing, the exertion
+taxing us too much. Sullenly we laid ourselves down; turned our backs to each
+other; and were impatient of the slightest casual touch of our persons. What
+sort of expression my own countenance wore, I know not; but I hated to look at
+Jarl&rsquo;s. When I did it was a glare, not a glance. I became more taciturn
+than he. I can not tell what it was that came over me, but I wished I was
+alone. I felt that so long as the calm lasted, we were without help; that
+neither could assist the other; and above all, that for one, the water would
+hold out longer than for two. I felt no remorse, not the slightest, for these
+thoughts. It was instinct. Like a desperado giving up the ghost, I desired to
+gasp by myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From being cast away with a brother, good God deliver me!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The four days passed. And on the morning of the fifth, thanks be to Heaven,
+there came a breeze. Dancingly, mincingly it came, just rippling the sea, until
+it struck our sails, previously set at the very first token of its advance. At
+length it slightly freshened; and our poor Chamois seemed raised from the dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beyond expression delightful! Once more we heard the low humming of the sea
+under our bow, as our boat, like a bird, went singing on its way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How changed the scene! Overhead, a sweet blue haze, distilling sunlight in
+drops. And flung abroad over the visible creation was the sun-spangled, azure,
+rustling robe of the ocean, ermined with wave crests; all else, infinitely
+blue. Such a cadence of musical sounds! Waves chasing each other, and sporting
+and frothing in frolicsome foam: painted fish rippling past; and anon the noise
+of wings as sea- fowls flew by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh, Ocean, when thou choosest to smile, more beautiful thou art than flowery
+mead or plain!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0017"></a>
+CHAPTER XVII.<br/>
+In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita</h2>
+
+<p>
+There were now fourteen notches on the loom of the Skyeman&rsquo;s
+oar:&mdash;So many days since we had pushed from the fore-chains of the
+Arcturion. But as yet, no floating bough, no tern, noddy, nor reef-bird, to
+denote our proximity to land. In that long calm, whither might not the currents
+have swept us?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where we were precisely, we knew not; but according to our reckoning, the loose
+estimation of the knots run every hour, we must have sailed due west but little
+more than one hundred and fifty leagues; for the most part having encountered
+but light winds, and frequent intermitting calms, besides that prolonged one
+described. But spite of past calms and currents, land there must be to the
+westward. Sun, compass, stout hearts, and steady breezes, pointed our prow
+thereto. So courage! my Viking, and never say drown!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this time, our hearts were much lightened by discovering that our water was
+improving in taste. It seemed to have been undergoing anew that sort of
+fermentation, or working, occasionally incident to ship water shortly after
+being taken on board. Sometimes, for a period, it is more or less offensive to
+taste and smell; again, however, becoming comparatively limpid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as our water improved, we grew more and more miserly of so priceless a
+treasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here it may be well to make mention of another little circumstance, however
+unsentimental. Thorough-paced tar that he was, my Viking was an inordinate
+consumer of the Indian weed. From the Arcturion, he had brought along with him
+a small half-keg, at bottom impacted with a solitary layer of sable Negrohead,
+fossil- marked, like the primary stratum of the geologists. It was the last
+tier of his abundant supply for the long whaling voyage upon which he had
+embarked upwards of three years previous. Now during the calm, and for some
+days after, poor Jarl&rsquo;s accustomed quid was no longer agreeable company.
+To pun: he eschewed his chew. I asked him wherefore. He replied that it
+puckered up his mouth, above all provoked thirst, and had somehow grown every
+way distasteful. I was sorry; for the absence of his before ever present wad
+impaired what little fullness there was left in his cheek; though, sooth to
+say, I no longer called upon him as of yore to shift over the enormous morsel
+to starboard or larboard, and so trim our craft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The calm gone by, once again my sea-tailor plied needle and thread; or turning
+laundress, hung our raiment to dry on oars peaked obliquely in the thole-pins.
+All of which tattered pennons, the wind being astern, helped us gayly on our
+way; as jolly poor devils, with rags flying in the breeze, sail blithely
+through life; and are merry although they are poor!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0018"></a>
+CHAPTER XVIII.<br/>
+My Lord Shark And His Pages</h2>
+
+<p>
+There is a fish in the sea that evermore, like a surly lord, only goes abroad
+attended by his suite. It is the Shovel-nosed Shark. A clumsy lethargic
+monster, unshapely as his name, and the last species of his kind, one would
+think, to be so bravely waited upon, as he is. His suite is composed of those
+dainty little creatures called Pilot fish by sailors. But by night his retinue
+is frequently increased by the presence of several small luminous fish, running
+in advance, and flourishing their flambeaux like link-boys lighting the
+monster&rsquo;s way. Pity there were no ray-fish in rear, page-like, to carry
+his caudal train.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the relation subsisting between the Pilot fish above mentioned and their
+huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable things in nature. At any
+rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. That a monster so ferocious, should
+suffer five or six little sparks, hardly fourteen inches long, to gambol about
+his grim hull with the utmost impunity, is of itself something strange. But
+when it is considered, that by a reciprocal understanding, the Pilot fish seem
+to act as scouts to the shark, warning him of danger, and apprising him of the
+vicinity of prey; and moreover, in case of his being killed, evincing their
+anguish by certain agitations, otherwise inexplicable; the whole thing becomes
+a mystery unfathomable. Truly marvels abound. It needs no dead man to be
+raised, to convince us of some things. Even my Viking marveled full as much at
+those Pilot fish as he would have marveled at the Pentecost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But perhaps a little incident, occurring about this period, will best
+illustrate the matter in hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were gliding along, hardly three knots an hour, when my comrade, who had
+been dozing over the gunwale, suddenly started to his feet, and pointed out an
+immense Shovel-nosed Shark, less than a boat&rsquo;s length distant, and about
+half a fathom beneath the surface. A lance was at once snatched from its place;
+and true to his calling, Jarl was about to dart it at the fish, when,
+interested by the sight of its radiant little scouts, I begged him to desist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of them was right under the shark, nibbling at his ventral fin; another
+above, hovering about his dorsal appurtenance; one on each flank; and a
+frisking fifth pranking about his nose, seemingly having something to say of a
+confidential nature. They were of a bright, steel-blue color, alternated with
+jet black stripes; with glistening bellies of a silver-white. Clinging to the
+back of the shark, were four or five Remoras, or sucking-fish; snaky parasites,
+impossible to remove from whatever they adhere to, without destroying their
+lives. The Remora has little power in swimming; hence its sole locomotion is on
+the backs of larger fish. Leech-like, it sticketh closer than a false brother
+in prosperity; closer than a beggar to the benevolent; closer than Webster to
+the Constitution. But it feeds upon what it clings to; its feelers having a
+direct communication with the esophagus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shark swam sluggishly; creating no sign of a ripple, but ever and, anon
+shaking his Medusa locks, writhing and curling with horrible life. Now and
+then, the nimble Pilot fish darted from his side&mdash;this way and
+that&mdash;mostly toward our boat; but previous to taking a fresh start ever
+returning to their liege lord to report progress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A thought struck me. Baiting a rope&rsquo;s end with a morsel of our almost
+useless salt beef, I suffered it to trail in the sea. Instantly the foremost
+scout swam toward it; hesitated; paused; but at last advancing, briskly snuffed
+at the line, and taking one finical little nibble, retreated toward the shark.
+Another moment, and the great Tamerlane himself turned heavily about; pointing
+his black, cannon-like nose directly toward our broadside. Meanwhile, the
+little Pilot fish darted hither and thither; keeping up a mighty fidgeting,
+like men of small minds in a state of nervous agitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, Tamerlane swam nearer and nearer, all the while lazily eyeing the
+Chamois, as a wild boar a kid. Suddenly making a rush for it, in the foam he
+made away with the bait. But the next instant, the uplifted lance sped at his
+skull; and thrashing his requiem with his sinewy tail, he sunk slowly, through
+his own blood, out of sight. Down with him swam the terrified Pilot fish; but
+soon after, three of them were observed close to the boat, gliding along at a
+uniform pace; one an each side, and one in advance; even as they had attended
+their lord. Doubtless, one was under our keel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A good omen,&rdquo; said Jarl; &ldquo;no harm will befall us so long as
+they stay.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But however that might be, follow us they did, for many days after: until an
+event occurred, which necessitated their withdrawal.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0019"></a>
+CHAPTER XIX.<br/>
+Who Goes There?</h2>
+
+<p>
+Jarl&rsquo;s oar showed sixteen notches on the loom, when one evening, as the
+expanded sun touched the horizon&rsquo;s rim, a ship&rsquo;s uppermost spars
+were observed, traced like a spider&rsquo;s web against its crimson disk. It
+looked like a far-off craft on fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In bright weather at sea, a sail, invisible in the full flood of noon, becomes
+perceptible toward sunset. It is the reverse in the morning. In sight at gray
+dawn, the distant vessel, though in reality approaching, recedes from view, as
+the sun rises higher and higher. This holds true, till its vicinity makes it
+readily fall within the ordinary scope of vision. And thus, too, here and
+there, with other distant things: the more light you throw on them, the more
+you obscure. Some revelations show best in a twilight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sight of the stranger not a little surprised us. But brightening up, as if
+the encounter were welcome, Jarl looked happy and expectant. He quickly changed
+his demeanor, however, upon perceiving that I was bent upon shunning a meeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instantly our sails were struck; and calling upon Jarl, who was somewhat
+backward to obey, I shipped the oars; and, both rowing, we stood away obliquely
+from our former course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I divined that the vessel was a whaler; and hence, that by help of the glass,
+with which her look-outs must be momentarily sweeping the horizon, they might
+possibly have descried us; especially, as we were due east from the ship; a
+direction, which at sunset is the one most favorable for perceiving a far-off
+object at sea. Furthermore, our canvas was snow-white and conspicuous. To be
+sure, we could not be certain what kind of a vessel it was; but whatever it
+might be, I, for one, had no mind to risk an encounter; for it was quite plain,
+that if the stranger came within hailing distance, there would be no resource
+but to link our fortunes with hers; whereas I desired to pursue none but the
+Chamois&rsquo;. As for the Skyeman, he kept looking wistfully over his
+shoulder; doubtless, praying Heaven, that we might not escape what I sought to
+avoid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, upon a closer scrutiny, being pretty well convinced that the stranger,
+after all, was steering a nearly westerly course&mdash;right away from
+us&mdash;we reset our sail; and as night fell, my Viking&rsquo;s entreaties,
+seconded by my own curiosity, induced me to resume our original course; and so
+follow after the vessel, with a view of obtaining a nearer glimpse, without
+danger of detection. So, boldly we steered for the sail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not gaining much upon her, spite of the lightness of the breeze (a
+circumstance in our favor: the chase being a ship, and we but a boat), at my
+comrade&rsquo;s instigation, we added oars to sails, readily guiding our way by
+the former, though the helm was left to itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we came nearer, it was plain that the vessel was no whaler; but a small,
+two-masted craft; in short, a brigantine. Her sails were in a state of
+unaccountable disarray, only the foresail, mainsail, and jib being set. The
+first was much tattered; and the jib was hoisted but half way up the stay,
+where it idly flapped, the breeze coming from over the taffrail. She
+continually yawed in her course; now almost presenting her broadside, then
+showing her stern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Striking our sails once more, we lay on our oars, and watched her in the
+starlight. Still she swung from side to side, and still sailed on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a little terrified at the sight, superstitious Jarl more than insinuated
+that the craft must be a gold-huntress, haunted. But I told him, that if such
+were the case, we must board her, come gold or goblins. In reality, however, I
+began to think that she must have been abandoned by her crew; or else, that
+from sickness, those on board were incapable of managing her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a long and anxious reconnoiter, we came still nearer, using our oars, but
+very reluctantly on Jarl&rsquo;s part; who, while rowing, kept his eyes over
+his shoulder, as if about to beach the little Chamois on the back of a whale as
+of yore. Indeed, he seemed full as impatient to quit the vicinity of the
+vessel, as before he had been anxiously courting it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, as the silent brigantine again swung round her broadside, I hailed her
+loudly. No return. Again. But all was silent. With a few vigorous strokes, we
+closed with her, giving yet another unanswered hail; when, laying the Chamois
+right alongside, I clutched at the main-chains. Instantly we felt her dragging
+us along. Securing our craft by its painter, I sprang over the rail, followed
+by Jarl, who had snatched his harpoon, his favorite arms. Long used with that
+weapon to overcome the monsters of the deep, he doubted not it would prove
+equally serviceable in any other encounter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The deck was a complete litter. Tossed about were pearl oyster shells, husks of
+cocoa-nuts, empty casks, and cases. The deserted tiller was lashed; which
+accounted for the vessel&rsquo;s yawing. But we could not conceive, how going
+large before the wind; the craft could, for any considerable time, at least,
+have guided herself without the help of a hand. Still, the breeze was light and
+steady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, seeing the helm thus lashed, I could not but distrust the silence that
+prevailed. It conjured up the idea of miscreants concealed below, and
+meditating treachery; unscrupulous mutineers&mdash;Lascars, or Manilla-men;
+who, having murdered the Europeans of the crew, might not be willing to let
+strangers depart unmolested. Or yet worse, the entire ship&rsquo;s company
+might have been swept away by a fever, its infection still lurking in the
+poisoned hull. And though the first conceit, as the last, was a mere surmise,
+it was nevertheless deemed prudent to secure the hatches, which for the present
+we accordingly barred down with the oars of our boat. This done, we went about
+the deck in search of water. And finding some in a clumsy cask, drank long and
+freely, and to our thirsty souls&rsquo; content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wind now freshening, and the rent sails like to blow from the yards, we
+brought the brigantine to the wind, and brailed up the canvas. This left us at
+liberty to examine the craft, though, unfortunately, the night was growing
+hazy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this while our boat was still towing alongside; and I was about to drop it
+astern, when Jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where it was; since, if
+there were people on board, they would most likely be down in the cabin, from
+the dead-lights of which, mischief might be done to the Chamois.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was then, that my comrade observed, that the brigantine had no boats, a
+circumstance most unusual in any sort of a vessel at sea. But marking this, I
+was exceedingly gratified. It seemed to indicate, as I had opined, that from
+some cause or other, she must have been abandoned of her crew. And in a good
+measure this dispelled my fears of foul play, and the apprehension of
+contagion. Encouraged by these reflections, I now resolved to descend, and
+explore the cabin, though sorely against Jarl&rsquo;s counsel. To be sure, as
+he earnestly said, this step might have been deferred till daylight; but it
+seemed too wearisome to wait. So bethinking me of our tinder-box and candles, I
+sent him into the boat for them. Presently, two candles were lit; one of which
+the Skyeman tied up and down the barbed end of his harpoon; so that upon going
+below, the keen steel might not be far off, should the light be blown out by a
+dastard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unfastening the cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest and
+murkiest den in the world. The altar-like transom, surmounted by the closed
+dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky- light overhead, and
+the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the place the air of some
+subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of Peter the Hermit. But coils of
+rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of clothing, and disorderly heaps of
+rubbish, harmonized not with this impression. Two doors, one on each side, led
+into wee little state- rooms, the berths of which also were littered. Among
+other things, was a large box, sheathed with iron and stoutly clamped,
+containing a keg partly filled with powder, the half of an old cutlass, a pouch
+of bullets, and a case for a sextant&mdash;a brass plate on the lid, with the
+maker&rsquo;s name. London. The broken blade of the cutlass was very rusty and
+stained; and the iron hilt bent in. It looked so tragical that I thrust it out
+of sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Removing a small trap-door, opening into the space beneath, called the
+&ldquo;run,&rdquo; we lighted upon sundry cutlasses and muskets, lying together
+at sixes and sevens, as if pitched down in a hurry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Casting round a hasty glance, and satisfying ourselves, that through the
+bulkhead of the cabin, there was no passage to the forward part of the hold, we
+caught up the muskets and cutlasses, the powder keg and the pouch of bullets,
+and bundling them on deck, prepared to visit the other end of the vessel.
+Previous to so doing, however, I loaded a musket, and belted a cutlass to my
+side. But my Viking preferred his harpoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the forecastle reigned similar confusion. But there was a snug little lair,
+cleared away in one corner, and furnished with a grass mat and bolster, like
+those used among the Islanders of these seas. This little lair looked to us as
+if some leopard had crouched there. And as it turned out, we were not far from
+right. Forming one side of this retreat, was a sailor&rsquo;s chest, stoutly
+secured by a lock, and monstrous heavy withal. Regardless of Jarl&rsquo;s
+entreaties, I managed to burst the lid; thereby revealing a motley assemblage
+of millinery, and outlandish knick-knacks of all sorts; together with sundry
+rude Calico contrivances, which though of unaccountable cut, nevertheless
+possessed a certain petticoatish air, and latitude of skirt, betokening them
+the habiliments of some feminine creature; most probably of the human species.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this strong box, also, was a canvas bag, jingling with rusty old
+bell-buttons, gangrened copper bolts, and sheathing nails; damp, greenish
+Carolus dollars (true coin all), besides divers iron screws, and battered,
+chisels, and belaying-pins. Sounded on the chest lid, the dollars rang clear as
+convent bells. These were put aside by Jarl the sight of substantial dollars
+doing away, for the nonce, with his superstitious Misgivings. True to his
+kingship, he loved true coin; though abroad on the sea, and no land but
+dollarless dominions ground, all this silver was worthless as charcoal or
+diamonds. Nearly one and the same thing, say the chemists; but tell that to the
+marines, say the illiterate Jews and the jewelers. Go, buy a house, or a ship,
+if you can, with your charcoal! Yea, all the woods in Canada charred down to
+cinders would not be worth the one famed Brazilian diamond, though no bigger
+than the egg of a carrier pigeon. Ah! but these chemists are liars, and Sir
+Humphrey Davy a cheat. Many&rsquo;s the poor devil they&rsquo;ve deluded into
+the charcoal business, who otherwise might have made his fortune with a
+mattock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Groping again into the chest, we brought to light a queer little hair trunk,
+very bald and rickety. At every corner was a mighty clamp, the weight of which
+had no doubt debilitated the box. It was jealously secured with a padlock,
+almost as big as itself; so that it was almost a question, which was meant to
+be security to the other. Prying at it hard, we at length effected an entrance;
+but saw no golden moidores, no ruddy doubloons; nothing under heaven but three
+pewter mugs, such as are used in a ship&rsquo;s cabin, several brass screws,
+and brass plates, which must have belonged to a quadrant; together with a
+famous lot of glass beads, and brass rings; while, pasted on the inside of the
+cover, was a little colored print, representing the harlots, the shameless
+hussies, having a fine time with the Prodigal Son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It should have been mentioned ere now, that while we were busy in the
+forecastle, we were several times startled by strange sounds aloft. And just
+after, crashing into the little hair trunk, down came a great top-block, right
+through the scuttle, narrowly missing my Viking&rsquo;s crown; a much stronger
+article, by the way, than your goldsmiths turn out in these days. This startled
+us much; particularly Jarl, as one might suppose; but accustomed to the strange
+creakings and wheezings of the masts and yards of old vessels at sea, and
+having many a time dodged stray blocks accidentally falling from aloft, I
+thought little more of the matter; though my comrade seemed to think the noises
+somewhat different from any thing of that kind he had even heard before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a little more turning over of the rubbish in the forecastle, and much
+marveling thereat, we ascended to the deck; where we found every thing so
+silent, that, as we moved toward the taffrail, the Skyeman unconsciously
+addressed me in a whisper.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0020"></a>
+CHAPTER XX.<br/>
+Noises And Portents</h2>
+
+<p>
+I longed for day. For however now inclined to believe that the brigantine was
+untenanted, I desired the light of the sun to place that fact beyond a
+misgiving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel, that she lay rather low
+in the water, I thought proper to sound the well. But there being no
+line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up in the arm-chest on the
+quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept. Meanwhile I searched for the
+&ldquo;breaks,&rdquo; or pump-handles, which, as it turned out, could not have
+been very recently used; for they were found lashed up and down to the
+main-mast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Jarl came running toward me, whispering that all doubt was
+dispelled;&mdash;there were spirits on board, to a dead certainty. He had
+overheard a supernatural sneeze. But by this time I was all but convinced, that
+we were alone in the brigantine. Since, if otherwise, I could assign no earthly
+reason for the crew&rsquo;s hiding away from a couple of sailors, whom, were
+they so minded, they might easily have mastered. And furthermore, this alleged
+disturbance of the atmosphere aloft by a sneeze, Jarl averred to have taken
+place in the main-top; directly underneath which I was all this time standing,
+and had heard nothing. So complimenting my good Viking upon the exceeding
+delicacy of his auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his
+piratical ghosts and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his own imagination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a bowline we rigged a
+substitute; and sounding the well, found nothing to excite our alarm. Under
+certain circumstances, however, this sounding a ship&rsquo;s well is a nervous
+sort of business enough. &rsquo;Tis like feeling your own pulse in the last
+stage of a fever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the Skyeman&rsquo;s suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the
+brigantine&rsquo;s head on the other tack. For until daylight we desired to
+alter the vessel&rsquo;s position as little as possible, fearful of coming
+unawares upon reefs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about the
+brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely phantom-like
+nature, honest Jarl was nevertheless exceedingly downright and practical in all
+hints and proceedings concerning her. Wherein, he resembled my Right Reverend
+friend, Bishop Berkeley&mdash;truly, one of your lords spiritual&mdash;who,
+metaphysically speaking, holding all objects to be mere optical delusions, was,
+notwith- standing, extremely matter-of-fact in all matters touching matter
+itself. Besides being pervious to the points of pins, and possessing a palate
+capable of appreciating plum-puddings:&mdash;which sentence reads off like a
+pattering of hailstones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl must needs
+pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins on board. He swore by
+the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round, he had heard a half-stifled
+groan from that quarter; as if one of his bugbears had been getting its aerial
+legs jammed. I laughed:&mdash;hinting that goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon
+he besought me to ascend the fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But
+here my mature judgment got the better of my first crude opinion. I civilly
+declined. For assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the fore-top might
+be tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a pretty hap would be mine,
+if, with hands full of rigging, and legs dangling in air, while surmounting the
+oblique futtock- shrouds, some unseen arm should all at once tumble me
+overboard. Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on to declare, that with
+regard to the character of the brigantine, his mind was now pretty fully made
+up;&mdash;she was an arrant impostor, a shade of a ship, full of sailors&rsquo;
+ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would dissolve in a supernatural
+squall, and leave us twain in the water. In short, Jarl, the descendant of the
+superstitious old Norsemen, was full of old Norse conceits, and all manner of
+Valhalla marvels concerning the land of goblins and goblets. No wonder then,
+that with this catastrophe in prospect, he again entreated me to quit the
+ill-starred craft, carrying off nothing from her ghostly hull. But I refused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One can not relate every thing at once. While in the cabin, we came across a
+&ldquo;barge&rdquo; of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality much
+superior to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally regaled
+ourselves in the intervals of rummaging. Now this sea cake- basket we had
+brought on deck. And for the first time since bidding adieu to the Arcturion
+having fully quenched our thirst, our appetite returned with a rush; and having
+nothing better to do till day dawned, we planted the bread-barge in the middle
+of the quarter-deck; and crossing our legs before it, laid close seige thereto,
+like the Grand Turk and his Vizier Mustapha sitting down before Vienna.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our castle, the Bread-Barge was of the common sort; an oblong oaken box, much
+battered and bruised, and like the Elgin Marbles, all over inscriptions and
+carving:&mdash;foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs, Burton-blocks, love
+verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; and divers mystic diagrams in chalk,
+drawn by old Finnish mariners; in casting horoscopes and prophecies. Your old
+tars are all Daniels. There was a round hole in one side, through which, in
+getting at the bread, invited guests thrust their hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also, many and earnest the
+glances of Mustapha at every sudden creaking of the spars or rigging. Like
+Belshazzar, my royal Viking ate with great fear and trembling; ever and anon
+pausing to watch the wild shadows flitting along the bulwarks.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0021"></a>
+CHAPTER XXI.<br/>
+Man Ho!</h2>
+
+<p>
+Slowly, fitfully, broke the morning in the East, showing the desolate brig
+forging heavily through the water, which sluggishly thumped under her bows.
+While leaping from sea to sea, our faithful Chamois, like a faithful dog, still
+gamboled alongside, confined to the main- chains by its painter. At times, it
+would long lag behind; then, pushed by a wave like lightning dash forward; till
+bridled by its leash, it again fell in rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the gray light came on, anxiously we scrutinized the features of the craft,
+as one by one they became more plainly revealed. Every thing seemed stranger
+now, than when partially visible in the dingy night. The stanchions, or posts
+of the bulwarks, were of rough stakes, still incased in the bark. The unpainted
+sides were of a dark-colored, heathenish looking wood. The tiller was a
+wry-necked, elbowed bough, thrusting itself through the deck, as if the tree
+itself was fast rooted in the hold. The binnacle, containing the compass, was
+defended at the sides by yellow matting. The rigging&mdash;shrouds, halyards
+and all&mdash;was of &ldquo;Kaiar,&rdquo; or cocoa-nut fibres; and here and
+there the sails were patched with plaited rushes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But this was not all. Whoso will pry, must needs light upon matters for
+suspicion. Glancing over the side, in the wake of every scupper- hole, we
+beheld a faded, crimson stain, which Jarl averred to be blood. Though now he
+betrayed not the slightest trepidation; for what he saw pertained not to
+ghosts; and all his fears hitherto had been of the super-natural.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, plucking up a heart, with the dawn of the day my Viking looked bold as
+a lion; and soon, with the instinct of an old seaman cast his eyes up aloft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Directly, he touched my arm,&mdash;&ldquo;Look: what stirs in the
+main-top?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sure enough, something alive was there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fingering our arms, we watched it; till as the day came on, a crouching
+stranger was beheld.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presenting my piece, I hailed him to descend or be shot. There was silence for
+a space, when the black barrel of a musket was thrust forth, leveled at my
+head. Instantly, Jarl&rsquo;s harpoon was presented at a dart;&mdash;two to
+one;&mdash;and my hail was repeated. But no reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Samoa,&rdquo; at length said a clear, firm voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come down from the rigging. We are friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another pause; when, rising to his feet, the stranger slowly descended, holding
+on by one hand to the rigging, for but one did he have; his musket partly slung
+from his back, and partly griped under the stump of his mutilated arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He alighted about six paces from where we stood; and balancing his weapon, eyed
+us bravely as the Cid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a tall, dark Islander, a very devil to behold, theatrically arrayed in
+kilt and turban; the kilt of a gay calico print, the turban of a red China
+silk. His neck was jingling with strings of beads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who else is on board?&rdquo; I asked; while Jarl, thus far covering the
+stranger with his weapon, now dropped it to the deck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look there:&mdash;Annatoo!&rdquo; was his reply in broken English,
+pointing aloft to the fore-top. And lo! a woman, also an Islander; and barring
+her skirts, dressed very much like Samoa, was beheld descending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Any more?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are <i>you</i> then; and what craft is this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, ah&mdash;you are no ghost;&mdash;but are you my friend?&rdquo; he
+cried, advancing nearer as he spoke; while the woman having gained the deck,
+also approached, eagerly glancing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We said we were friends; that we meant no harm; but desired to know what craft
+this was; and what disaster had befallen her; for that something untoward had
+occurred, we were certain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereto, Samoa made answer, that it was true that something dreadful had
+happened; and that he would gladly tell us all, and tell us the truth. And
+about it he went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, this story of his was related in the mixed phraseology of a Polynesian
+sailor. With a few random reflections, in substance, it will be found in the
+six following chapters.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0022"></a>
+CHAPTER XXII.<br/>
+What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands</h2>
+
+<p>
+The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the coast of
+Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been miserably cobbled together
+with planks of native wood, and fragments of a wreck, there drifted ashore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the tallest and
+goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands. With a mixed European
+and native crew, about thirty in number (but only four whites in all, captain
+included), the Parki, some four months previous, had sailed from her port on a
+voyage southward, in quest of pearls, and pearl oyster shells, sea-slugs, and
+other matters of that sort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Samoa, a native of the Navigator Islands, had long followed the sea, and was
+well versed in the business of oyster diving and its submarine mysteries. The
+native Lahineese on board were immediately subordinate to him; the captain
+having bargained with Samoa for their services as divers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman, Annatoo, was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to the
+westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the commander of a
+ship, touching there on a passage from Macao to Valparaiso. At Valparaiso her
+protector put her ashore; most probably, as I afterward had reason to think,
+for a nuisance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By chance it came to pass that when Annatoo&rsquo;s first virgin bloom had
+departed, leaving nothing but a lusty frame and a lustier soul, Samoa, the
+Navigator, had fallen desperately in love with her. And thinking the lady to
+his mind, being brave like himself, and doubtless well adapted to the
+vicissitudes of matrimony at sea, he meditated suicide&mdash;I would have said,
+wedlock&mdash;and the twain became one. And some time after, in capacity of
+wife, Annatoo the dame, accompanied in the brigantine, Samoa her lord. Now, as
+Antony flew to the refuse embraces of Caesar, so Samoa solaced himself in the
+arms of this discarded fair one. And the sequel was the same. For not harder
+the life Cleopatra led my fine frank friend, poor Mark, than Queen Annatoo did
+lead this captive of her bow and her spear. But all in good time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They left their port; and crossing the Tropic and the Line, fell in with a
+cluster of islands, where the shells they sought were found in round numbers.
+And here&mdash;not at all strange to tell besides the natives, they encountered
+a couple of Cholos, or half-breed Spaniards, from the Main; one half Spanish,
+the other half quartered between the wild Indian and the devil; a race, that
+from Baldivia to Panama are notorious for their unscrupulous villainy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, the half-breeds having long since deserted a ship at these islands, had
+risen to high authority among the natives. This hearing, the Parki&rsquo;s
+captain was much gratified; he, poor ignorant, never before having fallen in
+with any of their treacherous race. And, no doubt, he imagined that their
+influence over the Islanders would tend to his advantage. At all events, he
+made presents to the Cholos; who, in turn, provided him with additional divers
+from among the natives. Very kindly, also, they pointed out the best places for
+seeking the oysters. In a word, they were exceedingly friendly; often coming
+off to the brigantine, and sociably dining with the captain in the cabin;
+placing the salt between them and him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All things went on very pleasantly until, one morning, the half- breeds
+prevailed upon the captain to go with them, in his whale-boat, to a shoal on
+the thither side of the island, some distance from the spot where lay the
+brigantine. They so managed it, moreover, that none but the Lahineese under
+Samoa, in whom the captain much confided, were left in custody of the Parki;
+the three white men going along to row; for there happened to be little or no
+wind for a sail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, the fated brig lay anchored within a deep, smooth, circular lagoon,
+margined on all sides but one by the most beautiful groves. On that side, was
+the outlet to the sea; perhaps a cable&rsquo;s length or more from where the
+brigantine had been moored. An hour or two after the party were gone, and when
+the boat was completely out of sight, the natives in shoals were perceived
+coming off from the shore; some in canoes, and some swimming. The former
+brought bread fruit and bananas, ostentatiously piled up in their proas; the
+latter dragged after them long strings of cocoanuts; for all of which, on
+nearing the vessel, they clamorously demanded knives and hatchets in barter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From their actions, suspecting some treachery, Samoa stood in the gangway, and
+warned them off; saying that no barter could take place until the
+captain&rsquo;s return. But presently one of the savages stealthily climbed up
+from the water, and nimbly springing from the bob-stays to the bow-sprit,
+darted a javelin full at the foremast, where it vibrated. The signal of blood!
+With terrible outcries, the rest, pulling forth their weapons, hitherto
+concealed in the canoes, or under the floating cocoanuts, leaped into the low
+chains of the brigantine; sprang over the bulwarks; and, with clubs and spears,
+attacked the aghast crew with the utmost ferocity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After one faint rally, the Lahineese scrambled for the rigging; but to a man
+were overtaken and slain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the first alarm, Annatoo, however, had escaped to the fore-top-gallant-yard,
+higher than which she could not climb, and whither the savages durst not
+venture. For though after their nuts these Polynesians will climb palm trees
+like squirrels; yet, at the first blush, they decline a ship&rsquo;s mast like
+Kennebec farmers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon the first token of an onslaught, Samoa, having rushed toward the cabin
+scuttle for arms, was there fallen upon by two young savages. But after a
+desperate momentary fray, in which his arm was mangled, he made shift to spring
+below, instantly securing overhead the slide of the scuttle. In the cabin,
+while yet the uproar of butchery prevailed, he quietly bound up his arm; then
+laying on the transom the captain&rsquo;s three loaded muskets, undauntedly
+awaited an assault.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The object of the natives, it seems, was to wreck the brigantine upon the sharp
+coral beach of the lagoon. And with this intent, one of their number had
+plunged into the water, and cut the cable, which was of hemp. But the tide
+ebbing, cast the Parki&rsquo;s head seaward&mdash;toward the outlet; and the
+savages, perceiving this, clumsily boarded the fore-tack, and hauled aft the
+sheet; thus setting, after a fashion, the fore-sail, previously loosed to dry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, a gray-headed old chief stood calmly at the tiller, endeavoring to
+steer the vessel shoreward. But not managing the helm aright, the brigantine,
+now gliding apace through the water, only made more way toward the outlet.
+Seeing which, the ringleaders, six or eight in number, ran to help the old
+graybeard at the helm. But it was a black hour for them. Of a sudden, while
+they were handling the tiller, three muskets were rapidly discharged upon them
+from the cabin skylight. Two of the savages dropped dead. The old steersman,
+clutching wildly at the helm, fell over it, mortally wounded; and in a wild
+panic at seeing their leaders thus unaccountably slain, the rest of the natives
+leaped overboard and made for the shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hearing the slashing, Samoa flew on deck; and beholding the foresail set, and
+the brigantine heading right out to sea, he cried out to Annatoo, still aloft,
+to descend to the topsail-yard, and loose the canvas there. His command was
+obeyed. Annatoo deserved a gold medal for what she did that day. Hastening down
+the rigging, after loosing the topsail, she strained away at the sheets; in
+which operation she was assisted by Samoa, who snatched an instant from the
+helm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The foresail and fore-topsail were now tolerably well set; and as the craft
+drew seaward, the breeze freshened. And well that it did; for, recovered from
+their alarm, the savages were now in hot pursuit; some in canoes, and some
+swimming as before. But soon the main-topsail was given to the breeze, which
+still freshening, came from over the quarter. And with this brave show of
+canvas, the Parki made gallantly for the outlet; and loud shouted Samoa as she
+shot by the reef, and parted the long swells without. Against these, the
+savages could not swim. And at that turn of the tide, paddling a canoe therein
+was almost equally difficult. But the fugitives were not yet safe. In full
+chase now came in sight the whale-boat manned by the Cholos, and four or five
+Islanders. Whereat, making no doubt, that all the whites who left the vessel
+that morning had been massacred through the treachery of the half-breeds; and
+that the capture of the brigantine had been premeditated; Samoa now saw no
+other resource than to point his craft dead away from the land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now on came the devils buckling to their oars. Meantime Annatoo was still busy
+aloft, loosing the smaller sails&mdash;t&rsquo;gallants and royals, which she
+managed partially to set.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The strong breeze from astern now filling the ill-set sails, they bellied, and
+rocked in the air, like balloons, while, from the novel strain upon it, every
+spar quivered and sprung. And thus, like a frightened gull fleeing from
+sea-hawks, the little Parki swooped along, and bravely breasted the brine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His shattered arm in a hempen sling, Samoa stood at the helm, the muskets
+reloaded, and planted full before him on the binnacle. For a time, so badly did
+the brigantine steer, by reason of her ill- adjusted sails, made still more
+unmanageable by the strength of the breeze,&mdash;that it was doubtful, after
+all, notwithstanding her start, whether the fugitives would not yet fall a prey
+to their hunters. The craft wildly yawed, and the boat drew nearer and nearer.
+Maddened by the sight, and perhaps thinking more of revenge for the past, than
+of security for the future, Samoa, yielding the helm to Annatoo, rested his
+muskets on the bulwarks, and taking long, sure aim, discharged them, one by one
+at the advancing foe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three reports were answered by loud jeers from the savages, who brandished
+their spears, and made gestures of derision; while with might and main the
+Cholos tugged at their oars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boat still gaining on the brigantine, the muskets were again reloaded. And
+as the next shot sped, there was a pause; when, like lightning, the headmost
+Cholo bounded upwards from his seat, and oar in hand, fell into the sea. A
+fierce yell; and one of the natives springing into the water, caught the
+sinking body by its long hair; and the dead and the living were dragged into
+the boat. Taking heart from this fatal shot, Samoa fired yet again; but not
+with the like sure result; merely grazing the remaining half-breed, who,
+crouching behind his comrades, besought them to turn the boat round, and make
+for the shore. Alarmed at the fate of his brother, and seemingly distrustful of
+the impartiality of Samoa&rsquo;s fire, the pusillanimous villain refused to
+expose a limb above the gunwale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fain now would the pursuers have made good their escape; but an accident
+forbade. In the careening of the boat, when the stricken Cholo sprung
+overboard, two of their oars had slid into the water; and together with that
+death-griped by the half-breed, were now floating off; occasionally lost to
+view, as they sunk in the trough of the sea. Two of the Islanders swam to
+recover them; but frightened by the whirring of a shot over their heads, as
+they unavoidably struck out towards the Parki, they turned quickly about; just
+in time to see one of their comrades smite his body with his hand, as he
+received a bullet from Samoa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Enough: darting past the ill-fated boat, they swam rapidly for land, followed
+by the rest; who plunged overboard, leaving in the boat the surviving
+Cholo&mdash;who it seems could not swim&mdash;the wounded savage, and the dead
+man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Load away now, and take thy revenge, my fine fellow,&rdquo; said Samoa
+to himself. But not yet. Seeing all at his mercy, and having none, he quickly
+laid his fore-topsail to the mast; &ldquo;hove to&rdquo; the brigantine; and
+opened fire anew upon the boat; every swell of the sea heaving it nearer and
+nearer. Vain all efforts to escape. The wounded man paddled wildly with his
+hands the dead one rolled from side to side; and the Cholo, seizing the
+solitary oar, in his frenzied heedlessness, spun the boat round and round;
+while all the while shot followed shot, Samoa firing as fast as Annatoo could
+load. At length both Cholo and savage fell dead upon their comrades, canting
+the boat over sideways, till well nigh awash; in which manner she drifted off.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0023"></a>
+CHAPTER XXIII.<br/>
+Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin</h2>
+
+<p>
+There was a small carronade on the forecastle, unshipped from its carriage, and
+lashed down to ringbolts on the deck. This Samoa now loaded; and with an ax
+knocking off the round knob upon the breech, rammed it home in the tube. When,
+running the cannon out at one of the ports, and studying well his aim, he let
+fly, sunk the boat, and buried his dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was now late in the afternoon; and for the present bent upon avoiding land,
+and gaining the shoreless sea, never mind where, Samoa again forced round his
+craft before the wind, leaving the island astern. The decks were still cumbered
+with the bodies of the Lahineese, which heel to point and crosswise, had,
+log-like, been piled up on the main-hatch. These, one by one, were committed to
+the sea; after which, the decks were washed down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At sunrise next morning, finding themselves out of sight of land, with little
+or no wind, they stopped their headway, and lashed the tiller alee, the better
+to enable them to overhaul the brigantine; especially the recesses of the
+cabin. For there, were stores of goods adapted for barter among the Islanders;
+also several bags of dollars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, nothing can exceed the cupidity of the Polynesian, when, through partial
+commerce with the whites, his eyes are opened to his nakedness, and he
+perceives that in some things they are richer than himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poor skipper&rsquo;s wardrobe was first explored; his chests of clothes
+being capsized, and their contents strown about the cabin floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then took place the costuming. Samoa and Annatoo trying on coats and
+pantaloons, shirts and drawers, and admiring themselves in the little mirror
+panneled in the bulk-head. Then, were broken open boxes and bales; rolls of
+printed cotton were inspected, and vastly admired; insomuch, that the trumpery
+found in the captain&rsquo;s chests was disdainfully doffed: and donned were
+loose folds of calico, more congénial to their tastes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As case after case was opened and overturned, slippery grew the cabin deck with
+torrents of glass beads; and heavy the necks of Samoa and Annatoo with goodly
+bunches thereof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among other things, came to light brass jewelry,&mdash;Rag Fair gewgaws and
+baubles a plenty, more admired than all; Annatoo, bedecking herself like, a
+tragedy queen: one blaze of brass. Much mourned the married dame, that thus
+arrayed, there was none to admire but Samoa her husband; but he was all the
+while admiring himself, and not her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here must needs be related, what has hitherto remained unsaid. Very often
+this husband and wife were no Darby and Joan. Their married life was one long
+campaign, whereof the truces were only by night. They billed and they cooed on
+their arms, rising fresh in the morning to battle, and often Samoa got more
+than a hen-pecking. To be short, Annatoo was a Tartar, a regular Calmuc, and
+Samoa&mdash;Heaven help him&mdash;her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet awhile, joined together by a sense of common danger, and long engrossed in
+turning over their tinsel acquisitions without present thought of
+proprietorship, the pair refrained from all squabbles. But soon burst the
+storm. Having given every bale and every case a good shaking, Annatoo, making
+an estimate of the whole, very coolly proceeded to set apart for herself
+whatever she fancied. To this, Samoa objected; to which objection Annatoo
+objected; and then they went at it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lady vowed that the things were no more Samoa&rsquo;s than hers; nay, not
+so much; and that whatever she wanted, that same would she have. And
+furthermore, by way of codicil, she declared that she was slave to nobody.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, Samoa, sad to tell, stood in no little awe of his bellicose spouse. What,
+though a hero in other respects; what, though he had slain his savages, and
+gallantly carried his craft from their clutches:&mdash;Like the valiant
+captains Marlborough and Belisarius, he was a poltroon to his wife. And Annatoo
+was worse than either Sarah or Antonina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, like every thing partaking of the nature of a scratch, most conjugal
+squabbles are quickly healed; for if they healed not, they would never anew
+break out: which is the beauty of the thing. So at length they made up but the
+treaty stipulations of Annatoo told much against the interests of Samoa.
+Nevertheless, ostensibly, it was agreed upon, that they should strictly go
+halves; the lady, however, laying special claim to certain valuables, more
+particularly fancied. But as a set-off to this, she generously renounced all
+claims upon the spare rigging; all claims upon the fore-mast and mainmast; and
+all claims upon the captain&rsquo;s arms and ammunition. Of the latter, by the
+way, Dame Antonina stood in no need. Her voice was a park of artillery; her
+talons a charge of bayonets.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0024"></a>
+CHAPTER XXIV.<br/>
+Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons</h2>
+
+<p>
+By this time Samoa&rsquo;s wounded arm was in such a state, that amputation
+became necessary. Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the most
+part, accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking to his couch in
+despair, the savage would disdain to recline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon, cutting off
+his beard or arm, as occasion demands. No unusual thing, for the warriors of
+Varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately wounded in battle. But owing to
+the clumsiness of the instrument employed&mdash;a flinty, serrated
+shell&mdash;the operation has been known to last several days. Nor will they
+suffer any friend to help them; maintaining, that a matter so nearly concerning
+a warrior is far better attended to by himself. Hence it may be said, that they
+amputate themselves at their leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. But,
+though thus beholden to no one for aught connected with the practice of
+surgery, they never cut off their own heads, that ever I heard; a species of
+amputation to which, metaphorically speaking, many would-be independent sort of
+people in civilized lands are addicted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Samoa&rsquo;s operation was very summary. A fire was kindled in the little
+caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then placed
+his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber, breast-high),
+and seizing the blunt cook&rsquo;s ax would have struck the blow; but for some
+reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo was assigned to the task.
+Three strokes, and the limb, from just above the elbow, was no longer
+Samoa&rsquo;s; and he saw his own bones; which many a centenarian can not say.
+The very clumsiness of the operation was safety to the subject. The weight and
+bluntness of the instrument both deadened the pain and lessened the hemorrhage.
+The wound was then scorched, and held over the smoke of the fire, till all
+signs of blood vanished. From that day forward it healed, and troubled Samoa
+but little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously averse to burying in
+the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that case Samoa held, that
+he must very soon drown and follow it; and how, that equally dreading to keep
+the thing near him, he at last hung it aloft from the topmast-stay; where yet
+it was suspended, bandaged over and over in cerements. The hand that must have
+locked many others in friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought
+Samoa, for fowls of the air nor fishes of the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as Haman? Or the living trunk
+below? Was the arm severed from the body, or the body from the arm? The
+residual part of Samoa was alive, and therefore we say it was he. But which of
+the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm, is the worm proper?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For myself, I ever regarded Samoa as but a large fragment of a man, not a man
+complete. For was he not an entire limb out of pocket? And the action at
+Teneriffe over, great Nelson himself&mdash;physiologically speaking&mdash;was
+but three-quarters of a man. And the smoke of Waterloo blown by, what was
+Anglesea but the like? After Saratoga, what Arnold? To say nothing of Mutius
+Scaevola minus a hand, General Knox a thumb, and Hannibal an eye; and that old
+Roman grenadier, Dentatus, nothing more than a bruised and battered trunk, a
+knotty sort of hemlock of a warrior, hard to hack and hew into chips, though
+much marred in symmetry by battle-ax blows. Ah! but these warriors, like
+anvils, will stand a deal of hard hammering. Especially in the old
+knight-errant times. For at the battle of Brevieux in Flanders, my glorious old
+gossiping ancestor, Froissart, informs me, that ten good knights, being
+suddenly unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless to the plain, fatally encumbered by
+their armor. Whereupon, the rascally burglarious peasants, their foes, fell to
+picking their visors; as burglars, locks; or oystermen, oysters; to get at
+their lives. But all to no purpose. And at last they were fain to ask aid of a
+blacksmith; and not till then, were the inmates of the armor dispatched. Now it
+was deemed very hard, that the mysterious state- prisoner of France should be
+riveted in an iron mask; but these knight-errants did voluntarily prison
+themselves in their own iron Bastiles; and thus helpless were murdered
+there-in. Days of chivalry these, when gallant chevaliers died chivalric
+deaths!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And this was the epic age, over whose departure my late eloquent and prophetic
+friend and correspondent, Edmund Burke, so movingly mourned. Yes, they were
+glorious times. But no sensible man, given to quiet domestic delights, would
+exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen
+wood, of a raw gusty morning in Normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved
+fingers, and vainly striving to cook his cold coffee in his helmet.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0025"></a>
+CHAPTER XXV.<br/>
+Peril A Peace-Maker</h2>
+
+<p>
+A few days passed: the brigantine drifting hither and thither, and nothing in
+sight but the sea, when forth again on its stillness rung Annatoo&rsquo;s
+domestic alarum. The truce was up. Most egregiously had the lady infringed it;
+appropriating to herself various objects previously disclaimed in favor of
+Samoa. Besides, forever on the prowl, she was perpetually going up and down;
+with untiring energy, exploring every nook and cranny; carrying off her spoils
+and diligently secreting them. Having little idea of feminine adaptations, she
+pilfered whatever came handy:&mdash;iron hooks, dollars, bolts, hatchets, and
+stopping not at balls of marline and sheets of copper. All this, poor Samoa
+would have borne with what patience he might, rather than again renew the war,
+were it not, that the audacious dame charged him with peculations upon her own
+private stores; though of any such thing he was innocent as the bowsprit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This insulting impeachment got the better of the poor islander&rsquo;s
+philosophy. He keenly resented it. And the consequence was, that seeing all
+domineering useless, Annatoo flew off at a tangent; declaring that, for the
+future, Samoa might stay by himself; she would have nothing more to do with
+him. Save when unavoidable in managing the brigantine, she would not even speak
+to him, that she wouldn&rsquo;t, the monster! She then boldly demanded the
+forecastle&mdash;in the brig&rsquo;s case, by far the pleasantest end of the
+ship&mdash;for her own independent suite of apartments. As for hapless
+Belisarius, he might do what he pleased in his dark little den of a cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Concerning the division of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in carrying the
+day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods, together with numerous
+odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover, she laid in a fine stock of
+edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to live independent of her spouse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unlovely Annatoo! Unfortunate Samoa! Thus did the pair make a divorce of it;
+the lady going upon a separate maintenance,&mdash;and Belisarius resuming his
+bachelor loneliness. In the captain&rsquo;s state room, all cold and
+comfortless, he slept; his lady whilome retiring to her forecastle boudoir;
+beguiling the hours in saying her pater-nosters, and tossing over and assorting
+her ill-gotten trinkets and finery; like Madame De Maintenon dedicating her
+last days and nights to continence and calicoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But think you this was the quiet end of their conjugal quarrels? Ah, no! No end
+to those feuds, till one or t&rsquo;other gives up the ghost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, exiled from the nuptial couch, Belisarius bore the hardship without a
+murmur. And hero that he was, who knows that he felt not like a soldier on a
+furlough? But as for Antonina, she could neither get along with Belisarius, nor
+without him. She made advances. But of what sort? Why, breaking into the cabin
+and purloining sundry goods therefrom; in artful hopes of breeding a final
+reconciliation out of the temporary outburst that might ensue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then followed a sad scene of altercation; interrupted at last by a sudden loud
+roaring of the sea. Rushing to the deck, they beheld themselves sweeping
+head-foremost toward a shoal making out from a cluster of low islands,
+hitherto, by banks of clouds, shrouded from view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The helm was instantly shifted; and the yards braced about. But for several
+hours, owing to the freshness of the breeze, the set of the currents, and the
+irregularity and extent of the shoal, it seemed doubtful whether they would
+escape a catastrophe. But Samoa&rsquo;s seamanship, united to Annatoo&rsquo;s
+industry, at last prevailed; and the brigantine was saved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the land where they came so near being wrecked, they knew nothing; and for
+that reason, they at once steered away. For after the fatal events which had
+overtaken the Parki at the Pearl Shell islands, so fearful were they of
+encountering any Islanders, that from the first they had resolved to keep open
+sea, shunning every appearance of land; relying upon being eventually picked up
+by some passing sail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doubtless this resolution proved their salvation. For to the navigator in these
+seas, no risk so great, as in approaching the isles; which mostly are so
+guarded by outpost reefs, and far out from their margins environed by perils,
+that the green flowery field within, lies like a rose among thorns; and hard to
+be reached as the heart of proud maiden. Though once attained, all
+three&mdash;red rose, bright shore, and soft heart&mdash;are full of love,
+bloom, and all manner of delights. The Pearl Shell islands excepted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides, in those generally tranquil waters, Samoa&rsquo;s little craft, though
+hundreds of miles from land, was very readily managed by himself and Annatoo.
+So small was the Parki, that one hand could brace the main-yard; and a very
+easy thing it was, even to hoist the small top-sails; for after their first
+clumsy attempt to perform that operation by hand, they invariably led the
+halyards to the windlass, and so managed it, with the utmost facility.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0026"></a>
+CHAPTER XXVI.<br/>
+Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy</h2>
+
+<p>
+Still many days passed and the Parki yet floated. The little flying- fish got
+used to her familiar, loitering hull; and like swallows building their nests in
+quiet old trees, they spawned in the great green barnacles that clung to her
+sides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The calmer the sea, the more the barnacles grow. In the tropical Pacific, but a
+few weeks suffice thus to encase your craft in shell armor. Vast bunches adhere
+to the very cutwater, and if not stricken off, much impede the ship&rsquo;s
+sailing. And, at intervals, this clearing away of barnacles was one of
+Annatoo&rsquo;s occupations. For be it known, that, like most termagants, the
+dame was tidy at times, though capriciously; loving cleanliness by fits and
+starts. Wherefore, these barnacles oftentimes troubled her; and with a long
+pole she would go about, brushing them aside. It beguiled the weary hours, if
+nothing more; and then she would return to her beads and her trinkets; telling
+them all over again; murmuring forth her devotions, and marking whether Samoa
+had been pilfering from her store.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, the escape from the shoal did much once again to heal the differences of
+the good lady and her spouse. And keeping house, as they did, all alone by
+themselves, in that lonely craft, a marvel it is, that they should ever have
+quarreled. And then to divorce, and yet dwell in the same tenement, was only
+aggravating the evil. So Belisarius and Antonina again came together. But now,
+grown wise by experience, they neither loved over-keenly, nor hated; but took
+things as they were; found themselves joined, without hope of a sundering, and
+did what they could to make a match of the mate. Annatoo concluded that Samoa
+was not wholly to be enslaved; and Samoa thought best to wink at
+Annatoo&rsquo;s foibles, and let her purloin when she pleased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as in many cases, all this philosophy about wedlock is not proof against
+the perpetual contact of the parties concerned; and as it is far better to
+revive the old days of courtship, when men&rsquo;s mouths are honey-combs: and,
+to make them still sweeter, the ladies the bees which there store their sweets;
+when fathomless raptures glimmer far down in the lover&rsquo;s fond eye; and
+best of all, when visits are alternated by absence: so, like my dignified lord
+duke and his duchess, Samoa and Annatoo, man and wife, dwelling in the same
+house, still kept up their separate quarters. Marlborough visiting Sarah; and
+Sarah, Marlborough, whenever the humor suggested.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0027"></a>
+CHAPTER XXVII.<br/>
+In Which The Past History Of The Parki Is Concluded</h2>
+
+<p>
+Still days, days, days sped by; and steering now this way, now that, to avoid
+the green treacherous shores, which frequently rose into view, the Parki went
+to and fro in the sea; till at last, it seemed hard to tell, in what watery
+world she floated. Well knowing the risks they ran, Samoa desponded. But
+blessed be ignorance. For in the day of his despondency, the lively old lass
+his wife bade him be of stout heart, cheer up, and steer away manfully for the
+setting sun; following which, they must inevitably arrive at her own dear
+native island, where all their cares would be over. So squaring their yards,
+away they glided; far sloping down the liquid sphere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon the afternoon of the day we caught sight of them in our boat, they had
+sighted a cluster of low islands, which put them in no small panic, because of
+their resemblance to those where the massacre had taken place. Whereas, they
+must have been full five hundred leagues from that fearful vicinity. However,
+they altered their course to avoid it; and a little before sunset, dropping the
+islands astern, resumed their previous track. But very soon after, they espied
+our little sea-goat, bounding over the billows from afar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This they took for a canoe giving chase to them. It renewed and augmented their
+alarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And when at last they perceived that the strange object was a boat, their
+fears, instead of being allayed, only so much the more increased. For their
+wild superstitions led them to conclude, that a white man&rsquo;s craft coming
+upon them so suddenly, upon the open sea, and by night, could be naught but a
+phantom. Furthermore, marking two of us in the Chamois, they fancied us the
+ghosts of the Cholos. A conceit which effectually damped Samoa&rsquo;s courage,
+like my Viking&rsquo;s, only proof against things tangible. So seeing us bent
+upon boarding the brigantine; after a hurried over-turning of their chattels,
+with a view of carrying the most valuable aloft for safe keeping, they secreted
+what they could; and together made for the fore-top; the man with a musket, the
+woman with a bag of beads. Their endeavoring to secure these treasures against
+ghostly appropriation originated in no real fear, that otherwise they would be
+stolen: it was simply incidental to the vacant panic into which they were
+thrown. No reproach this, to Belisarius&rsquo; heart of game; for the most
+intrepid Feegee warrior, he who has slain his hecatombs, will not go ten yards
+in the dark alone, for fear of ghosts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their purpose was to remain in the top until daylight; by which time, they
+counted upon the withdrawal of their visitants; who, sure enough, at last
+sprang on board, thus verifying their worst apprehensions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They watched us long and earnestly. But curious to tell, in that very strait of
+theirs, perched together in that airy top, their domestic differences again
+broke forth; most probably, from their being suddenly forced into such very
+close contact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However that might be, taking advantage of our descent into the cabin, Samoa,
+in desperation fled from his wife, and one-armed as he was, sailor-like,
+shifted himself over by the fore and aft-stays to the main-top, his musket
+being slung to his back. And thus divided, though but a few yards intervened,
+the pair were as much asunder as if at the opposite Poles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the live-long night they were both in great perplexity as to the
+extraordinary goblins on board. Such inquisitive, meddlesome spirits, had never
+before been encountered. So cool and systematic; sagaciously stopping the
+vessel&rsquo;s headway the better to rummage;&mdash;the very plan they
+themselves had adopted. But what most surprised them, was our striking a light,
+a thing of which no true ghost would be guilty. Then, our eating and drinking
+on the quarter- deck including the deliberate investment of Vienna; and many
+other actions equally strange, almost led Samoa to fancy that we were no
+shades, after all, but a couple of men from the moon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet they had dimly caught sight of the frocks and trowsers we wore, similar to
+those which the captain of the Parki had bestowed upon the two Cholos, and in
+which those villains had been killed. This, with the presence of the whale
+boat, united to chase away the conceit of our lunar origin. But these
+considerations renewed their first superstitious impressions of our being the
+ghosts of the murderous half-breeds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, while during the latter part of the night we were reclining
+beneath him, munching our biscuit, Samoa eyeing us intently, was half a mind to
+open fire upon us by way of testing our corporeality. But most luckily, he
+concluded to defer so doing till sunlight; if by that time we should not have
+evaporated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For dame Annatoo, almost from our first boarding the brigantine, something in
+our manner had bred in her a lurking doubt as to the genuineness of our
+atmospheric organization; and abandoned to her speculations when Samoa fled
+from her side, her incredulity waxed stronger and stronger. Whence we came she
+knew not; enough, that we seemed bent upon pillaging her own precious
+purloinings. Alas! thought she, my buttons, my nails, my tappa, my dollars, my
+beads, and my boxes!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wrought up to desperation by these dismal forebodings, she at length shook the
+ropes leading from her own perch to Samoa&rsquo;s; adopting this method of
+arousing his attention to the heinousness of what was in all probability going
+on in the cabin, a prelude most probably to the invasion of her own end of the
+vessel. Had she dared raise her voice, no doubt she would have suggested the
+expediency of shooting us so soon as we emerged from the cabin. But failing to
+shake Samoa into an understanding of her views on the subject, her malice
+proved futile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When her worst fears were confirmed, however, and we actually descended into
+the forecastle; there ensued such a reckless shaking of the ropes, that Samoa
+was fain to hold on hard, for fear of being tossed out of the rigging. And it
+was this violent rocking that caused the loud creaking of the yards, so often
+heard by us while below in Annatoo&rsquo;s apartment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the fore-top being just over the open forecastle scuttle, the dame could
+look right down upon us; hence our proceedings were plainly revealed by the
+lights that we carried. Upon our breaking open her strong-box, her indignation
+almost completely overmastered her fears. Unhooking a top-block, down it came
+into the forecastle, charitably commissioned with the demolition of
+Jarl&rsquo;s cocoa-nut, then more exposed to the view of an aerial observer
+than my own. But of it turned out, no harm was done to our porcelain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, morning dawned; when ensued Jarl&rsquo;s discovery as the occupant of
+the main-top; which event, with what followed, has been duly recounted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And such, in substance, was the first, second, third and fourth acts of the
+Parki drama. The fifth and last, including several scenes, now follows.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0028"></a>
+CHAPTER XXVIII.<br/>
+Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc</h2>
+
+<p>
+Though abounding in details full of the savor of reality, Samoa&rsquo;s
+narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory. Not that it was so
+strange; for stranger recitals I had heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But one reason, perhaps, was that I had anticipated a narrative quite
+different; something agreeing with my previous surmises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen islands the day
+preceding; though, upon reflection, that might have been the case, and yet,
+from his immediately altering the Parki&rsquo;s course, the Chamois,
+unknowingly might have sailed by their vicinity. Still, those islands could
+form no part of the chain we were seeking. They must have been some region
+hitherto undiscovered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But seems it likely, thought I, that one, who, according to his own account,
+has conducted himself so heroically in rescuing the brigantine, should be the
+victim of such childish terror at the mere glimpse of a couple of sailors in an
+open boat, so well supplied, too, with arms, as he was, to resist their
+capturing his craft, if such proved their intention? On the contrary, would it
+not have been more natural, in his dreary situation, to have hailed our
+approach with the utmost delight? But then again, we were taken for phantoms,
+not flesh and blood. Upon the whole, I regarded the narrator of these things
+somewhat distrustfully. But he met my gaze like a man. While Annatoo, standing
+by, looked so expressively the Amazonian character imputed to her, that my
+doubts began to waver. And recalling all the little incidents of their story,
+so hard to be conjured up on the spur of a presumed necessity to lie; nay, so
+hard to be conjured up at all; my suspicions at last gave way. And I could no
+longer harbor any misgivings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For, to be downright, what object could Samoa have, in fabricating such a
+narrative of horrors&mdash;those of the massacre, I mean&mdash;unless to
+conceal some tragedy, still more atrocious, in which he himself had been
+criminally concerned? A supposition, which, for obvious reasons, seemed out of
+the question. True, instances were known to me of half- civilized beings, like
+Samoa, forming part of the crews of ships in these seas, rising suddenly upon
+their white ship-mates, and murdering them, for the sake of wrecking the ship
+on the shore of some island near by, and plundering her hull, when stranded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But had this been purposed with regard to the Parki, where the rest of the
+mutineers? There was no end to my conjectures; the more I indulged in them, the
+more they multiplied. So, unwilling to torment myself, when nothing could be
+learned, but what Samoa related, and stuck to like a hero; I gave over
+conjecturing at all; striving hard to repose full faith in the Islander.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could be brought completely
+to credit the tale. He stoutly maintained that the hobgoblins must have had
+something or other to do with the Parki.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine, Samoa himself turned
+inquisitor. He desired to know who we were; and whence we came in our marvelous
+boat. But on these heads I thought best to withhold from him the truth; among
+other things, fancying that if disclosed, it would lessen his deference for us,
+as men superior to himself. I therefore spoke vaguely of our adventures, and
+assumed the decided air of a master; which I perceived was not lost upon the
+rude Islander. As for Jarl, and what he might reveal, I embraced the first
+opportunity to impress upon him the importance of never divulging our flight
+from the Arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that head: injunctions
+which he faithfully promised to observe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If not wholly displeased with the fine form of Samoa, despite his savage
+lineaments, and mutilated member, I was much less conciliated by the person of
+Annatoo; who, being sinewy of limb, and neither young, comely, nor amiable, was
+exceedingly distasteful in my eyes. Besides, she was a tigress. Yet how avoid
+admiring those Penthesilian qualities which so signally had aided Samoa, in
+wresting the Parki from its treacherous captors. Nevertheless, it was
+indispensable that she should at once be brought under prudent subjection; and
+made to know, once for all, that though conjugally a rebel, she must be
+nautically submissive. For to keep the sea with a Calmuc on board, seemed next
+to impossible. In most military marines, they are prohibited by law; no officer
+may take his Pandora and her bandbox off soundings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the way, this self-same appellative, Pandora, has been bestowed upon
+vessels. There was a British ship by that name, dispatched in quest of the
+mutineers of the Bounty. But any old tar might have prophesied her fate. Bound
+home she was wrecked on a reef off New South Wales. Pandora, indeed! A pretty
+name for a ship: fairly smiting Fate in the face. But in this matter of
+christening ships of war, Christian nations are but too apt to be dare-devils.
+Witness the following: British names all&mdash;The Conqueror, the Defiance, the
+Revenge, the Spitfire, the Dreadnaught, the Thunderer, and the Tremendous; not
+omitting the Etna, which, in the Roads of Corfu, was struck by lightning,
+coming nigh being consumed by fire from above. But almost potent as
+Moses&rsquo; rod, Franklin&rsquo;s proved her salvation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the above catalogue, compare we the Frenchman&rsquo;s; quite
+characteristic of the aspirations of Monsieur:&mdash;The Destiny, the Glorious,
+the Magnanimous, the Magnificent, the Conqueror, the Triumphant, the
+Indomitable, the Intrepid, the Mont-Blanc. Lastly, the Dons; who have ransacked
+the theology of the religion of peace for fine names for their fighting ships;
+stopping not at designating one of their three-deckers, The Most Holy Trinity.
+But though, at Trafalgar, the Santissima Trinidada thundered like Sinai, her
+thunders were silenced by the victorious cannonade of the Victory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And without being blown into splinters by artillery, how many of these
+Redoubtables and Invincibles have succumbed to the waves, and like braggarts
+gone down before hurricanes, with their bravadoes broad on their bows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Much better the American names (barring Scorpions, Hornets, and Wasps;) Ohio,
+Virginia, Carolina, Vermont. And if ever these Yankees fight great sea
+engagements&mdash;which Heaven forefend!&mdash;how glorious, poetically
+speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth a broadside
+from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious indeed! yet in that proud crowing
+of cannon, how shall the shade of peace-loving Penn be astounded, to see the
+mightiest murderer of them all, the great Pennsylvania, a very namesake of his.
+Truly, the Pennsylvania&rsquo;s guns should be the wooden ones, called by
+men-of- war&rsquo;s-men, Quakers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But all this is an episode, made up of digressions. Time to tack ship, and
+return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, in its proper place, I omitted to mention, that shortly after descending
+from the rigging, and while Samoa was rehearsing his adventures, dame Annatoo
+had stolen below into the forecastle, intent upon her chattels. And finding
+them all in mighty disarray, she returned to the deck prodigiously, excited,
+and glancing angrily toward Jarl and me, showered a whole torrent of
+objurgations into both ears of Samoa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This contempt of my presence surprised me at first; but perhaps women are less
+apt to be impressed by a pretentious demeanor, than men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, to use a fighting phrase, there is nothing like boarding an enemy in the
+smoke. And therefore, upon this first token of Annatoo&rsquo;s termagant
+qualities, I gave her to understand&mdash;craving her pardon&mdash;that
+neither the vessel nor aught therein was hers; but that every thing belonged to
+the owners in Lahina. I added, that at all hazards, a stop must be put to her
+pilferings. Rude language for feminine ears; but how to be avoided? Here was an
+infatuated woman, who, according to Samoa&rsquo;s account, had been repeatedly
+detected in the act of essaying to draw out the screw-bolts which held together
+the planks. Tell me; was she not worse than the Load-Stone Rock, sailing by
+which a stout ship fell to pieces?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During this scene, Samoa said little. Perhaps he was secretly pleased that his
+matrimonial authority was reinforced by myself and my Viking, whose views of
+the proper position of wives at sea, so fully corresponded with his own;
+however difficult to practice, those purely theoretical ideas of his had
+hitherto proved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more turning to Annatoo, now looking any thing but amiable, I observed,
+that all her clamors would be useless; and that if it came to the worst, the
+Parki had a hull that would hold her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the end she went off in a fit of the sulks; sitting down on the windlass and
+glaring; her arms akimbo, and swaying from side to side; while ever and anon
+she gave utterance to a dismal chant. It sounded like an invocation to the
+Cholos to rise and dispatch us.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0029"></a>
+CHAPTER XXIX.<br/>
+What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The Craft, And The Resolution They
+Came To</h2>
+
+<p>
+Descending into the cabin with Samoa, I bade him hunt up the brigantine&rsquo;s
+log, the captain&rsquo;s writing-desk, and nautical instruments; in a word,
+aught that could throw light on the previous history of the craft, or aid in
+navigating her homeward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But nearly every thing of the kind had disappeared: log, quadrant, and
+ship&rsquo;s papers. Nothing was left but the sextant-case, which Jarl and I
+had lighted upon in the state-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this, vague though they were, my suspicions returned; and I closely
+questioned the Islander concerning the disappearance of these important
+articles. In reply, he gave me to understand, that the nautical instruments had
+been clandestinely carried down into the forecastle by Annatoo; and by that
+indefatigable and inquisitive dame they had been summarily taken apart for
+scientific inspection. It was impossible to restore them; for many of the
+fixtures were lost, including the colored glasses, sights, and little mirrors;
+and many parts still recoverable, were so battered and broken as to be entirely
+useless. For several days afterward, we now and then came across bits of the
+quadrant or sextant; but it was only to mourn over their fate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, though sextant and quadrant were both unattainable, I did not so
+quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which, if in good
+order, though at present not ticking, might still be made in some degree
+serviceable. But no such instrument was to be seen. No: nor to be heard of;
+Samoa himself professing utter ignorance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Annatoo, I threatened and coaxed; describing the chronometer&mdash;a live,
+round creature like a toad, that made a strange noise, which I imitated; but
+she knew nothing about it. Whether she had lighted upon it unbeknown to Samoa,
+and dissected it as usual, there was now no way to determine. Indeed, upon this
+one point, she maintained an air of such inflexible stupidity, that if she were
+really fibbing, her dead-wall countenance superseded the necessity for verbal
+deceit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may be, however, that in this particular she was wronged; for, as with many
+small vessels, the Parki might never have possessed the instrument in question.
+All thought, therefore, of feeling our way, as we should penetrate farther and
+farther into the watery wilderness, was necessarily abandoned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The log book had also formed a portion of Annatoo&rsquo;s pilferings. It seems
+she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. But after amusing herself by
+again and again counting over the leaves, and wondering how so many distinct
+surfaces could be compacted together in so small a compass, she had very
+suddenly conceived an aversion to literature, and dropped the book overboard as
+worthless. Doubtless, it met the fate of many other ponderous tomes; sinking
+quickly and profoundly. What Camden or Stowe hereafter will dive for it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening Samoa brought me a quarto half-sheet of yellowish, ribbed paper,
+much soiled and tarry, which he had discovered in a dark hole of the
+forecastle. It had plainly formed part of the lost log; but all the writing
+thereon, at present decipherable, conveyed no information upon the subject then
+nearest my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But one could not but be struck by a tragical occurrence, which the page very
+briefly recounted; as well, as by a noteworthy pictorial illustration of the
+event in the margin of the text. Save the cut, there was no further allusion to
+the matter than the following:&mdash; &ldquo;This day, being calm, Tooboi, one
+of the Lahina men, went overboard for a bath, and was eaten up by a shark.
+Immediately sent forward for his bag.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, this last sentence was susceptible of two meanings. It is truth, that
+immediately upon the decease of a friendless sailor at sea, his shipmates
+oftentimes seize upon his effects, and divide them; though the dead man&rsquo;s
+clothes are seldom worn till a subsequent voyage. This proceeding seems
+heartless. But sailors reason thus: Better we, than the captain. For by law,
+either scribbled or unscribbled, the effects of a mariner, dying on shipboard,
+should be held in trust by that officer. But as sailors are mostly foundlings
+and castaways, and carry all their kith and kin in their arms and their legs,
+there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate; seldom worth
+inheriting, like Esterhazy&rsquo;s. Wherefore, the withdrawal of a dead
+man&rsquo;s &ldquo;kit&rdquo; from the forecastle to the cabin, is often held
+tantamount to its virtual appropriation by the captain. At any rate, in small
+ships on long voyages, such things have been done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus much being said, then, the sentence above quoted from the Parki&rsquo;s
+log, may be deemed somewhat ambiguous. At the time it struck me as singular;
+for the poor diver&rsquo;s grass bag could not have contained much of any thing
+valuable unless, peradventure, he had concealed therein some Cleopatra pearls,
+feloniously abstracted from the shells brought up from the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aside of the paragraph, copied above, was a pen-and-ink sketch of the casualty,
+most cruelly executed; the poor fellow&rsquo;s legs being represented half way
+in the process of deglutition; his arms firmly grasping the monster&rsquo;s
+teeth, as if heroically bent upon making as tough a morsel of himself as
+possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no doubt the honest captain sketched this cenotaph to the departed in all
+sincerity of heart; perhaps, during the melancholy leisure which followed the
+catastrophe. Half obliterated were several stains upon the page; seemingly,
+lingering traces of a salt tear or two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From this unwonted embellishment of the text, I was led to infer, that the
+designer, at one time or other, must have been engaged in the vocation of
+whaling. For, in India ink, the logs of certain whalemen are decorated by
+somewhat similar illustrations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When whales are seen, but not captured, the fact is denoted by an outline
+figure representing the creature&rsquo;s flukes, the broad, curving lobes of
+his tail. But in those cases where the monster is both chased and killed, this
+outline is filled up jet black; one for every whale slain; presenting striking
+objects in turning over the log; and so facilitating reference. Hence, it is
+quite imposing to behold, all in a row, three or four, sometime five or six, of
+these drawings; showing that so many monsters that day jetted their last spout.
+And the chief mate, whose duty it is to keep the ship&rsquo;s record, generally
+prides himself upon the beauty, and flushy likeness to life, of his flukes;
+though, sooth to say, many of these artists are no Landseers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After vainly searching the cabin for those articles we most needed, we
+proceeded to explore the hold, into which as yet we had not penetrated. Here,
+we found a considerable quantity of pearl shells; cocoanuts; an abundance of
+fresh water in casks; spare sails and rigging; and some fifty barrels or more
+of salt beef and biscuit. Unromantic as these last mentioned objects were, I
+lingered over them long, and in a revery. Branded upon each barrel head was the
+name of a place in America, with which I was very familiar. It is from America
+chiefly, that ship&rsquo;s stores are originally procured for the few vessels
+sailing out of the Hawaiian Islands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having now acquainted myself with all things respecting the Parki, which could
+in any way be learned, I repaired to the quarter-deck, and summoning round me
+Samoa, Annatoo, and Jarl, gravely addressed them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said, that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than forthwith to
+return to the scene of the massacre, and chastise its surviving authors. But as
+there were only four of us in all; and the place of those islands was wholly
+unknown to me; and even if known, would be altogether out of our reach, since
+we possessed no instruments of navigation; it was quite plain that all thought
+of returning thither was entirely useless. The last mentioned reason, also,
+prevented our voyaging to the Hawaiian group, where the vessel belonged; though
+that would have been the most advisable step, resulting, as it would, if
+successful, in restoring the ill-fated craft to her owners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But all things considered, it seemed best, I added, cautiously to hold on our
+way to the westward. It was our easiest course; for we would ever have the wind
+from astern; and though we could not so much as hope to arrive at any one spot
+previously designated, there was still a positive certainty, if we floated long
+enough, of falling in with islands whereat to refresh ourselves; and whence, if
+we thought fit, we might afterward embark for more agreeable climes. I then
+reminded them of the fact, that so long as we kept the sea, there was always
+some prospect of encountering a friendly sail; in which event, our solicitude
+would be over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this I said in the mild, firm tone of a superior; being anxious, at once to
+assume the unquestioned supremacy. For, otherwise, Jarl and I might better quit
+the vessel forthwith, than remain on board subject to the outlandish caprices
+of Annatoo, who through Samoa would then have the sway. But I was sure of my
+Viking; and if Samoa proved docile, had no fear of his dame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And therefore during my address, I steadfastly eyed him; thereby learning
+enough to persuade me, that though he deferred to me at present, he was,
+notwithstanding, a man who, without precisely meditating mischief, could upon
+occasion act an ugly part. But of his courage, and savage honor, such as it
+was, I had little doubt. Then, wild buffalo that he was, tamed down in the yoke
+matrimonial, I could not but fancy, that if upon no other account, our society
+must please him, as rendering less afflictive the tyranny of his spouse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a hen-pecked husband, by the way, Samoa was a most terrible fellow to
+behold. And though, after all, I liked him; it was as you fancy a fiery steed
+with mane disheveled, as young Alexander fancied Bucephalus; which wild horse,
+when he patted, he preferred holding by the bridle. But more of Samoa anon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our course determined, and the command of the vessel tacitly yielded up to
+myself, the next thing done was to put every thing in order. The tattered sails
+were replaced by others, dragged up from the sail- room below; in several
+places, new running-rigging was rove; blocks restrapped; and the slackened
+stays and shrouds set taught. For all of which, we were mostly indebted to my
+Viking&rsquo;s unwearied and skillful marling-spike, which he swayed like a
+scepter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little Parki&rsquo;s toilet being thus thoroughly made for the first time
+since the massacre, we gave her new raiment to the breeze, and daintily
+squaring her yards, she gracefully glided away; honest old Jarl at the helm,
+watchfully guiding her path, like some devoted old foster-father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I stood by his side like a captain, or walked up and down on the
+quarter-deck, I felt no little importance upon thus assuming for the first time
+in my life, the command of a vessel at sea. The novel circumstances of the case
+only augmented this feeling; the wild and remote seas where we were; the
+character of my crew, and the consideration, that to all purposes, I was owner,
+as well as commander of the craft I sailed.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0030"></a>
+CHAPTER XXX.<br/>
+Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa</h2>
+
+<p>
+My original intention to touch at the Kingsmill Chain, or the countries
+adjacent, was greatly strengthened by thus encountering Samoa; and the more I
+had to do with my Belisarius, the more I was pleased with him. Nor could I
+avoid congratulating myself, upon having fallen in with a hero, who in various
+ways, could not fail of proving exceedingly useful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Like any man of mark, Samoa best speaks for himself; but we may as well convey
+some idea of his person. Though manly enough, nay, an obelisk in stature, the
+savage was far from being sentimentally prepossessing. Be not alarmed; but he
+wore his knife in the lobe of his dexter ear, which, by constant elongation
+almost drooped upon his shoulder. A mode of sheathing it exceedingly handy, and
+far less brigandish than the Highlander&rsquo;s dagger concealed in his
+leggins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was the mother of Samoa, who at a still earlier day had punctured him
+through and through in still another direction. The middle cartilage of his
+nose was slightly pendent, peaked, and Gothic, and perforated with a hole; in
+which, like a Newfoundland dog carrying a cane, Samoa sported a trinket: a well
+polished nail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In other respects he was equally a coxcomb. In his style of tattooing, for
+instance, which seemed rather incomplete; his marks embracing but a vertical
+half of his person, from crown to sole; the other side being free from the
+slightest stain. Thus clapped together, as it were, he looked like a union of
+the unmatched moieties of two distinct beings; and your fancy was lost in
+conjecturing, where roamed the absent ones. When he turned round upon you
+suddenly, you thought you saw some one else, not him whom you had been
+regarding before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was one feature in Samoa beyond the reach of the innovations of
+art:&mdash;his eye; which in civilized man or savage, ever shines in the head,
+just as it shone at birth. Truly, our eyes are miraculous things. But alas,
+that in so many instances, these divine organs should be mere lenses inserted
+into the socket, as glasses in spectacle rims.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But my Islander had a soul in his eye; looking out upon you there, like
+somebody in him. What an eye, to be sure! At times, brilliantly changeful as
+opal; in anger, glowing like steel at white heat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Belisarius, be it remembered, had but very recently lost an arm. But you would
+have thought he had been born without it; so Lord Nelson- like and cavalierly
+did he sport the honorable stump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no more of Samoa; only this: that his name had been given him by a
+sea-captain; to whom it had been suggested by the native designation of the
+islands to which he belonged; the Saviian or Samoan group, otherwise known as
+the Navigator Islands. The island of Upolua, one of that cluster, claiming the
+special honor of his birth, as Corsica does Napoleon&rsquo;s, we shall
+occasionally hereafter speak of Samoa as the Upoluan; by which title he most
+loved to be called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is ever ungallant to pass over a lady. But what shall be said of Annatoo? As
+I live, I can make no pleasing portrait of the dame; for as in most ugly
+subjects, flattering would but make the matter worse. Furthermore, unalleviated
+ugliness should ever go unpainted, as something unnecessary to duplicate. But
+the only ugliness is that of the heart, seen through the face. And though
+beauty be obvious, the only loveliness is invisible.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0031"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXI.<br/>
+Rovings Alow And Aloft</h2>
+
+<p>
+Every one knows what a fascination there is in wandering up and down in a
+deserted old tenement in some warm, dreamy country; where the vacant halls seem
+echoing of silence, and the doors creak open like the footsteps of strangers;
+and into every window the old garden trees thrust their dark boughs, like the
+arms of night-burglars; and ever and anon the nails start from the wainscot;
+while behind it the mice rattle like dice. Up and down in such old specter
+houses one loves to wander; and so much the more, if the place be haunted by
+some marvelous story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, very much such a fancy
+had I, for prying about our little brigantine, whose tragic hull was haunted by
+the memory of the massacre, of which it still bore innumerable traces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so far as the indulgence of quiet strolling and reverie was concerned, it
+was well nigh the same as if I were all by myself. For Samoa, for a time, was
+rather reserved, being occupied with thoughts of his own. And Annatoo seldom
+troubled me with her presence. She was taken up with her calicoes and jewelry;
+which I had permitted her to retain, to keep her in good humor if possible. And
+as for My royal old Viking, he was one of those individuals who seldom speak,
+unless personally addressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides, all that by day was necessary to navigating the Parki was,
+that&mdash;somebody should stand at the helm; the craft being so small, and the
+grating, whereon the steersman stood, so elevated, that he commanded a view far
+beyond the bowsprit; thus keeping Argus eyes on the sea, as he steered us
+along. In all other respects we left the brigantine to the guardianship of the
+gentle winds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My own turn at the helm&mdash;for though commander, I felt constrained to do
+duty with the rest&mdash;came but once in the twenty-four hours. And not only
+did Jarl and Samoa, officiate as helmsmen, but also Dame Annatoo, who had
+become quite expert at the business. Though Jarl always maintained that there
+was a slight drawback upon her usefulness in this vocation. Too much taken up
+by her lovely image partially reflected in the glass of the binnacle before
+her, Annatoo now and then neglected her duty, and led us some devious dances.
+Nor was she, I ween, the first woman that ever led men into zigzags.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the reasons above stated, I had many spare hours to myself. At times, I
+mounted aloft, and lounging in the slings of the topsail yard&mdash;one of the
+many snug nooks in a ship&rsquo;s rigging&mdash;I gazed broad off upon the blue
+boundless sea, and wondered what they were doing in that unknown land, toward
+which we were fated to be borne. Or feeling less meditative, I roved about
+hither and thither; slipping over, by the stays, from one mast to the other;
+climbing up to the truck; or lounging out to the ends of the yards; exploring
+wherever there was a foothold. It was like climbing about in some mighty old
+oak, and resting in the crotches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To a sailor, a ship&rsquo;s ropes are a study. And to me, every rope-yarn of
+the Parki&rsquo;s was invested with interest. The outlandish fashion of her
+shrouds, the collars of her stays, the stirrups, seizings, Flemish-horses,
+gaskets,&mdash;all the wilderness of her rigging, bore unequivocal traces of
+her origin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, perhaps, my pleasantest hours were those which I spent, stretched out on a
+pile of old sails, in the fore-top; lazily dozing to the craft&rsquo;s light
+roll.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frequently, I descended to the cabin: for the fiftieth time, exploring the
+lockers and state-rooms for some new object of curiosity. And often, with a
+glimmering light, I went into the midnight hold, as into old vaults and
+catacombs; and creeping between damp ranges of casks, penetrated into its
+farthest recesses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, I lighted upon sundry
+out-of-the-way hiding places of Annatoo&rsquo;s; where were snugly secreted
+divers articles, with which she had been smitten. In truth, no small portion of
+the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its own bowels. I found a
+jaunty shore-cap of the captain&rsquo;s, hidden away in the hollow heart of a
+coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most touchingly natural, with a heap
+of old ropes; and near by, in a breaker, discovered several entire pieces of
+calico, heroically tied together with cords almost strong enough to sustain the
+mainmast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down into this
+part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as Charles the First.
+And herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a discovery which accounted for
+what had often proved an enigma. Not seldom Annatoo had been among the missing;
+and though, from stem to stern, loudly invoked to come forth and relieve the
+poignant distress of her anxious friends, the dame remained perdu; silent and
+invisible as a spirit. But in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge;
+or be suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she had been
+there from all eternity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Useless to inquire, &ldquo;Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo?&rdquo; For no
+sweet rejoinder would she give.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now the problem was solved. Here, in this silent cask in the hold, Annatoo
+was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about: whether she
+here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved to this
+unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could tell. Can you?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in building their
+inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a fool of a sage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0032"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXII.<br/>
+Xiphius Platypterus</h2>
+
+<p>
+About this time, the loneliness of our voyage was relieved by an event worth
+relating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever since leaving the Pearl Shell Islands, the Parki had been followed by
+shoals of small fish, pleasantly enlivening the sea, and socially swimming by
+her side. But in vain did Jarl and I search among their ranks for the little,
+steel-blue Pilot fish, so long outriders of the Chamois. But perhaps since the
+Chamois was now high and dry on the Parki&rsquo;s deck, our bright little
+avant-couriers were lurking out of sight, far down in the brine; racing along
+close to the keel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it is not with the Pilot fish that we now have to do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One morning our attention was attracted to a mighty commotion in the water. The
+shoals of fish were darting hither and thither, and leaping into the air in the
+utmost affright. Samoa declared, that their deadly foe the Sword fish must be
+after them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here let me say, that, since of all the bullies, and braggarts, and
+bravoes, and free-booters, and Hectors, and fish-at-arms, and knight-errants,
+and moss-troopers, and assassins, and foot-pads, and gallant soldiers, and
+immortal heroes that swim the seas, the Indian Sword fish is by far the most
+remarkable, I propose to dedicate this chapter to a special description of the
+warrior. In doing which, I but follow the example of all chroniclers and
+historians, my Peloponnesian friend Thucydides and others, who are ever mindful
+of devoting much space to accounts of eminent destroyers; for the purpose, no
+doubt, of holding them up as ensamples to the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, the fish here treated of is a very different creature from the Sword fish
+frequenting the Northern Atlantic; being much larger every way, and a more
+dashing varlet to boot. Furthermore, he is denominated the Indian Sword fish,
+in contradistinction from his namesake above mentioned. But by seamen in the
+Pacific, he is more commonly known as the Bill fish; while for those who love
+science and hard names, be it known, that among the erudite naturalists he
+goeth by the outlandish appellation of &ldquo;<i>Xiphius
+Platypterus</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I waive for my hero all these his cognomens, and substitute a much better
+one of my own: namely, the Chevalier. And a Chevalier he is, by good right and
+title. A true gentleman of Black Prince Edward&rsquo;s bright day, when all
+gentlemen were known by their swords; whereas, in times present, the Sword fish
+excepted, they are mostly known by their high polished boots and rattans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A right valiant and jaunty Chevalier is our hero; going about with his long
+Toledo perpetually drawn. Rely upon it, he will fight you to the hilt, for his
+bony blade has never a scabbard. He himself sprang from it at birth; yea, at
+the very moment he leaped into the Battle of Life; as we mortals ourselves
+spring all naked and scabbardless into the world. Yet, rather, are we scabbards
+to our souls. And the drawn soul of genius is more glittering than the drawn
+cimeter of Saladin. But how many let their steel sleep, till it eat up the
+scabbard itself, and both corrode to rust-chips. Saw you ever the hillocks of
+old Spanish anchors, and anchor-stocks of ancient galleons, at the bottom of
+Callao Bay? The world is full of old Tower armories, and dilapidated Venetian
+arsenals, and rusty old rapiers. But true warriors polish their good blades by
+the bright beams of the morning; and gird them on to their brave sirloins; and
+watch for rust spots as for foes; and by many stout thrusts and stoccadoes keep
+their metal lustrous and keen, as the spears of the Northern Lights charging
+over Greenland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fire from the flint is our Chevalier enraged. He takes umbrage at the cut of
+some ship&rsquo;s keel crossing his road; and straightway runs a tilt at it;
+with one mad lounge thrusting his Andrea Ferrara clean through and through; not
+seldom breaking it short off at the haft, like a bravo leaving his poignard in
+the vitals of his foe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the case of the English ship Foxhound, the blade penetrated through the most
+solid part of her hull, the bow; going completely through the copper plates and
+timbers, and showing for several inches in the hold. On the return of the ship
+to London, it was carefully sawn out; and, imbedded in the original wood, like
+a fossil, is still preserved. But this was a comparatively harmless onslaught
+of the valiant Chevalier. With the Rousseau, of Nantucket, it fared worse. She
+was almost mortally stabbed; her assailant withdrawing his blade. And it was
+only by keeping the pumps clanging, that she managed to swim into a Tahitian
+harbor, &ldquo;heave down,&rdquo; and have her wound dressed by a ship-surgeon
+with tar and oakum. This ship I met with at sea, shortly after the disaster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At what armory our Chevalier equips himself after one of his spiteful
+tilting-matches, it would not be easy to say. But very hard for him, if ever
+after he goes about in the lists, swordless and disarmed, at the mercy of any
+caitiff shark he may meet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, seeing that our fellow-voyagers, the little fish along-side, were sorely
+tormented and thinned out by the incursions of a pertinacious Chevalier, bent
+upon making a hearty breakfast out of them, I determined to interfere in their
+behalf, and capture the enemy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With shark-hook and line I succeeded, and brought my brave gentleman to the
+deck. He made an emphatic landing; lashing the planks with his sinewy tail;
+while a yard and a half in advance of his eyes, reached forth his terrible
+blade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As victor, I was entitled to the arms of the vanquished; so, quickly
+dispatching him, and sawing off his Toledo, I bore it away for a trophy. It was
+three-sided, slightly concave on each, like a bayonet; and some three inches
+through at the base, it tapered from thence to a point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And though tempered not in Tagus or Guadalquiver, it yet revealed upon its
+surface that wavy grain and watery fleckiness peculiar to tried blades of
+Spain. It was an aromatic sword; like the ancient caliph&rsquo;s, giving out a
+peculiar musky odor by friction. But far different from steel of Tagus or
+Damascus, it was inflexible as Crocket&rsquo;s rifle tube; no doubt, as deadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long hung that rapier over the head of my hammock. Was it not storied as the
+good trenchant blade of brave Bayard, that other chevalier? The knight&rsquo;s
+may have slain its scores, or fifties; but the weapon I preserved had,
+doubtless, run through and riddled its thousands.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0033"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXIII.<br/>
+Otard</h2>
+
+<p>
+And here is another little incident.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One afternoon while all by myself curiously penetrating into the hold, I most
+unexpectedly obtained proof, that the ill-fated captain of the Parki had been a
+man of sound judgment and most excellent taste. In brief, I lighted upon an
+aromatic cask of prime old Otard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, I mean not to speak lightly of any thing immediately connected with the
+unfortunate captain. Nor, on the other hand, would I resemble the inconsolable
+mourner, who among other tokens of affliction, bound in funereal crape his
+deceased friend&rsquo;s copy of Joe Miller. Is there not a fitness in things?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let that pass. I found the Otard, and drank there-of; finding it, moreover,
+most pleasant to the palate, and right cheering to the soul. My next impulse
+was to share my prize with my shipmates. But here a judicious reflection
+obtruded. From the sea-monarchs, his ancestors, my Viking had inherited one of
+their cardinal virtues, a detestation and abhorrence of all vinous and
+spirituous beverages; insomuch, that he never could see any, but he instantly
+quaffed it out of sight. To be short, like Alexander the Great and other
+royalties, Jarl was prone to overmuch bibing. And though at sea more sober than
+a Fifth Monarchy Elder, it was only because he was then removed from
+temptation. But having thus divulged my Viking&rsquo;s weak; side, I earnestly
+entreat, that it may not disparage him in any charitable man&rsquo;s
+estimation. Only think, how many more there are like him to say nothing further
+of Alexander the Great&mdash;especially among his own class; and consider, I
+beseech, that the most capacious-souled fellows, for that very reason, are the
+most apt to be too liberal in their libations; since, being so large-hearted,
+they hold so much more good cheer than others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Samoa, from his utter silence hitherto as to aught inebriating on board, I
+concluded, that, along with his other secrets, the departed captain had very
+wisely kept his Otard to himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor did I doubt, but that the Upoluan, like all Polynesians, much loved getting
+high of head; and in that state, would be more intractable than a Black Forest
+boar. And concerning Annatoo, I shuddered to think, how that Otard might
+inflame her into a Fury more fierce than the foremost of those that pursued
+Orestes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In good time, then, bethinking me of the peril of publishing my
+discovery;&mdash;bethinking me of the quiet, lazy, ever-present perils of the
+voyage, of all circumstances, the very worst under which to introduce an
+intoxicating beverage to my companions, I resolved to withhold it from them
+altogether.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So impressed was I with all this, that for a moment, I was almost tempted to
+roll over the cask on its bilge, remove the stopper, and suffer its contents to
+mix with the foul water at the bottom of the hold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no, no: What: dilute the brine with the double distilled soul of the
+precious grape? Haft himself would have haunted me!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then again, it might come into play medicinally; and Paracelsus himself stands
+sponsor for every cup drunk for the good of the abdomen. So at last, I
+determined to let it remain where it was: visiting it occasionally, by myself,
+for inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But by way of advice to all ship-masters, let me say, that if your Otard
+magazine be exposed to view&mdash;then, in the evil hour of wreck, stave in
+your spirit-casks, ere rigging the life-boat.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0034"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXIV.<br/>
+How They Steered On Their Way</h2>
+
+<p>
+When we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at least two
+hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had abandoned the
+Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been, North or South of the
+Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line, seemed
+obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme Polar constellations
+was visible; though often we scanned the northern and southern horizon in
+search of them. So far as regards the aspect of the skies near the
+ocean&rsquo;s rim, the difference of several degrees in one&rsquo;s latitude at
+sea, is readily perceived by a person long accustomed to surveying the heavens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time here alluded
+to, and allowing for what little progress we had been making in the Parki,
+there now remained some one hundred leagues to sail, ere the country we sought
+would be found. But for obvious reasons, how long precisely we might continue
+to float out of sight of land, it was impossible to say. Calms, light breezes,
+and currents made every thing uncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating
+our due westward progress, except by what is called Dead Reckoning,&mdash;the
+computation of the knots run hourly; allowances&rsquo; being made for the
+supposed deviations from our course, by reason of the ocean streams; which at
+times in this quarter of the Pacific run with very great velocity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the Parki than in the
+Chamois. The sense of danger is less vivid, the greater the number of lives
+involved. He who is ready to despair in solitary peril, plucks up a heart in
+the presence of another. In a plurality of comrades is much countenance and
+consolation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still, in the brigantine there were many sources of uneasiness and anxiety
+unknown to me in the whale-boat. True, we had now between us and the deep, five
+hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant little chip. But the Parki
+required more care and attention; especially by night, when a vigilant look-out
+was indispensable. With impunity, in our whale-boat, we might have run close to
+shoal or reef; whereas, similar carelessness or temerity now, might prove fatal
+to all concerned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, I was little
+troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of darkness it was quite another
+thing. And the apprehensions, nay terrors I felt, were much augmented by the
+remissness of both Jarl and Samoa, in keeping their night-watches. Several
+times I was seized with a deadly panic, and earnestly scanned the murky
+horizon, when rising from slumber I found the steersman, in whose hands for the
+time being were life and death, sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of
+a fixture there, as the open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Were it not, that on board of other vessels, I myself had many a time dozed at
+the helm, spite of all struggles, I would have been almost at a loss to account
+for this heedlessness in my comrades. But it seemed as if the mere sense of our
+situation, should have been sufficient to prevent the like conduct in all on
+board our craft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Samoa&rsquo;s aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. His large
+opal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the binnacle, gleamed
+between the lids like bars of flame. And added to all, was his giant stature
+and savage lineaments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was in vain, that I remonstrated, begged, or threatened: the occasional
+drowsiness of my fellow-voyagers proved incurable. To no purpose, I reminded my
+Viking that sleeping in the night-watch in a craft like ours, was far different
+from similar heedlessness on board the Arcturion. For there, our place upon the
+ocean was always known, and our distance from land; so that when by night the
+seamen were permitted to be drowsy, it was mostly, because the captain well
+knew that strict watchfulness could be dispensed with.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though in all else, the Skyeman proved a most faithful ally, in this one thing
+he was either perversely obtuse, or infatuated. Or, perhaps, finding himself
+once more in a double-decked craft, which rocked him as of yore, he was lulled
+into a deceitful security.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Samoa, his drowsiness was the drowsiness of one beat on sleep, come dreams
+or death. He seemed insensible to the peril we ran. Often I sent the sleepy
+savage below, sad, steered myself till morning. At last I made a point of
+slumbering much by day, the better to stand watch by night; though I made Samoa
+and Jarl regularly go through with their allotted four hours each.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has been mentioned, that Annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it was only
+by day. And in justice to the lady, I must affirm, that upon the whole she
+acquitted herself well. For notwithstanding the syren face in the binnacle,
+which dimly allured her glances, Annatoo after all was tolerably heedful of her
+steering. Indeed she took much pride therein; always ready for her turn; with
+marvelous exactitude calculating the approaching hour, as it came on in regular
+rotation. Her time-piece was ours, the sun. By night it must have been her
+guardian star; for frequently she gazed up at a particular section of the
+heavens, like one regarding the dial in a tower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By some odd reasoning or other, she had cajoled herself into the notion, that
+whoever steered the brigantine, for that period was captain. Wherefore, she
+gave herself mighty airs at the tiller; with extravagant gestures issuing
+unintelligible orders about trimming the sails, or pitching overboard something
+to see how fast we were going. All this much diverted my Viking, who several
+times was delivered of a laugh; a loud and healthy one to boot: a phenomenon
+worthy the chronicling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thus much for Annatoo, preliminary to what is further to be said. Seeing
+the drowsiness of Jarl and Samoa, which so often kept me from my hammock at
+night, forcing me to repose by day, when I far preferred being broad awake, I
+decided to let Annatoo take her turn at the night watches; which several times
+she had solicited me to do; railing at the sleepiness of her spouse; though
+abstaining from all reflections upon Jarl, toward whom she had of late grown
+exceedingly friendly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the Calmuc stood her first night watch to admiration; if any thing, was
+altogether too wakeful. The mere steering of the craft employed not
+sufficiently her active mind. Ever and anon she must needs rush from the tiller
+to take a parenthetical pull at the fore- brace, the end of which led down to
+the bulwarks near by; then refreshing herself with a draught or two of water
+and a biscuit, she would continue to steer away, full of the importance of her
+office. At any unusual flapping of the sails, a violent stamping on deck
+announced the fact to the startled crew. Finding her thus indefatigable, I
+readily induced her to stand two watches to Jarl&rsquo;s and Samoa&rsquo;s one;
+and when she was at the helm, I permitted myself to doze on a pile of old
+sails, spread every evening on the quarter-deck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the Skyeman, who often admonished me to &ldquo;heave the ship to&rdquo;
+every night, thus stopping her headway till morning; a plan which, under other
+circumstances, might have perhaps warranted the slumbers of all. But as it was,
+such a course would have been highly imprudent. For while making no onward
+progress through the water, the rapid currents we encountered would continually
+be drifting us eastward; since, contrary to our previous experience, they
+seemed latterly to have reversed their flow, a phenomenon by no means unusual
+in the vicinity of the Line in the Pacific. And this it was that so prolonged
+our passage to the westward. Even in a moderate breeze, I sometimes fancied,
+that the impulse of the wind little more than counteracted the glide of the
+currents; so that with much show of sailing, we were in reality almost a
+fixture on the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The equatorial currents of the South Seas may be regarded as among the most
+mysterious of the mysteries of the deep. Whence they come, whither go, who
+knows? Tell us, what hidden law regulates their flow. Regardless of the theory
+which ascribes to them a nearly uniform course from east to west, induced by
+the eastwardly winds of the Line, and the collateral action of the Polar
+streams; these currents are forever shifting. Nor can the period of their
+revolutions be at all relied upon or predicted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But however difficult it may be to assign a specific cause for the ocean
+streams, in any part of the world, one of the wholesome effects thereby
+produced would seem obvious enough. And though the circumstance here alluded to
+is perhaps known to every body, it may be questioned, whether it is generally
+invested with the importance it deserves. Reference is here made to the
+constant commingling and purification of the sea-water by reason of the
+currents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For, that the ocean, according to the popular theory, possesses a special
+purifying agent in its salts, is somewhat to be doubted. Nor can it be
+explicitly denied, that those very salts might corrupt it, were it not for the
+brisk circulation of its particles consequent upon the flow of the streams. It
+is well known to seamen, that a bucket of sea-water, left standing in a
+tropical climate, very soon becomes highly offensive; which is not the case
+with rainwater.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I build no theories. And by way of obstructing the one, which might
+possibly be evolved from the statement above, let me add, that the
+offensiveness of sea-water left standing, may arise in no small degree from the
+presence of decomposed animal matter.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0035"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXV.<br/>
+Ah, Annatoo!</h2>
+
+<p>
+In order to a complete revelation, I must needs once again discourse of Annatoo
+and her pilferings; and to what those pilferings led. In the simplicity of my
+soul, I fancied that the dame, so much flattered as she needs must have been,
+by the confidence I began to repose in her, would now mend her ways, and
+abstain from her larcenies. But not so. She was possessed by some scores of
+devils, perpetually her to mischief on their own separate behoof, and not less
+for many of her pranks were of no earthly advantage to her, present or
+prospective.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo. She came; but knew nothing
+about it. Jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a substitute; and a few days
+after, pop, we came upon the lost: article hidden away in the main-top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another time, discovering the little vessel to &ldquo;gripe&rdquo; hard in
+steering, as if some one under water were jerking her backward, we instituted a
+diligent examination, to see what was the matter. When lo; what should we find
+but a rope, cunningly attached to one of the chain-plates under the starboard
+main-channel. It towed heavily in the water. Upon dragging it up&mdash;much as
+you would the cord of a ponderous bucket far down in a well&mdash;a stout
+wooden box was discovered at the end; which opened, disclosed sundry knives,
+hatchets, and ax-heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Called to the stand, the Upoluan deposed, that thrice he had rescued that
+identical box from Annatoo&rsquo;s all-appropriating clutches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, here were four human beings shut up in this little oaken craft, and, for
+the time being, their interests the same. What sane mortal, then, would forever
+be committing thefts, without rhyme or reason. It was like stealing silver from
+one pocket and decanting it into the other. And what might it not lead to in
+the end?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of the compass from the
+binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute for it, the one brought along in
+the Chamois.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Jarl that first published this last and alarming theft. Annatoo being at
+the helm at dawn, he had gone to relieve her; and looking to see how we headed,
+was horror-struck at the emptiness of the binnacle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously demanded the
+compass. But her face was a blank; every word a denial.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Further lenity was madness. I summoned Samoa, told him what had happened, and
+affirmed that there was no safety for us except in the nightly incarceration of
+his spouse. To this he privily assented; and that very evening, when Annatoo
+descended into the forecastle, we barred over her the scuttle-slide. Long she
+clamored, but unavailingly. And every night this was repeated; the dame saying
+her vespers most energetically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has somewhere been hinted, that Annatoo occasionally cast sheep&rsquo;s eyes
+at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised when her manner toward him decidedly
+changed. Pulling at the ropes with us, she would give him sly pinches, and then
+look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then again, she would refuse to handle
+the same piece of rigging with him; with wry faces, rinsed out the wooden can
+at the water cask, if it so chanced that my Viking had previously been drinking
+therefrom. At other times, when the honest Skyeman came up from below, she
+would set up a shout of derision, and loll out her tongue; accompanying all
+this by certain indecorous and exceedingly unladylike gestures, significant of
+the profound contempt in which she held him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet, never did Jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently overlooked and forgave
+it. Inquiring the reason of the dame&rsquo;s singular conduct, I learned, that
+with eye averted, she had very lately crept close to my Viking, and met with no
+tender reception.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doubtless, Jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently imagined that ere
+long the lady would forgive and forget him. But what knows a philosopher about
+women?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ere long, so outrageous became Annatoo&rsquo;s detestation of him, that the
+honest old tar could stand it no longer, and like most good-natured men when
+once fairly roused, he was swept through and through with a terrible typhoon of
+passion. He proposed, that forthwith the woman should be sacked and committed
+to the deep; he could stand it no longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Murder is catching. At first I almost jumped at the proposition; but as quickly
+rejected it. Ah! Annatoo: Woman unendurable: deliver me, ye gods, from being
+shut up in a ship with such a hornet again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But are we yet through with her? Not yet. Hitherto she had continued to perform
+the duties of the office assigned her since the commencement of the voyage:
+namely, those of the culinary department. From this she was now deposed. Her
+skewer was broken. My Viking solemnly averring, that he would eat nothing more
+of her concocting, for fear of being poisoned. For myself, I almost believed,
+that there was malice enough in the minx to give us our henbane broth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what said Samoa to all this? Passing over the matter of the cookery, will
+it be credited, that living right among us as he did, he was yet blind to the
+premeditated though unachieved peccadilloes of his spouse? Yet so it was. And
+thus blind was Belisarius himself, concerning the intrigues of Antonina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Witness that noble dame&rsquo;s affair with the youth Theodosius; when her
+deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns she had
+bestowed upon him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate Annatoo&rsquo;s
+thievings, Samoa proudly intimated, that the lady was the most virtuous of her
+sex.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But alas, poor Annatoo, why say more? And bethinking me of the hard fate that
+so soon overtook thee, I almost repent what has already and too faithfully been
+portrayed.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0036"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXVI.<br/>
+The Parki Gives Up The Ghost</h2>
+
+<p>
+A long calm in the boat, and now, God help us, another in the brigantine. It
+was airless and profound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In that hot calm, we lay fixed and frozen in like Parry at the Pole. The sun
+played upon the glassy sea like the sun upon the glaciers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of two days we lifted up our eyes and beheld a low, creeping, hungry
+cloud expanding like an army, wing and wing, along the eastern horizon.
+Instantly Jarl bode me take heed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here be it said, that though for weeks and weeks reign over the equatorial
+latitudes of the Pacific, the mildest and sunniest of days; that nevertheless,
+when storms do come, they come in their strength: spending in a few, brief
+blasts their concentrated rage. They come like the Mamelukes: they charge, and
+away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It wanted full an hour to sunset; but the sun was well nigh obscured. It seemed
+toiling among bleak Scythian steeps in the hazy background. Above the
+storm-cloud flitted ominous patches of scud, rapidly advancing and receding:
+Attila&rsquo;s skirmishers, thrown forward in the van of his Huns. Beneath, a
+fitful shadow slid along the surface. As we gazed, the cloud came nearer;
+accelerating its approach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With all haste we proceeded to furl the sails, which, owing to the calm, had
+been hanging loose in the brails. And by help of a spare boom, used on the
+forecastle-deck sit a sweep or great oar, we endeavored to cast the
+brigantine&rsquo;s head toward the foe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The storm seemed about to overtake us; but we felt no breeze. The noiseless
+cloud stole on; its advancing shadow lowering over a distinct and prominent
+milk-white crest upon the surface of the ocean. But now this line of surging
+foam came rolling down upon us like a white charge of cavalry: mad Hotspur and
+plumed Murat at its head; pouring right forward in a continuous frothy cascade,
+which curled over, and fell upon the glassy sea before it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still, no breath of air. But of a sudden, like a blow from a man&rsquo;s hand,
+and before our canvas could be secured, the stunned craft, giving one lurch to
+port, was stricken down on her beam-ends; the roaring tide dashed high up
+against her windward side, and drops of brine fell upon the deck, heavy as
+drops of gore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all a din and a mist; a crashing of spars and of ropes; a horrible
+blending of sights and of sounds; as for an instant we seemed in the hot heart
+of the gale; our cordage, like harp-strings, shrieking above the fury of the
+blast. The masts rose, and swayed, and dipped their trucks in the sea. And like
+unto some stricken buffalo brought low to the plain, the brigantine&rsquo;s
+black hull, shaggy with sea-weed, lay panting on its flank in the foam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frantically we clung to the uppermost bulwarks. And now, loud above the roar of
+the sea, was suddenly heard a sharp, splintering sound, as of a Norway woodman
+felling a pine in the forest. It was brave Jarl, who foremost of all had
+snatched from its rack against the mainmast, the ax, always there kept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cut the lanyards to windward!&rdquo; he cried; and again buried his ax
+into the mast. He was quickly obeyed. And upon cutting the third lanyard of the
+five, he shouted for us to pause. Dropping his ax, he climbed up to windward.
+As he clutched the rail, the wounded mast snapped in twain with a report like a
+cannon. A slight smoke was perceptible where it broke. The remaining lanyards
+parted. From the violent strain upon them, the two shrouds flew madly into the
+air, and one of the great blocks at their ends, striking Annatoo upon the
+forehead, she let go her hold upon a stanchion, and sliding across the aslant
+deck, was swallowed up in the whirlpool under our lea. Samoa shrieked. But
+there was no time to mourn; no hand could reach to save.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the connecting stays, the mainmast carried over with it the foremast; when
+we instantly righted, and for the time were saved; my own royal Viking our
+saviour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first fury of the gale was gone. But far to leeward was seen the even,
+white line of its onset, pawing the ocean into foam. All round us, the sea
+boiled like ten thousand caldrons; and through eddy, wave, and surge, our
+almost water-logged craft waded heavily; every dead clash ringing hollow
+against her hull, like blows upon a coffin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We floated a wreck. With every pitch we lifted our dangling jib-boom into the
+air; and beating against the side, were the shattered fragments of the masts.
+From these we made all haste to be free, by cutting the rigging that held them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon, the worst of the gale was blown over. But the sea ran high. Yet the rack
+and scud of the tempest, its mad, tearing foam, was subdued into immense,
+long-extended, and long-rolling billows; the white cream on their crests like
+snow on the Andes. Ever and anon we hung poised on their brows; when the
+furrowed ocean all round looked like a panorama from Chimborazo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few hours more, and the surges went down. There was a moderate sea, a steady
+breeze, and a clear, starry sky. Such was the storm that came after our calm.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0037"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXVII.<br/>
+Once More They Take To The Chamois</h2>
+
+<p>
+Try the pumps. We dropped the sinker, and found the Parki bleeding at every
+pore. Up from her well, the water, spring-like, came bubbling, pure and limpid
+as the water of Saratoga. Her time had come. But by keeping two hands at the
+pumps, we had no doubt she would float till daylight; previous to which we
+liked not to abandon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interval was employed in clanging at the pump-breaks, and preparing the
+Chamois for our reception. So soon as the sea permitted, we lowered it over the
+side; and letting it float under the stern, stowed it with water and
+provisions, together with various other things, including muskets and
+cutlasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after daylight, a violent jostling and thumping under foot showed that
+the water, gaining rapidly in the, hold, spite of all pumping, had floated the
+lighter casks up-ward to the deck, against which they were striking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, owing to the number of empty butts in the hold, there would have been,
+perhaps, but small danger of the vessel&rsquo;s sinking outright&mdash;all
+awash as her decks would soon be&mdash;were it not, that many of her timbers
+were of a native wood, which, like the Teak of India, is specifically heavier
+than water. This, with the pearl shells on board, counteracted the buoyancy of
+the casks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, the sun&mdash;long waited for&mdash;arose; the Parki meantime sinking
+lower and lower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All things being in readiness, we proceeded to embark from the wreck, as from a
+wharf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not without some show of love for our poor brigantine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To a seaman, a ship is no piece of mechanism merely; but a creature of thoughts
+and fancies, instinct with life. Standing at her vibrating helm, you feel her
+beating pulse. I have loved ships, as I have loved men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To abandon the poor Parki was like leaving to its fate something that could
+feel. It was meet that she should die decently and bravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this thought the Skyeman. Samoa and I were in the boat, calling upon him to
+enter quickly, lest the vessel should sink, and carry us down in the eddies;
+for already she had gone round twice. But cutting adrift the last fragments of
+her broken shrouds, and putting her decks in order, Jarl buried his ax in the
+splintered stump of the mainmast, and not till then did he join us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We slowly cheered, and sailed away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not ten minutes after, the hull rolled convulsively in the sea; went round once
+more; lifted its sharp prow as a man with arms pointed for a dive; gave a long
+seething plunge; and went down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many of her old planks were twice wrecked; once strown upon ocean&rsquo;s
+beach; now dropped into its lowermost vaults, with the bones of drowned ships
+and drowned men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more afloat in our shell! But not with the intrepid spirit that shoved off
+with us from the deck of the Arcturion. A bold deed done from impulse, for the
+time carries few or no misgivings along with it. But forced upon you, its
+terrors stare you in the face. So now. I had pushed from the Arcturion with a
+stout heart; but quitting the sinking Parki, my heart sunk with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a fair wind, we held on our way westward, hoping to see land before many
+days.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0038"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br/>
+The Sea On Fire</h2>
+
+<p>
+The night following our abandonment of the Parki, was made memorable by a
+remarkable spectacle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slumbering in the bottom of the boat, Jarl and I were suddenly awakened by
+Samoa. Starting, we beheld the ocean of a pallid white color, corruscating all
+over with tiny golden sparkles. But the pervading hue of the water cast a
+cadaverous gleam upon the boat, so that we looked to each other like ghosts.
+For many rods astern our wake was revealed in a line of rushing illuminated
+foam; while here and there beneath the surface, the tracks of sharks were
+denoted by vivid, greenish trails, crossing and recrossing each other in every
+direction. Farther away, and distributed in clusters, floated on the sea, like
+constellations in the heavens, innumerable Medusae, a species of small, round,
+refulgent fish, only to be met with in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, as we gazed, there shot high into the air a bushy jet of flashes,
+accompanied by the unmistakable deep breathing sound of a sperm whale. Soon,
+the sea all round us spouted in fountains of fire; and vast forms, emitting a
+glare from their flanks, and ever and anon raising their heads above water, and
+shaking off the sparkles, showed where an immense shoal of Cachalots had risen
+from below to sport in these phosphorescent billows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The vapor jetted forth was far more radiant than any portion of the sea;
+ascribable perhaps to the originally luminous fluid contracting still more
+brilliancy from its passage through the spouting canal of the whales.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were in great fear, lest without any vicious intention the Leviathans might
+destroy us, by coming into close contact with our boat. We would have shunned
+them; but they were all round and round us. Nevertheless we were safe; for as
+we parted the pallid brine, the peculiar irradiation which shot from about our
+keel seemed to deter them. Apparently discovering us of a sudden, many of them
+plunged headlong down into the water, tossing their fiery tails high into the
+air, and leaving the sea still more sparkling from the violent surging of their
+descent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their general course seemed the same as our own; to the westward. To remove
+from them, we at last out oars, and pulled toward the north. So doing, we were
+steadily pursued by a solitary whale, that must have taken our Chamois for a
+kindred fish. Spite of all our efforts, he drew nearer and nearer; at length
+rubbing his fiery flank against the Chamois&rsquo; gunwale, here and there
+leaving long strips of the glossy transparent substance which thin as gossamer
+invests the body of the Cachalot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In terror at a sight so new, Samoa shrank. But Jarl and I, more used to the
+intimate companionship of the whales, pushed the boat away from it with our
+oars: a thing often done in the fishery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The close vicinity of the whale revived in the so long astute Skyeman all the
+enthusiasm of his daring vocation. However quiet by nature, a thorough-bred
+whaleman betrays no little excitement in sight of his game. And it required
+some persuasion to prevent Jarl from darting his harpoon: insanity under
+present circumstances; and of course without object. But &ldquo;Oh! for a
+dart,&rdquo; cried my Viking. And &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s now our old ship?&rdquo;
+he added reminiscently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to my great joy the monster at last departed; rejoining the shoal, whose
+lofty spoutings of flame were still visible upon the distant line of the
+horizon; showing there, like the fitful starts of the Aurora Borealis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sea retained its luminosity for about three hours; at the expiration of
+half that period beginning to fade; and excepting occasional faint
+illuminations consequent upon the rapid darting of fish under water, the
+phenomenon at last wholly disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heretofore, I had beheld several exhibitions of marine phosphorescence, both in
+the Atlantic and Pacific. But nothing in comparison with what was seen that
+night. In the Atlantic, there is very seldom any portion of the ocean luminous,
+except the crests of the waves; and these mostly appear so during wet, murky
+weather. Whereas, in the Pacific, all instances of the sort, previously corning
+under my notice, had been marked by patches of greenish light, unattended with
+any pallidness of sea. Save twice on the coast of Peru, where I was summoned
+from my hammock to the alarming midnight cry of &ldquo;All hands ahoy! tack
+ship!&rdquo; And rushing on deck, beheld the sea white as a shroud; for which
+reason it was feared we were on soundings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, sailors love marvels, and love to repeat them. And from many an old
+shipmate I have heard various sage opinings, concerning the phenomenon in
+question. Dismissing, as destitute of sound philosophic probability, the
+extravagant notion of one of my nautical friends&mdash;no less a philosopher
+than my Viking himself&mdash;namely: that the phosphoresence of the sea is
+caused by a commotion among the mermaids, whose golden locks, all torn and
+disheveled, do irradiate the waters at such times; I proceed to record more
+reliable theories.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Faraday might, perhaps, impute the phenomenon to a peculiarly electrical
+condition of the atmosphere; and to that solely. But herein, my scientific
+friend would be stoutly contradicted by many intelligent seamen, who, in part,
+impute it to the presence of large quantities of putrescent animal matter; with
+which the sea is well known to abound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And it would seem not unreasonable to suppose, that it is by this means that
+the fluid itself becomes charged with the luminous principle. Draw a bucket of
+water from the phosphorescent ocean, and it still retains traces of fire; but,
+standing awhile, this soon subsides. Now pour it along the deck, and it is a
+stream of flame; caused by its renewed agitation. Empty the bucket, and for a
+space sparkles cling to it tenaciously; and every stave seems ignited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But after all, this seeming ignition of the sea can not be wholly produced by
+dead matter therein. There are many living fish, phosphorescent; and, under
+certain conditions, by a rapid throwing off of luminous particles must largely
+contribute to the result. Not to particularize this circumstance as true of
+divers species of sharks, cuttle-fish, and many others of the larger varieties
+of the finny tribes; the myriads of microscopic mollusca, well known to swarm
+off soundings, might alone be deemed almost sufficient to kindle a fire in the
+brine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But these are only surmises; likely, but uncertain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After science comes sentiment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A French naturalist maintains, that the nocturnal radiance of the fire-fly is
+purposely intended as an attraction to the opposite sex; that the artful insect
+illuminates its body for a beacon to love. Thus: perched upon the edge of a
+leaf, and waiting the approach of her Leander, who comes buffeting with his
+wings the aroma of the flowers, some insect Hero may show a torch to her
+gossamer gallant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But alas, thrice alas, for the poor little fire-fish of the sea, whose radiance
+but reveals them to their foes, and lights the way to their destruction.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0039"></a>
+CHAPTER XXXIX.<br/>
+They Fall In With Strangers</h2>
+
+<p>
+After quitting the Parki, we had much calm weather, varied by light breezes.
+And sailing smoothly over a sea, so recently one sheet of foam, I could not
+avoid bethinking me, how fortunate it was, that the gale had overtaken us in
+the brigantine, and not in the Chamois. For deservedly high as the
+whale-shallop ranks as a sea boat; still, in a severe storm, the larger your
+craft the greater your sense of security. Wherefore, the thousand reckless
+souls tenanting a line-of- battle ship scoff at the most awful hurricanes;
+though, in reality, they may be less safe in their wooden-walled Troy, than
+those who contend with the gale in a clipper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not only did I congratulate myself upon salvation from the past, but upon
+the prospect for the future. For storms happening so seldom in these seas, one
+just blown over is almost a sure guarantee of very many weeks&rsquo; calm
+weather to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now sun followed sun; and no land. And at length it almost seemed as if we must
+have sailed past the remotest presumable westerly limit of the chain of islands
+we sought; a lurking suspicion which I sedulously kept to myself However, I
+could not but nourish a latent faith that all would yet be well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the ninth day my forebodings were over. In the gray of the dawn, perched
+upon the peak of our sail, a noddy was seen fast asleep. This freak was true to
+the nature of that curious fowl, whose name is significant of its drowsiness.
+Its plumage was snow-white, its bill and legs blood-red; the latter looking
+like little pantalettes. In a sly attempt at catching the bird, Samoa captured
+three tail- feathers; the alarmed creature flying away with a scream, and
+leaving its quills in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sailing on, we gradually broke in upon immense low-sailing flights of other
+aquatic fowls, mostly of those species which are seldom found far from land:
+terns, frigate-birds, mollymeaux, reef-pigeons, boobies, gulls, and the like.
+They darkened the air; their wings making overhead an incessant rustling like
+the simultaneous turning over of ten thousand leaves. The smaller sort skimmed
+the sea like pebbles sent skipping from the shore. Over these, flew myriads of
+birds of broader wing. While high above all, soared in air the daring
+&ldquo;Diver,&rdquo; or sea-kite, the power of whose vision is truly wonderful.
+It perceives the little flying-fish in the water, at a height which can not be
+less than four hundred feet. Spirally wheeling and screaming as it goes, the
+sea-kite, bill foremost, darts downward, swoops into the water, and for a
+moment altogether disappearing, emerges at last; its prey firmly trussed in its
+claws. But bearing it aloft, the bold bandit is quickly assailed by other birds
+of prey, that strive to wrest from him his booty. And snatched from his talons,
+you see the fish falling through the air, till again caught up in the very act
+of descent, by the fleetest of its pursuers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Leaving these sights astern, we presently picked up the slimy husk of a
+cocoanut, all over green barnacles. And shortly after, passed two or three
+limbs of trees, and the solitary trunk of a palm; which, upon sailing nearer,
+seemed but very recently started on its endless voyage. As noon came on; the
+dark purple land-haze, which had been dimly descried resting upon the western
+horizon, was very nearly obscured. Nevertheless, behind that dim drapery we
+doubted not bright boughs were waving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were now in high spirits. Samoa between times humming to himself some
+heathenish ditty, and Jarl ten times more intent on his silence than ever; yet
+his eye full of expectation and gazing broad off from our bow. Of a sudden,
+shading his face with his hand, he gazed fixedly for an instant, and then
+springing to his feet, uttered the long-drawn sound&mdash;&ldquo;Sail
+ho!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just tipping the furthest edge of the sky was a little speck, dancing into view
+every time we rose upon the swells. It looked like one of many birds; for half
+intercepting our view, fell showers of plumage: a flight of milk-white noddies
+flying downward to the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But soon the birds are seen no more. Yet there remains the speck; plainly a
+sail; but too small for a ship. Was it a boat after a whale? The vessel to
+which it belonged far astern, and shrouded by the haze? So it seemed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quietly, however, we waited the stranger&rsquo;s nearer approach; confident,
+that for some time he would not be able to perceive us, owing to our being in
+what mariners denominate the &ldquo;sun-glade,&rdquo; or that part of the ocean
+upon which the sun&rsquo;s rays flash with peculiar intensity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the sail drew nigh, its failing to glisten white led us to doubt whether it
+was indeed a whale-boat. Presently, it showed yellow; and Samoa declared, that
+it must be the sail of some island craft. True. The stranger proving a large
+double-canoe, like those used by the Polynesians in making passages between
+distant islands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Upoluan was now clamorous for a meeting, to which Jarl was averse.
+Deliberating a moment, I directed the muskets to be loaded; then setting the
+sail the wind on our quarter&mdash;we headed away for the canoe, now sailing at
+right angles with our previous course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here it must be mentioned, that from the various gay cloths and other things
+provided for barter by the captain of the Parki, I had very strikingly improved
+my costume; making it free, flowing, and eastern. I looked like an Emir. Nor
+had my Viking neglected to follow my example; though with some few
+modifications of his own. With his long tangled hair and harpoon, he looked
+like the sea-god, that boards ships, for the first time crossing the Equator.
+For tatooed Samoa, he yet sported both kilt and turban, reminding one of a
+tawny leopard, though his spots were all in one place. Besides this raiment of
+ours, against emergencies we had provided our boat with divers nankeens and
+silks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now into full view comes a yoke of huge clumsy prows, shaggy with carving,
+and driving through the water with considerable velocity; the immense sprawling
+sail holding the wind like a bag. She seemed full of men; and from the
+dissonant cries borne over to us, and the canoe&rsquo;s widely yawing, it was
+plain that we had occasioned no small sensation. They seemed undetermined what
+course to pursue: whether to court a meeting, or avoid it; whether to regard us
+as friends or foes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we came still nearer, distinctly beholding their faces, we loudly hailed
+them, inviting them to furl their sails, and allow us to board them. But no
+answer was returned; their confusion increasing. And now, within less than two
+ships&rsquo;-lengths, they swept right across our bow, gazing at us with
+blended curiosity and fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their craft was about thirty feet long, consisting of a pair of parallel
+canoes, very narrow, and at the distance of a yard or so, lengthwise, united by
+stout cross-timbers, lashed across the four gunwales. Upon these timbers was a
+raised platform or dais, quite dry; and astern an arched cabin or tent; behind
+which, were two broad-bladed paddles terminating in rude shark-tails, by which
+the craft was steered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The yard, spreading a yellow sail, was a crooked bough, supported obliquely in
+the crotch of a mast, to which the green bark was still clinging. Here and
+there were little tufts of moss. The high, beaked prow of that canoe in which
+the mast was placed, resembled a rude altar; and all round it was suspended a
+great variety of fruits, including scores of cocoanuts, unhusked. This prow was
+railed off, forming a sort of chancel within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The foremost beam, crossing the gunwales, extended some twelve feet beyond the
+side of the dais; and at regular intervals hereupon, stout cords were fastened,
+which, leading up to the head of the mast, answered the purpose of shrouds. The
+breeze was now streaming fresh; and, as if to force down into the water the
+windward side of the craft, five men stood upon this long beam, grasping five
+shrouds. Yet they failed to counterbalance the pressure of the sail; and owing
+to the opposite inclination of the twin canoes, these living statues were
+elevated high above the water; their appearance rendered still more striking by
+their eager attitudes, and the apparent peril of their position, as the mad
+spray from the bow dashed over them. Suddenly, the Islanders threw their craft
+into the wind; while, for ourselves, we lay on our oars, fearful of alarming
+them by now coming nearer. But hailing them again, we said we were friends; and
+had friendly gifts for them, if they would peaceably permit us to approach.
+This understood, there ensued a mighty clamor; insomuch, that I bade Jarl and
+Samoa out oars, and row very gently toward the strangers. Whereupon, amid a
+storm of vociferations, some of them hurried to the furthest side of their
+dais; standing with arms arched over their heads, as if for a dive; others
+menacing us with clubs and spears; and one, an old man with a bamboo trellis on
+his head forming a sort of arbor for his hair, planted himself full before the
+tent, stretching behind him a wide plaited sling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this hostile display, Samoa dropped his oar, and brought his piece to bear
+upon the old man, who, by his attitude, seemed to menace us with the fate of
+the great braggart of Gath. But I quickly knocked down the muzzle of his
+musket, and forbade the slightest token of hostility; enjoining it upon my
+companions, nevertheless, to keep well on their guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We now ceased rowing, and after a few minutes&rsquo; uproar in the canoe, they
+ran to the steering-paddles, and forcing round their craft before the wind,
+rapidly ran away from us. With all haste we set our sail, and pulling also at
+our oars, soon overtook them, determined upon coming into closer communion.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0040"></a>
+CHAPTER XL.<br/>
+Sire And Sons</h2>
+
+<p>
+Seeing flight was useless, the Islanders again stopped their canoe, and once
+more we cautiously drew nearer; myself crying out to them not to be fearful;
+and Samoa, with the odd humor of his race, averring that he had known every
+soul of them from his infancy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We approached within two or three yards; when we paused, which somewhat allayed
+their alarm. Fastening a red China handkerchief to the blade of our long
+mid-ship oar, I waved it in the air. A lively clapping of hands, and many wild
+exclamations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While yet waving the flag, I whispered to Jarl to give the boat a sheer toward
+the canoe, which being adroitly done, brought the bow, where I stood, still
+nearer to the Islanders. I then dropped the silk among them; and the Islander,
+who caught it, at once handed it to the warlike old man with the sling; who, on
+seating himself, spread it before him; while the rest crowding round, glanced
+rapidly from the wonderful gift, to the more wonderful donors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This old man was the superior of the party. And Samoa asserted, that he must be
+a priest of the country to which the Islanders belonged; that the craft could
+be no other than one of their sacred canoes, bound on some priestly voyage. All
+this he inferred from the altar- like prow, and there being no women on board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bent upon conciliating the old priest, I dropped into the canoe another silk
+handkerchief; while Samoa loudly exclaimed, that we were only three men, and
+were peaceably inclined. Meantime, old Aaron, fastening the two silks crosswise
+over his shoulders, like a brace of Highland plaids, crosslegged sat, and eyed
+us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a curious sight. The old priest, like a scroll of old parchment, covered
+all over with hieroglyphical devices, harder to interpret, I&rsquo;ll warrant,
+than any old Sanscrit manuscript. And upon his broad brow, deep-graven in
+wrinkles, were characters still more mysterious, which no Champollion nor gipsy
+could have deciphered. He looked old as the elderly hills; eyes sunken, though
+bright; and head white as the summit of Mont Blanc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rest were a youthful and comely set: their complexion that of Gold Sherry,
+and all tattooed after this pattern: two broad cross- stripes on the chest and
+back; reaching down to the waist, like a foot-soldier&rsquo;s harness. Their
+faces were full of expression; and their mouths were full of fine teeth; so
+that the parting of their lips, was as the opening of pearl oysters. Marked,
+here and there, after the style of Tahiti, with little round figures in blue,
+dotted in the middle with a spot of vermilion, their brawny brown thighs looked
+not unlike the gallant hams of Westphalia, spotted with the red dust of
+Cayenne.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what a marvelous resemblance in the features of all. Were they born at one
+birth? This resemblance was heightened by their uniform marks. But it was
+subsequently ascertained, that they were the children of one sire; and that
+sire, old Aaron; who, no doubt, reposed upon his sons, as an old general upon
+the trophies of his youth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were the children of as many mothers; and he was training them up for the
+priesthood.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0041"></a>
+CHAPTER XLI.<br/>
+A Fray</h2>
+
+<p>
+So bent were the strangers upon concealing who they were, and the object of
+their voyage, that it was some time ere we could obtain the information we
+desired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They pointed toward the tent, as if it contained their Eleusinian mysteries.
+And the old priest gave us to know, that it would be profanation to enter it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But all this only roused my curiosity to unravel the wonder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last I succeeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In that mysterious tent was concealed a beautiful maiden. And, in pursuance of
+a barbarous custom, by Aleema, the priest, she was being borne an offering from
+the island of Amma to the gods of Tedaidee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, hearing of the maiden, I waited for no more. Need I add, how stirred was
+my soul toward this invisible victim; and how hotly I swore, that precious
+blood of hers should never smoke upon an altar. If we drowned for it, I was
+bent upon rescuing the captive. But as yet, no gentle signal of distress had
+been waved to us from the tent. Thence, no sound could be heard, but an
+occasional rustle of the matting. Was it possible, that one about to be
+immolated could proceed thus tranquilly to her fate?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But desperately as I resolved to accomplish the deliverance of the maiden, it
+was best to set heedfully about it. I desired no shedding of blood; though the
+odds were against us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old priest seemed determined to prevent us from boarding his craft. But
+being equally determined the other way, I cautiously laid the bow of the
+Chamois against the canoe&rsquo;s quarter, so as to present the smallest
+possible chance for a hostile entrance into our boat. Then, Samoa, knife in
+ear, and myself with a cutlass, stepped upon the dais, leaving Jarl in the
+boat&rsquo;s head, equipped with his harpoon; three loaded muskets lying by his
+side. He was strictly enjoined to resist the slightest demonstration toward our
+craft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we boarded the canoe, the Islanders slowly retreated; meantime earnestly
+conferring in whispers; all but the old priest, who, still seated, presented an
+undaunted though troubled front. To our surprise, he motioned us to sit down by
+him; which we did; taking care, however, not to cut off our communication with
+Jarl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the hope of inspiring good will, I now unfolded a roll of printed cotton,
+and spreading it before the priest, directed his attention to the pictorial
+embellishments thereon, representing some hundreds of sailor boys
+simultaneously ascending some hundreds of uniform sections of a ship&rsquo;s
+rigging. Glancing at them a moment, by a significant sign, he gave me to know,
+that long previous he himself had ascended the shrouds of a ship. Making this
+allusion, his countenance was overcast with a ferocious expression, as if
+something terrific was connected with the reminiscence. But it soon passed
+away, and somewhat abruptly he assumed an air of much merriment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While we were thus sitting together, and my whole soul full of the thoughts of
+the captive, and how best to accomplish my purpose, and often gazing toward the
+tent; I all at once noticed a movement among the strangers. Almost in the same
+instant, Samoa, right across the face of Aleema, and in his ordinary tones,
+bade me take heed to myself, for mischief was brewing. Hardly was this warning
+uttered, when, with carved clubs in their hands, the Islanders completely
+surrounded us. Then up rose the old priest, and gave us to know, that we were
+wholly in his power, and if we did not swear to depart in our boat forthwith,
+and molest him no more, the peril be ours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Depart and you live; stay and you die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fifteen to three. Madness to gainsay his mandate. Yet a beautiful maiden was at
+stake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The knife before dangling in Samoa&rsquo;s ear was now in his hand. Jarl cried
+out for us to regain the boat, several of the Islanders making a rush for it.
+No time to think. All passed quicker than it can be said. They closed in upon
+us, to push us from the canoe: Rudely the old priest flung me from his side,
+menacing me with his dagger, the sharp spine of a fish. A thrust and a threat!
+Ere I knew it, my cutlass made a quick lunge. A curse from the priest&rsquo;s
+mouth; red blood from his side; he tottered, stared about him, and fell over
+like a brown hemlock into the sea. A yell of maledictions rose on the air. A
+wild cry was heard from the tent. Making a dead breach among the crowd, we now
+dashed side by side for the boat. Springing into it, we found Jarl battling
+with two Islanders; while the rest were still howling upon the dais. Rage and
+grief had almost disabled them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With one stroke of my cutlass, I now parted the line that held us to the canoe,
+and with Samoa falling upon the two Islanders, by Jarl&rsquo;s help, we quickly
+mastered them; forcing them down into the bottom of the boat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Skyeman and Samoa holding passive the captives, I quickly set our sail, and
+snatching the sheet at the cavil, we rapidly shot from the canoe. The strangers
+defying us with their spears; several couching them as if to dart; while others
+held back their hands, as if to prevent them from jeopardizing the lives of
+their countrymen in the Chamois.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seemingly untoward events oftentimes lead to successful results: Far from
+destroying all chance of rescuing the captive, our temporary flight,
+indispensable for the safety of Jarl, only made the success of our enterprise
+more probable. For having made prisoners two of the strangers, I determined to
+retain them as hostages, through whom to effect my plans without further
+bloodshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here it must needs be related, that some of the natives were wounded in the
+fray: while all three of their assailants had received several bruises.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0042"></a>
+CHAPTER XLII.<br/>
+Remorse</h2>
+
+<p>
+During the skirmish not a single musket had been discharged. The first snatched
+by Jarl had missed fire, and ere he could seize another, it was close quarters
+with him, and no gestures to spare. His harpoon was his all. And truly, there
+is nothing like steel in a fray. It comes and it goes with a will, and is never
+a-weary. Your sword is your life, and that of your foe; to keep or to take as
+it happens. Closer home does it go than a rammer; and fighting with steel is a
+play without ever an interlude. There are points more deadly than bullets; and
+stocks packed full of subtle tubes, whence comes an impulse more reliable than
+powder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Binding our prisoners lengthwise across the boat&rsquo;s seats, we rowed for
+the canoe, making signs of amity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, if there be any thing fitted to make a high tide ebb in the veins, it is
+the sight of a vanquished foe, inferior to yourself in powers of destruction;
+but whom some necessity has forced you to subdue. All victories are not
+triumphs, nor all who conquer, heroes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we drew near the canoe, it was plain, that the loss of their sire had again
+for the instant overcome the survivors. Raising hands, they cursed us; and at
+intervals sent forth a low, piercing wail, peculiar to their race. As before,
+faint cries were heard from the tent. And all the while rose and fell on the
+sea, the ill-fated canoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I gazed at this sight, what iron mace fell on my soul; what curse rang sharp
+in my ear! It was I, who was the author of the deed that caused the shrill
+wails that I heard. By this hand, the dead man had died. Remorse smote me hard;
+and like lightning I asked myself, whether the death-deed I had done was sprung
+of a virtuous motive, the rescuing a captive from thrall; or whether beneath
+that pretense, I had engaged in this fatal affray for some other, and selfish
+purpose; the companionship of a beautiful maid. But throttling the thought, I
+swore to be gay. Am I not rescuing the maiden? Let them go down who withstand
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the dismal spectacle before him, Jarl, hitherto menacing our prisoners with
+his weapon, in order to intimidate their countrymen, honest Jarl dropped his
+harpoon. But shaking his knife in the air, Samoa yet defied the strangers; nor
+could we prevent him. His heathenish blood was up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing foremost in the boat, I now assured the strangers, that all we sought
+at their hands was the maiden in the tent. That captive surrendered, our own,
+unharmed, should be restored. If not, they must die. With a cry, they started
+to their feet, and brandished their clubs; but, seeing Jarl&rsquo;s harpoon
+quivering over the hearts of our prisoners, they quickly retreated; at last
+signifying their acquiescence in my demand. Upon this, I sprang to the dais,
+and across it indicating a line near the bow, signed the Islanders to retire
+beyond it. Then, calling upon them one by one to deliver their weapons, they
+were passed into the boat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Chamois was now brought round to the canoe&rsquo;s stern; and leaving Jarl
+to defend it as before, the Upoluan rejoined me on the dais. By these
+precautions&mdash;the hostages still remaining bound hand and foot in the
+boat&mdash;we deemed ourselves entirely secure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Attended by Samoa, I stood before the tent, now still as the grave.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0043"></a>
+CHAPTER XLIII.<br/>
+The Tent Entered</h2>
+
+<p>
+By means of thin spaces between the braids of matting, the place was open to
+the air, but not to view. There was also a round opening on one side, only
+large enough, however, to admit the arm; but this aperture was partially closed
+from within. In front, a deep-dyed rug of osiers, covering the entrance way,
+was intricately laced to the standing part of the tent. As I divided this
+lacing with my cutlass, there arose an outburst of voices from the Islanders.
+And they covered their faces, as the interior was revealed to my gaze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before me crouched a beautiful girl. Her hands were drooping. And, like a saint
+from a shrine, she looked sadly out from her long, fair hair. A low wail issued
+from her lips, and she trembled like a sound. There were tears on her cheek,
+and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Did I dream?&mdash;A snow-white skin: blue, firmament eyes: Golconda locks. For
+an instant spell-bound I stood; while with a slow, apprehensive movement, and
+still gazing fixedly, the captive gathered more closely about her a gauze-like
+robe. Taking one step within, and partially dropping the curtain of the tent, I
+so stood, as to have both sight and speech of Samoa, who tarried without; while
+the maiden, crouching in the farther corner of the retreat, was wholly screened
+from all eyes but mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crossing my hands before me, I now stood without speaking. For the soul of me,
+I could not link this mysterious creature with the tawny strangers. She seemed
+of another race. So powerful was this impression, that unconsciously, I
+addressed her in my own tongue. She started, and bending over, listened
+intently, as if to the first faint echo of something dimly remembered. Again I
+spoke, when throwing back her hair, the maiden looked up with a piercing,
+bewildered gaze. But her eyes soon fell, and bending over once more, she
+resumed her former attitude. At length she slowly chanted to herself several
+musical words, unlike those of the Islanders; but though I knew not what they
+meant, they vaguely seemed familiar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Impatient to learn her story, I now questioned her in Polynesian. But with much
+earnestness, she signed me to address her as before. Soon perceiving, however,
+that without comprehending the meaning of the words I employed, she seemed
+merely touched by something pleasing in their sound, I once more addressed her
+in Polynesian; saying that I was all eagerness to hear her history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm at every sound from
+without; yet all the while deeply regarding me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are here presented in the
+form in which they were afterward more fully narrated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So unearthly was the story, that at first I little comprehended it; and was
+almost persuaded that the luckless maiden was some beautiful maniac.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from Oroolia, the Island of
+Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the Polynesians. To this
+isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical power, she had been spirited from
+Amma, the place of her nativity. Her name was Yillah. And hardly had the waters
+of Oroolia washed white her olive skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when one
+day strolling in the woodlands, she was snared in the tendrils of a vine.
+Drawing her into its bowers, it gently transformed her into one of its
+blossoms, leaving her conscious soul folded up in the transparent petals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here hung Yillah in a trance, the world without all tinged with the rosy hue of
+her prison. At length when her spirit was about to burst forth in the opening
+flower, the blossom was snapped from its stem; and borne by a soft wind to the
+sea; where it fell into the opening valve of a shell; which in good time was
+cast upon the beach of the Island of Amma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the priest; who by a spell
+unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now showed signs of
+opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy revealings, as of the dawn
+behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding, the blossom exhaled away in
+perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the air. Condensing at last, there emerged
+from this mist the same radiant young Yillah as before; her locks all moist,
+and a rose- colored pearl on her bosom. Enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful
+child now tarried in the sacred temple of Apo, buried in a dell; never beheld
+of mortal eyes save Aleema&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four days gone by, Aleema came
+to her with a dream; that the spirits in Oroolia had recalled her home by the
+way of Tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up in the sea an enchanted spring;
+which streaming over upon the brine, flowed on between blue watery banks; and,
+plunging into a vortex, went round and round, descending into depths unknown.
+Into this whirlpool Yillah was to descend in a canoe, at last to well up in an
+inland fountain of Oroolia.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0044"></a>
+CHAPTER XLIV.<br/>
+Away!</h2>
+
+<p>
+Though clothed in language of my own, the maiden&rsquo;s story is in substance
+the same as she related. Yet were not these things narrated as past events; she
+merely recounted them as impressions of her childhood, and of her destiny yet
+unaccomplished. And mystical as the tale most assuredly was, my knowledge of
+the strange arts of the island priesthood, and the rapt fancies indulged in by
+many of their victims, deprived it in good part of the effect it otherwise
+would have produced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For ulterior purposes connected with their sacerdotal supremacy, the priests of
+these climes oftentimes secrete mere infants in their temples; and jealously
+secluding them from all intercourse with the world, craftily delude them, as
+they grow up, into the wildest conceits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus wrought upon, their pupils almost lose their humanity in the constant
+indulgence of seraphic imaginings. In many cases becoming inspired as oracles;
+and as such, they are sometimes resorted to by devotees; always screened from
+view, however, in the recesses of the temples. But in every instance, their end
+is certain. Beguiled with some fairy tale about revisiting the islands of
+Paradise, they are led to the secret sacrifice, and perish unknown to their
+kindred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, would that all this had been hidden from me at the time. For Yillah was
+lovely enough to be really divine; and so I might have been tranced into a
+belief of her mystical legends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But with what passionate exultation did I find myself the deliverer of this
+beautiful maiden; who, thinking no harm, and rapt in a dream, was being borne
+to her fate on the coast of Tedaidee. Nor now, for a moment, did the death of
+Aleema her guardian seem to hang heavy upon my heart. I rejoiced that I had
+sent him to his gods; that in place of the sea moss growing over sweet Yillah
+drowned in the sea, the vile priest himself had sunk to the bottom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though he had sunk in the deep, his ghost sunk not in the deep waters of my
+soul. However in exultations its surface foamed up, at bottom guilt brooded.
+Sifted out, my motives to this enterprise justified not the mad deed, which, in
+a moment of rage, I had done: though, those motives had been covered with a
+gracious pretense; concealing myself from myself. But I beat down the thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In relating her story, the maiden frequently interrupted it with questions
+concerning myself:&mdash;Whence I came: being white, from Oroolia? Whither I
+was going: to Amma? And what had happened to Aleema? For she had been dismayed
+at the fray, though knowing not what it could mean; and she had heard the
+priest&rsquo;s name called upon in lamentations. These questions for the time I
+endeavored to evade; only inducing her to fancy me some gentle demigod, that
+had come over the sea from her own fabulous Oroolia. And all this she must
+verily have believed. For whom, like me, ere this could she have beheld? Still
+fixed she her eyes upon me strangely, and hung upon the accents of my voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While this scene was passing, the strangers began to show signs of impatience,
+and a voice from the Chamois repeatedly hailed us to accelerate our movements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My course was quickly decided. The only obstacle to be encountered was the
+possibility of Yillah&rsquo;s alarm at being suddenly borne into my prow. For
+this event I now sought to prepare her. I informed the damsel that Aleema had
+been dispatched on a long errand to Oroolia; leaving to my care, for the
+present, the guardianship of the lovely Yillah; and that therefore, it was
+necessary to carry her tent into my own canoe, then waiting to receive it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This intelligence she received with the utmost concern; and not knowing to what
+her perplexity might lead, I thought fit to transport her into the Chamois,
+while yet overwhelmed by the announcement of my intention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quitting her retreat, I apprised Jarl of my design; and then, no more delay!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At bottom, the tent was attached to a light framework of bamboos; and from its
+upper corners, four cords, like those of a marquee, confined it to the dais.
+These, Samoa&rsquo;s knife soon parted; when lifting the light tent, we
+speedily transferred it to the Chamois; a wild yell going up from the
+Islanders, which drowned the faint cries of the maiden. But we heeded not the
+din. Toss in the fruit, hanging from the altar-prow! It was done; and then
+running up our sail, we glided away;&mdash;Chamois, tent, hostages, and all.
+Rushing to the now vacant stern of their canoe, the Islanders once more lifted
+up their hands and their voices in curses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A suitable distance gained, we paused to fling overboard the arms we had taken;
+and Jarl proceeded to liberate the hostages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, I entered the tent, and by many tokens, sought to allay the
+maiden&rsquo;s alarm. Thus engaged, violent plunges were heard: our prisoners
+taking to the sea to regain their canoe. All dripping, they were received by
+their brethren with wild caresses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From something now said by the captives, the rest seemed suddenly inspirited
+with hopes of revenge; again wildly shaking their spears, just before picked up
+from the sea. With great clamor and confusion they soon set their mat-sail; and
+instead of sailing southward for Tedaidee, or northward for Amma their home,
+they steered straight after us, in our wake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Foremost in the prow stood three; javelins poised for a dart; at intervals,
+raising a yell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Did they mean to pursue me? Full in my rear they came on, baying like hounds on
+their game. Yillah trembled at their cries. My own heart beat hard with
+undefinable dread. The corpse of Aleema seemed floating before: its avengers
+were raging behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But soon these phantoms departed. For very soon it appeared that in vain the
+pagans pursued. Their craft, our fleet Chamois outleaped. And farther and
+farther astern dropped the evil-boding canoe, till at last but a speck; when a
+great swell of the sea surged up before it, and it was seen no more. Samoa
+swore that it must have swamped, and gone down. But however it was, my heart
+lightened apace. I saw none but ourselves on the sea: I remembered that our
+keel left no track as it sailed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let the Oregon Indian through brush, bramble, and brier, hunt his enemy&rsquo;s
+trail, far over the mountains and down in the vales; comes he to the water, he
+snuffs idly in air.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0045"></a>
+CHAPTER XLV.<br/>
+Reminiscences</h2>
+
+<p>
+In resecuing the gentle Yillah from the hands of the Islanders, a design seemed
+accomplished. But what was now to be done? Here, in our adventurous Chamois,
+was a damsel more lovely than the flushes of morning; and for companions, whom
+had she but me and my comrades? Besides, her bosom still throbbed with alarms,
+her fancies all roving through mazes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How subdue these dangerous imaginings? How gently dispel them?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But one way there was: to lead her thoughts toward me, as her friend and
+preserver; and a better and wiser than Aleema the priest. Yet could not this be
+effected but by still maintaining my assumption of a divine origin in the
+blessed isle of Oroolia; and thus fostering in her heart the mysterious
+interest, with which from the first she had regarded me. But if punctilious
+reserve on the part of her deliverer should teach her to regard him as some
+frigid stranger from the Arctic Zone, what sympathy could she have for him? and
+hence, what peace of mind, having no one else to cling to?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried Aleema.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think not of him, sweet Yillah,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Look on me. Am I
+not white like yourself? Behold, though since quitting Oroolia the sun has dyed
+my cheek, am I not even as you? Am I brown like the dusky Aleema? They snatched
+you away from your isle in the sea, too early for you to remember me there. But
+you have not been forgotten by me, sweetest Yillah. Ha! ha! shook we not the
+palm-trees together, and chased we not the rolling nuts down the glen? Did we
+not dive into the grotto on the sea-shore, and come up together in the cool
+cavern in the hill? In my home in Oroolia, dear Yillah, I have a lock of your
+hair, ere yet it was golden: a little dark tress like a ring. How your cheeks
+were then changing from olive to white. And when shall I forget the hour, that
+I came upon you sleeping among the flowers, with roses and lilies for cheeks.
+Still forgetful? Know you not my voice? Those little spirits in your eyes have
+seen me before. They mimic me now as they sport in their lakes. All the past a
+dim blank? Think of the time when we ran up and down in our arbor, where the
+green vines grew over the great ribs of the stranded whale. Oh Yillah, little
+Yillah, has it all come to this? am I forever forgotten? Yet over the wide
+watery world have I sought thee: from isle to isle, from sea to sea. And now we
+part not. Aleema is gone. My prow shall keep kissing the waves, till it kisses
+the beach at Oroolia. Yillah, look up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunk the ghost of Aleema: Sweet Yillah was mine!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0046"></a>
+CHAPTER XLVI.<br/>
+The Chamois With A Roving Commission</h2>
+
+<p>
+Through the assiduity of my Viking, ere nightfall our Chamois was again in good
+order. And with many subtle and seamanlike splices the light tent was lashed in
+its place; the sail taken up by a reef.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My comrades now questioned me, as to my purposes; whether they had been
+modified by the events of the day. I replied that our destination was still the
+islands to the westward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But from these we had steadily been drifting all the morning long; so that now
+no loom of the land was visible. But our prow was kept pointing as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the helm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. The rays of the sun, setting
+behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of a shaded light
+behind a lattice. And the low breeze, pervaded with the peculiar balm of the
+mid-Pacific near land, was fragrant as the breath of a bride.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of Yillah in mine
+seemed no hand, but a touch. Visions flitted before me and in me; something
+hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now entered a thought into my heart. I reflected how serenely we might thus
+glide along, far removed from all care and anxiety. And then, what different
+scenes might await us upon any of the shores roundabout. But there seemed no
+danger in the balmy sea; the assured vicinity of land imparting a sense of
+security. We had ample supplies for several days more, and thanks to the Pagan
+canoe, an abundance of fruit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides, what cared I now for the green groves and bright shore? Was not Yillah
+my shore and my grove? my meadow, my mead, my soft shady vine, and my arbor? Of
+all things desirable and delightful, the full- plumed sheaf, and my own right
+arm the band? Enough: no shore for me yet. One sweep of the helm, and our light
+prow headed round toward the vague land of song, sun, and vine: the fabled
+South.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we glided along, strange Yillah gazed down in the sea, and would fain have
+had me plunge into it with her, to rove through its depths. But I started
+dismayed; in fancy, I saw the stark body of the priest drifting by. Again that
+phantom obtruded; again guilt laid his red hand on my soul. But I laughed. Was
+not Yillah my own? by my arm rescued from ill? To do her a good, I had periled
+myself. So down, down, Aleema.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When next morning, starting from slumber, my comrades beheld the sun on our
+beam, instead of astern as before at that hour, they eagerly inquired,
+&ldquo;Whither now?&rdquo; But very briefly I gave them to know, that after
+devoting the night to the due consideration of a matter so important, I had
+determined upon voyaging for the island Tedaidee, in place of the land to the
+westward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this, they were not displeased. But to tell the plain truth, I harbored some
+shadowy purpose of merely hovering about for a while, till I felt more
+landwardly inclined.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But had I not declared to Yillah, that our destination was the fairy isle she
+spoke of, even Oroolia? Yet that shore was so exceedingly remote, and the folly
+of endeavoring to reach it in a craft built with hands, so very apparent, that
+what wonder I really nourished no thought of it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So away floated the Chamois, like a vagrant cloud in the heavens: bound, no one
+knew whither.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0047"></a>
+CHAPTER XLVII.<br/>
+Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa</h2>
+
+<p>
+But time to tell, how Samoa and Jarl regarded this mystical Yillah; and how
+Yillah regarded them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Beauty from the Beast, so at first shrank the damsel from my one- armed
+companion. But seeing my confidence in the savage, a reaction soon followed.
+And in accordance with that curious law, by which, under certain conditions,
+the ugliest mortals become only amiably hideous, Yillah at length came to look
+upon Samoa as a sort of harmless and good-natured goblin. Whence came he, she
+cared not; or what was his history; or in what manner his fortunes were united
+to mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+May be, she held him a being of spontaneous origin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, as every where women are the tamers of the menageries of men; so Yillah in
+good time tamed down Samoa to the relinquishment of that horrible thing in his
+ear, and persuaded him to substitute a vacancy for the bauble in his nose. On
+his part, however, all this was conditional. He stipulated for the privilege of
+restoring both trinkets upon suitable occasions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But if thus gayly the damsel sported with Samoa; how different his emotions
+toward her? The fate to which she had been destined, and every nameless thing
+about her, appealed to all his native superstitions, which ascribed to beings
+of her complexion a more than terrestrial origin. When permitted to approach
+her, he looked timid and awkwardly strange; suggesting the likeness of some
+clumsy satyr, drawing in his horns; slowly wagging his tail; crouching abashed
+before some radiant spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And this reverence of his was most pleasing to me, Bravo! thought I; be a pagan
+forever. No more than myself; for, after a different fashion, Yillah was an
+idol to both.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what of my Viking? Why, of good Jarl I grieve to say, that the
+old-fashioned interest he took in my affairs led him to look upon Yillah as a
+sort of intruder, an Ammonite syren, who might lead me astray. This would now
+and then provoke a phillipic; but he would only turn toward my resentment his
+devotion; and then I was silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unsophisticated as a wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable of
+perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our companions.
+And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption, that it was quite
+impossible for such a person as hers to prove otherwise than irresistible to
+all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She betrayed much surprise at my Vikings appearance. But most of all was she
+struck by a characteristic device upon the arm of the wonderful
+mariner&mdash;our Saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown of thorns, and
+three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one from each hand and foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, honest Jarl did vastly pride himself upon this ornament. It was the only
+piece of vanity about him. And like a lady keeping gloveless her hand to show
+off a fine Turquoise ring, he invariably wore that sleeve of his frock rolled
+up, the better to display the embellishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And round and round would Yillah turn Jarl&rsquo;s arm, till Jarl was fain to
+stand firm, for fear of revolving all over. How such untutored homage would
+have thrilled the heart of the ingenious artist!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Eventually, through the Upoluan, she made overtures to the Skyeman, concerning
+the possession of his picture in her own proper right. In her very simplicity,
+little heeding, that like a landscape in fresco, it could not be removed.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0048"></a>
+CHAPTER XLVIII.<br/>
+Something Under The Surface</h2>
+
+<p>
+Not to omit an occurrence of considerable interest, we must needs here present
+some account of a curious retinue of fish which overtook our Chamois, a day or
+two after parting with the canoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A violent creaming and frothing in our rear announced their approach. Soon we
+found ourselves the nucleus of an incredible multitude of finny creatures,
+mostly anonymous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First, far in advance of our prow, swam the helmeted Silver-heads; side by
+side, in uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas, with their
+flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct regiment, wormed and twisted
+through the water like Archimedean screws, the quivering Wriggle-tails;
+followed in turn by the rank and file of the Trigger-fish&mdash;so called from
+their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs with a comical curve, as if
+at half-cock. Far astern the rear was brought up by endless battalions of
+Yellow- backs, right martially vested in buff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And slow sailing overhead were flights of birds; a wing in the air for every
+fin in the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let the sea-fowls fly on: turn we to the fish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their numbers were amazing; countless as the tears shed for perfidious lovers.
+Far abroad on both flanks, they swam in long lines, tier above tier; the water
+alive with their hosts. Locusts of the sea, peradventure, going to fall with a
+blight upon some green, mossy province of Neptune. And tame and fearless they
+were, as the first fish that swam in Euphrates; hardly evading the hand;
+insomuch that Samoa caught many without lure or line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They formed a decorous escort; paddling along by our barnacled sides, as if
+they had been with us from the very beginning; neither scared by our
+craft&rsquo;s surging in the water; nor in the least sympathetic at losing a
+comrade by the hand of Samoa. They closed in their ranks and swam on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How innocent, yet heartless they looked! Had a plank dropped out of our boat,
+we had sunk to the bottom; and belike, our cheerful retinue would have paid the
+last rites to our remains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But still we kept company; as sociably as you please; Samoa helping himself
+when he listed, and Yillah clapping her hands as the radiant creatures, by a
+simultaneous turning round on their silvery bellies, caused the whole sea to
+glow like a burnished shield.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what has befallen this poor little Boneeta astern, that he swims so
+toilingly on, with gills showing purple? What has he there, towing behind? It
+is tangled sea-kelp clinging to its fins. But the clogged thing strains to keep
+up with its fellows. Yet little they heed. Away they go; every fish for itself,
+and any fish for Samoa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the poor Boneeta is seen no more. The myriad fins swim on; a lonely
+waste, where the lost one drops behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Strange fish! All the live-long day, they were there by our side; and at night
+still tarried and shone; more crystal and scaly in the pale moonbeams, than in
+the golden glare of the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How prettily they swim; all silver life; darting hither and thither between
+their long ranks, and touching their noses, and scraping acquaintance. No
+mourning they wear for the Boneeta left far astern; nor for those so cruelly
+killed by Samoa. No, no; all is glee, fishy glee, and frolicking fun; light
+hearts and light fins; gay backs and gay spirits.&mdash;Swim away, swim away!
+my merry fins all. Let us roam the flood; let us follow this monster fish with
+the barnacled sides; this strange-looking fish, so high out of water; that goes
+without fins. What fish can it be? What rippling is that? Dost hear the great
+monster breathe? Why, &rsquo;tis sharp at both ends; a tail either way; nor
+eyes has it any, nor mouth. What a curious fish! what a comical fish! But more
+comical far, those creatures above, on its hollow back, clinging thereto like
+the snaky eels, that cling and slide on the back of the Sword fish, our
+terrible foe. But what curious eels these are! Do they deem themselves pretty
+as we? No, no; for sure, they behold our limber fins, our speckled and
+beautiful scales. Poor, powerless things! How they must wish they were we, that
+roam the flood, and scour the seas with a wish. Swim away; merry fins, swim
+away! Let him drop, that fellow that halts; make a lane; close in, and fill up.
+Let him drown, if he can not keep pace. No laggards for us:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,<br/>
+We care not for friend nor for foe:<br/>
+    Our fins are stout,<br/>
+    Our tails are out,<br/>
+As through the seas we go.<br/>
+<br/>
+Fish, Fish, we are fish with red gills;<br/>
+    Naught disturbs us, our blood is at zero:<br/>
+We are buoyant because of our bags,<br/>
+    Being many, each fish is a hero.<br/>
+We care not what is it, this life<br/>
+    That we follow, this phantom unknown:<br/>
+To swim, it&rsquo;s exceedingly pleasant,&mdash;<br/>
+    So swim away, making a foam.<br/>
+This strange looking thing by our side,<br/>
+    Not for safety, around it we flee:&mdash;<br/>
+Its shadow&rsquo;s so shady, that&rsquo;s all,&mdash;<br/>
+    We only swim under its lee.<br/>
+And as for the eels there above,<br/>
+    And as for the fowls in the air,<br/>
+We care not for them nor their ways,<br/>
+    As we cheerily glide afar!<br/>
+<br/>
+We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,<br/>
+We care not for friend nor for foe:<br/>
+    Our fins are stout,<br/>
+    Our tails are out,<br/>
+As through the seas we go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how now, my fine fish! what alarms your long ranks, and tosses them all
+into a hubbub of scales and of foam? Never mind that long knave with the spear
+there, astern. Pipe away, merry fish, and give us a stave or two more, keeping
+time with your doggerel tails. But no, no! their singing was over. Grim death,
+in the shape of a Chevalier, was after them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How they changed their boastful tune! How they hugged the vilified boat! How
+they wished they were in it, the braggarts! And how they all tingled with fear!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For, now here, now there, is heard a terrific rushing sound under water,
+betokening the onslaught of the dread fish of prey, that with spear ever in
+rest, charges in upon the out-skirts of the shoal, transfixing the fish on his
+weapon. Re-treating and shaking them off, the Chevalier devours them; then
+returns to the charge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hugging the boat to desperation, the poor fish fairly crowded themselves up to
+the surface, and floundered upon each other, as men are lifted off their feet
+in a mob. They clung to us thus, out of a fancied security in our presence.
+Knowing this, we felt no little alarm for ourselves, dreading lest the
+Chevalier might despise our boat, full as much as his prey; and in pursuing the
+fish, run through the poor Chamois with a lunge. A jacket, rolled up, was kept
+in readiness to be thrust into the first opening made; while as the thousand
+fins audibly patted against our slender planks, we felt nervously enough; as if
+treading upon thin, crackling ice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, to our no small delight, the enemy swam away; and again by our side
+merrily paddled our escort; ten times merrier than ever.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0049"></a>
+CHAPTER XLIX.<br/>
+Yillah</h2>
+
+<p>
+While for a few days, now this way, now that, as our craft glides along,
+surrounded by these locusts of the deep, let the story of Yillah flow on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of her beauty say I nothing. It was that of a crystal lake in a fathomless
+wood: all light and shade; full of fleeting revealings; now shadowed in depths;
+now sunny in dimples; but all sparkling and shifting, and blending together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But her wild beauty was a vail to things still more strange. As often she gazed
+so earnestly into my eyes, like some pure spirit looking far down into my soul,
+and seeing therein some upturned faces, I started in amaze, and asked what
+spell was on me, that thus she gazed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Often she entreated me to repeat over and over again certain syllables of my
+language. These she would chant to herself, pausing now and then, as if
+striving to discover wherein lay their charm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In her accent, there was something very different from that of the people of
+the canoe. Wherein lay the difference. I knew not; but it enabled her to
+pronounce with readiness all the words which I taught her; even as if recalling
+sounds long forgotten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If all this filled me with wonder, how much was that wonder increased, and yet
+baffled again, by considering her complexion, and the cast of her features.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After endeavoring in various ways to account for these things, I was led to
+imagine, that the damsel must be an Albino (Tulla) occasionally to be met with
+among the people of the Pacific. These persons are of an exceedingly delicate
+white skin, tinted with a faint rose hue, like the lips of a shell. Their hair
+is golden. But, unlike the Albinos of other climes, their eyes are invariably
+blue, and no way intolerant of light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a race, the Tullas die early. And hence the belief, that they pertain to
+some distant sphere, and only through irregularities in the providence of the
+gods, come to make their appearance upon earth: whence, the oversight
+discovered, they are hastily snatched. And it is chiefly on this account, that
+in those islands where human sacrifices are offered, the Tullas are deemed the
+most suitable oblations for the altar, to which from their birth many are
+prospectively devoted. It was these considerations, united to others, which at
+times induced me to fancy, that by the priest, Yillah was regarded as one of
+these beings. So mystical, however, her revelations concerning her past
+history, that often I knew not what to divine. But plainly they showed that she
+had not the remotest conception of her real origin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But these conceits of a state of being anterior to an earthly existence may
+have originated in one of those celestial visions seen transparently stealing
+over the face of a slumbering child. And craftily drawn forth and re-echoed by
+another, and at times repeated over to her with many additions, these
+imaginings must at length have assumed in her mind a hue of reality, heightened
+into conviction by the dreamy seclusion of her life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now, let her subsequent and more credible history be related, as from time
+to time she rehearsed it.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0050"></a>
+CHAPTER L.<br/>
+Yillah In Ardair</h2>
+
+<p>
+In the verdant glen of Ardair, far in the silent interior of Amma, shut in by
+hoar old cliffs, Yillah the maiden abode.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So small and so deep was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by steep
+acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive the shadows that
+played there; that, from above, it seemed more like a lake of cool, balmy air,
+than a glen: its woodlands and grasses gleaming shadowy all, like sea groves
+and mosses beneath the calm sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, none came but Aleema the priest, who at times was absent for days
+together. But at certain seasons, an unseen multitude with loud chants stood
+upon the verge of the neighboring precipices, and traversing those shaded
+wilds, slowly retreated; their voices lessening and lessening, as they wended
+their way through the more distant groves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At other times, Yillah being immured in the temple of Apo, a band of men
+entering the vale, surrounded her retreat, dancing there till evening came.
+Meanwhile, heaps of fruit, garlands of flowers, and baskets of fish, were laid
+upon an altar without, where stood Aleema, arrayed in white tappa, and
+muttering to himself, as the offerings were laid at his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Aleema was gone, Yillah went forth into the glen, and wandered among the
+trees, and reposed by the banks of the stream. And ever as she strolled, looked
+down upon her the grim old cliffs, bearded with trailing moss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toward the lower end of the vale, its lofty walls advancing and overhanging
+their base, almost met in mid air. And a great rock, hurled from an adjacent
+height, and falling into the space intercepted, there remained fixed. Aerial
+trees shot up from its surface; birds nested in its clefts; and strange vines
+roved abroad, overrunning the tops of the trees, lying thereon in coils and
+undulations, like anacondas basking in the light. Beneath this rock, was a
+lofty wall of ponderous stones. Between its crevices, peeps were had of a long
+and leafy arcade, quivering far away to where the sea rolled in the sun. Lower
+down, these crevices gave an outlet to the waters of the brook, which, in a
+long cascade, poured over sloping green ledges near the foot of the wall, into
+a deep shady pool; whose rocky sides, by the perpetual eddying of the water,
+had been worn into a grotesque resemblance to a group of giants, with heads
+submerged, indolently reclining about the basin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this pool, Yillah would bathe. And once, emerging, she heard the echoes of a
+voice, and called aloud. But the only reply, was the rustling of branches, as
+some one, invisible, fled down the valley beyond. Soon after, a stone rolled
+inward, and Aleema the priest stood before her; saying that the voice she had
+heard was his. But it was not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined for
+companionship. When the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves of the
+mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as tears in the
+eye, Yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in her soul to awaken. She
+sang low airs, she thought she had heard in Oroolia; but started affrighted, as
+from dingles and dells, came back to her strains more wild than hers. And ever,
+when sad, Aleema would seek to cheer her soul, by calling to mind the bright
+scenes of Oroolia the Blest, to which place, he averred, she was shortly to
+return, never more to depart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak, presenting at
+the top the grim profile of a human face; whose shadow, every afternoon, crept
+down the verdant side of the mountain: a silent phantom, stealing all over the
+bosom of the glen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth, and
+waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her arms in a
+caress; saying, &ldquo;Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?&rdquo; And at last, when
+it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the whole valley in gloom;
+Aleema would say, &ldquo;Arise Yillah; Apo hath stretched himself to sleep in
+Ardair. Go, slumber where thou wilt; for thou wilt slumber in his arms.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim Apo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something that every
+day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully still; she went forth
+alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from the peak. Of a sudden, when its
+face was just edging a chasm, that made it to look as if parting its lips, she
+heard a loud voice, and thought it was Apo calling &ldquo;Yillah!
+Yillah!&rdquo; But now it seemed like the voice she had heard while bathing in
+the pool. Glancing upward, she beheld a beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down
+upon her from an inaccessible crag. But presently, there was a rustling in the
+groves behind, and swift as thought, something darted through the air. The
+youth bounded forward. Yillah opened her arms to receive him; but he fell upon
+the cliff, and was seen no more. As alarmed, and in tears, she fled from the
+scene, some one out of sight ran before her through the wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon recounting this adventure to Aleema, he said, that the being she had seen,
+must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that Apo had slain him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sight of this youth, filled Yillah with wild yearnings to escape from her
+lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest and the phantom,
+suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings, in regions beyond Ardair.
+But Aleema sought to put away these conceits; saying, that ere long she would
+be journeying to Oroolia, there to rejoin the spirits she dimly remembered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon after, he came to her with a shell&mdash;one of those ever moaning of
+ocean&mdash;and placing it to her ear, bade her list to the being within, which
+in that little shell had voyaged from Oroolia to bear her company in Amma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, the maiden oft held it to her ear, and closing her eyes, listened and
+listened to its soft inner breathings, till visions were born of the sound, and
+her soul lay for hours in a trance of delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And again the priest came, and brought her a milk-white bird, with a bill
+jet-black, and eyes like stars. &ldquo;In this, lurks the soul of a maiden; it
+hath flown from Oroolia to greet you.&rdquo; The soft stranger willingly
+nestled in her bosom; turning its bright eyes upon hers, and softly warbling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many days passed; and Yillah, the bird, and the shell were inseparable. The
+bird grew familiar; pecked seeds from her mouth; perched upon her shoulder, and
+sang in her ear; and at night, folded its wings in her bosom, and, like a
+sea-fowl, went softly to sleep: rising and falling upon the maiden&rsquo;s
+heart. And every morning it flew from its nest, and fluttered and chirped; and
+sailed to and fro; and blithely sang; and brushed Yillah&rsquo;s cheek till she
+woke. Then came to her hand: and Yillah, looking earnestly in its eyes, saw
+strange faces there; and said to herself as she gazed&mdash;&ldquo;These are
+two souls, not one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at last, going forth into the groves with the bird, it suddenly flew from
+her side, and perched in a bough; and throwing back its white downy throat,
+there gushed from its bill a clear warbling jet, like a little fountain in air.
+Now the song ceased; when up and away toward the head of the vale, flew the
+bird. &ldquo;Lil! Lil! come back, leave me not, blest souls of the
+maidens.&rdquo; But on flew the bird, far up a defile, winging its way till a
+speck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was shortly after this, and upon the evening of a day which had been
+tumultuous with sounds of warfare beyond the lower wall of the glen; that
+Aleema came to Yillah in alarm; saying&mdash;&ldquo;Yillah, the time has come
+to follow thy bird; come, return to thy home in Oroolia.&rdquo; And he told her
+the way she would voyage there: by the vortex on the coast of Tedaidee. That
+night, being veiled and placed in the tent, the maiden was borne to the
+sea-side, where the canoe was in waiting. And setting sail quickly, by next
+morning the island of Amma was no longer in sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And this was the voyage, whose sequel has already been recounted.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0051"></a>
+CHAPTER LI.<br/>
+The Dream Begins To Fade</h2>
+
+<p>
+Stripped of the strange associations, with which a mind like Yillah&rsquo;s
+must have invested every incident of her life, the story of her abode in Ardair
+seemed not incredible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But so etherealized had she become from the wild conceits she nourished, that
+she verily believed herself a being of the lands of dreams. Her fabulous past
+was her present.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet as our intimacy grew closer and closer, these fancies seemed to be losing
+their hold. And often she questioned me concerning my own reminiscences of her
+shadowy isle. And cautiously I sought to produce the impression, that whatever
+I had said of that clime, had been revealed to me in dreams; but that in these
+dreams, her own lineaments had smiled upon me; and hence the impulse which had
+sent me roving after the substance of this spiritual image.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And true it was to say so; and right it was to swear it, upon her white arms
+crossed. For oh, Yillah; were you not the earthly semblance of that sweet
+vision, that haunted my earliest thoughts?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first she had wildly believed, that the nameless affinities between us, were
+owing to our having in times gone by dwelt together in the same ethereal
+region. But thoughts like these were fast dying out. Yet not without many
+strange scrutinies. More intently than ever she gazed into my eyes; rested her
+ear against my heart, and listened to its beatings. And love, which in the eye
+of its object ever seeks to invest itself with some rare superiority, love,
+sometimes induced me to prop my failing divinity; though it was I myself who
+had undermined it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But if it was with many regrets, that in the sight of Yillah, I perceived
+myself thus dwarfing down to a mortal; it was with quite contrary emotions,
+that I contemplated the extinguishment in her heart of the notion of her own
+spirituality. For as such thoughts were chased away, she clung the more closely
+to me, as unto one without whom she would be desolate indeed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now, at intervals, she was sad, and often gazed long and fixedly into the
+sea. Nor would she say why it was, that she did so; until at length she
+yielded; and replied, that whatever false things Aleema might have instilled
+into her mind; of this much she was certain: that the whirlpool on the coast of
+Tedaidee prefigured her fate; that in the waters she saw lustrous eyes, and
+beckoning phantoms, and strange shapes smoothing her a couch among the mosses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her dreams seemed mine. Many visions I had of the green corse of the priest,
+outstretching its arms in the water, to receive pale Yillah, as she sunk in the
+sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But these forebodings departed, no happiness in the universe like ours. We
+lived and we loved; life and love were united; in gladness glided our days.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0052"></a>
+CHAPTER LII.<br/>
+World Ho!</h2>
+
+<p>
+Five suns rose and set. And Yillah pining for the shore, we turned our prow due
+west, and next morning came in sight of land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was innumerable islands; lifting themselves bluely through the azure air,
+and looking upon the distant sea, like haycocks in a hazy field. Towering above
+all, and mid-most, rose a mighty peak; one fleecy cloud sloping against its
+summit; a column wreathed. Beyond, like purple steeps in heaven at set of sun,
+stretched far away, what seemed lands on lands, in infinite perspective.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gliding on, the islands grew more distinct; rising up from the billows to greet
+us; revealing hills, vales, and peaks, grouped within a milk-white zone of
+reef, so vast, that in the distance all was dim. The jeweled vapors, ere-while
+hovering over these violet shores, now seemed to be shedding their gems; and as
+the almost level rays of the sun, shooting through the air like a variegated
+prism, touched the verdant land, it trembled all over with dewy sparkles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still nearer we came: our sail faintly distended as the breeze died away from
+our vicinity to the isles. The billows rolled listlessly by, as if conscious
+that their long task was nigh done; while gleamed the white reef, like the
+trail of a great fish in a calm. But as yet, no sign of paddle or canoe; no
+distant smoke; no shining thatch. Bravo! good comrades, we&rsquo;ve discovered
+some new constellation in the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sweet Yillah, no more of Oroolia; see you not this flowery land? Nevermore
+shall we desire to roam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voyaging along the zone, we came to an opening; and quitting the firmament blue
+of the open sea, we glided in upon the still, green waters of the wide lagoon.
+Mapped out in the broad shadows of the isles, and tinted here and there with
+the reflected hues of the sun clouds, the mild waters stretched all around us
+like another sky. Near by the break in the reef, was a little island, with palm
+trees harping in the breeze; an aviary of alluring sounds, that seemed calling
+upon us to land. And here, Yillah, whom the sight of the verdure had made glad,
+threw out a merry suggestion. Nothing less, than to plant our mast, sail-set,
+upon the highest hill; and fly away, island and all; trees rocking, birds
+caroling, flowers springing; away, away, across the wide waters, to Oroolia!
+But alas! how weigh the isle&rsquo;s coral anchor, leagues down in the
+fathomless sea?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We glanced around; but all the islands seemed slumbering in the flooding light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A canoe! a canoe!&rdquo; cried Samoa, as three proas showed themselves
+rounding a neighboring shore. Instantly we sailed for them; but after shooting
+to and fro for a time, and standing up and gazing at us, the Islanders
+retreated behind the headland. Hardly were they out of sight, when from many a
+shore roundabout, other proas pushed off. Soon the water all round us was
+enlivened by fleets of canoes, darting hither and thither like frighted
+water-fowls. Presently they all made for one island.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From their actions we argued that these people could have had but little or no
+intercourse with whites; and most probably knew not how to account for our
+appearance among them. Desirous, therefore, of a friendly meeting, ere any
+hostile suspicions might arise, we pointed our craft for the island, whither
+all the canoes were now hastening. Whereupon, those which had not yet reached
+their destination, turned and fled; while the occupants of the proas that had
+landed, ran into the groves, and were lost to view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crossing the distinct outer line of the isle&rsquo;s shadow on the water, we
+gained the shore; and gliding along its margin, passing canoe after canoe,
+hauled up on the silent beach, which otherwise seemed entirely innocent of man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A dilemma. But I decided at last upon disembarking Jarl and Samoa, to seek out
+and conciliate the natives. So, landing them upon a jutting buttress of coral,
+whence they waded to the shore; I pushed off with Yillah into the water beyond,
+to await the event.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Full an hour must have elapsed; when, to our great joy, loud shouts were heard;
+and there burst into view a tumultuous crowd, in the midst of which my Viking
+was descried, mounted upon the shoulders of two brawny natives; while the
+Upoluan, striding on in advance, seemed resisting a similar attempt to elevate
+him in the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good omens both.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come ashore!&rdquo; cried Jarl. &ldquo;Aramai!&rdquo; cried Samoa; while
+storms of interjections went up from the Islanders who with extravagant
+gestures danced about the beach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Further caution seemed needless: I pointed our prow for the shore. No sooner
+was this perceived, than, raising an applauding shout, the Islanders ran up to
+their waists in the sea. And skimming like a gull over the smooth lagoon, the
+light shallop darted in among them. Quick as thought, fifty hands were on the
+gunwale: and, with all its contents, lifted bodily into the air, the little
+Chamois, upon many a dripping shoulder, was borne deep into the groves. Yillah
+shrieked at the rocking motion, and when the boughs of the trees brushed
+against the tent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With his staff, an old man now pointed to a couple of twin-like trees, some
+four paces apart; and a little way from the ground conveniently crotched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here, eftsoons, they deposited their burden; lowering the Chamois gently
+between the forks of the trees, whose willow-like foliage fringed the tent and
+its inmate.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0053"></a>
+CHAPTER LIII.<br/>
+The Chamois Ashore</h2>
+
+<p>
+Until now, enveloped in her robe, and crouching like a fawn, Yillah had been
+well nigh hidden from view. But presently she withdrew her hood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What saw the Islanders, that they so gazed and adored in silence: some
+retreating, some creeping nearer, and the women all in a flutter? Long they
+gazed; and following Samoa&rsquo;s example, stretched forth their arms in
+reverence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The adoration of the maiden was extended to myself. Indeed, from the singular
+gestures employed, I had all along suspected, that we were being received with
+unwonted honors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I now sought to get speech of my comrades. But so obstreperous was the crowd,
+that it was next to impossible. Jarl was still in his perch in the air; his
+enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to alight. Samoa, however, who had
+managed to keep out of the saddle, by-and-by contrived to draw nearer to the
+Chamois.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He advised me, by no means to descend for the present; since in any event we
+were sure of remaining unmolested therein; the Islanders regarding it as
+sacred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Upoluan attracted a great deal of attention; chiefly from his style of
+tattooing, which, together with other peculiarities, so interested the natives,
+that they were perpetually hanging about him, putting eager questions, and all
+the time keeping up a violent clamor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But despite the large demand upon his lungs, Samoa made out to inform me, that
+notwithstanding the multitude assembled, there was no high chief, or person of
+consequence present; the king of the place, also those of the islands adjacent,
+being absent at a festival in another quarter of the Archipelago. But upon the
+first distant glimpse of the Chamois, fleet canoes had been dispatched to
+announce the surprising event that had happened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In good time, the crowd becoming less tumultuous, and abandoning the siege of
+Samoa, I availed myself of this welcome lull, and called upon him and my Viking
+to enter the Chamois; desirous of condensing our forces against all
+emergencies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Samoa now gave me to understand, that from all he could learn, the Islanders
+regarded me as a superior being. They had inquired of him, whether I was not
+white Taji, a sort of half-and-half deity, now and then an Avatar among them,
+and ranking among their inferior ex- officio demi-gods. To this, Samoa had said
+ay; adding, moreover, all he could to encourage the idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He now entreated me, at the first opportunity, to announce myself as Taji:
+declaring that if once received under that title, the unbounded hospitality of
+our final reception would be certain; and our persons fenced about from all
+harm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Encouraging this. But it was best to be wary. For although among some
+barbarians the first strangers landing upon their shores, are frequently hailed
+as divine; and in more than one wild land have been actually styled gods, as a
+familiar designation; yet this has not exempted the celestial visitants from
+peril, when too much presuming upon the reception extended to them. In sudden
+tumults they have been slain outright, and while full faith in their divinity
+had in no wise abated. The sad fate of an eminent navigator is a well-known
+illustration of this unaccountable waywardness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With no small anxiety, therefore, we awaited the approach of some of the
+dignitaries of Mardi; for by this collective appellation, the people informed
+us, their islands were known.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We waited not long. Of a sudden, from the sea-side, a single shrill cry was
+heard. A moment more, and the blast of numerous conch shells startled the air;
+a confused clamor drew nearer and nearer; and flying our eyes in the direction
+of these sounds, we impatiently awaited what was to follow.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0054"></a>
+CHAPTER LIV.<br/>
+A Gentleman From The Sun</h2>
+
+<p>
+Never before had I seen the deep foliage of woodlands navigated by canoes. But
+on they came sailing through the leaves; two abreast; borne on men&rsquo;s
+shoulders; in each a chief, carried along to the measured march of his bearers;
+paddle blades reversed under arms. As they emerged, the multitude made gestures
+of homage. At the distance of some eight or ten paces the procession halted;
+when the kings alighted to the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were fine-looking men, arrayed in various garbs. Rare the show of stained
+feathers, and jewels, and other adornments. Brave the floating of dyed mantles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The regal bearing of these personages, the deference paid them, and their
+entire self-possession, not a little surprised me. And it seemed preposterous,
+to assume a divine dignity in the presence of these undoubted potentates of
+<i>terra firma</i>. Taji seemed oozing from my fingers&rsquo; ends. But
+courage! and erecting my crest, I strove to look every inch the character I had
+determined to assume.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a time, it was almost impossible to tell with what emotions precisely the
+chiefs were regarding me. They said not a word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But plucking up heart of grace, I crossed my cutlass on my chest, and reposing
+my hand on the hilt, addressed their High Mightinesses thus. &ldquo;Men of
+Mardi, I come from the sun. When this morning it rose and touched the wave, I
+pushed my shallop from its golden beach, and hither sailed before its level
+rays. I am Taji.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More would have been added, but I paused for the effect of my exordium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stepping back a pace or two, the chiefs eagerly conversed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Emboldened, I returned to the charge, and labored hard to impress them with
+just such impressions of me and mine, as I deemed desirable. The gentle Yillah
+was a seraph from the sun; Samoa I had picked off a reef in my route from that
+orb; and as for the Skyeman, why, as his name imported, he came from above. In
+a word, we were all strolling divinities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Advancing toward the Chamois, one of the kings, a calm old man, now addressed
+me as follows:&mdash;&ldquo;Is this indeed Taji? he, who according to a
+tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? But that period is
+yet unexpired. What bring&rsquo;st thou hither then, Taji, before thy time?
+Thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when thou dwelt among
+our sires. But wherefore comest thou, Taji? Truly, thou wilt interfere with the
+worship of thy images, and we have plenty of gods besides thee. But comest thou
+to fight?&mdash;We have plenty of spears, and desire not thine. Comest thou to
+dwell?&mdash;Small are the houses of Mardi. Or comest thou to fish in the sea?
+Tell us, Taji.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, all this was a series of posers hard to be answered; furnishing a curious
+example, moreover, of the reception given to strange demi- gods when they
+travel without their portmanteaus; and also of the familiar manner in which
+these kings address the immortals. Much I mourned that I had not previously
+studied better my part, and learned the precise nature of my previous existence
+in the land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But nothing like carrying it bravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Attend. Taji comes, old man, because it pleases him to come. And Taji
+will depart when it suits him. Ask the shades of your sires whether Taji thus
+scurvily greeted them, when they came stalking into his presence in the land of
+spirits. No. Taji spread the banquet. He removed their mantles. He kindled a
+fire to drive away the damp. He said not, &lsquo;Come you to fight, you fogs
+and vapors? come you to dwell? or come you to fish in the sea?&rsquo; Go to,
+then, kings of Mardi!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this, the old king fell back; and his place was supplied by a noble chief,
+of a free, frank bearing. Advancing quickly toward the boat, he
+exclaimed&mdash;&ldquo;I am Media, the son of Media. Thrice welcome, Taji. On
+my island of Odo hast thou an altar. I claim thee for my guest.&rdquo; He then
+reminded the rest, that the strangers had voyaged far, and needed repose. And,
+furthermore, that he proposed escorting them forthwith to his own dominions;
+where, next day, he would be happy to welcome all visitants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And good as his word, he commanded his followers to range themselves under the
+Chamois. Springing out of our prow, the Upoluan was followed by Jarl; leaving
+Yillah and Taji to be borne therein toward the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon, we were once more afloat; by our side, Media sociably seated; six of his
+paddlers, perched upon the gunwale, swiftly urging us over the lagoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The transition from the grove to the sea was instantaneous. All seemed a dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The place to which we were hastening, being some distance away, as we rounded
+isle after isle, the extent of the Archipelago grew upon us greatly.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0055"></a>
+CHAPTER LV.<br/>
+Tiffin In A Temple</h2>
+
+<p>
+Upon at last drawing nigh to Odo, its appearance somewhat disappointed me. A
+small island, of moderate elevation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But plumb not the height of the house that feasts you. The beach was lined with
+expectant natives, who, lifting the Chamois, carried us up the beach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alighting, as they were bearing us along, King Media, designating a canoe-house
+hard by, ordered our craft to be deposited therein. This being done, we stepped
+upon the soil. It was the first we had pressed in very many days. It sent a
+sympathetic thrill through our frames.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turning his steps inland, Media signed us to follow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon we came to a rude sort of inclosure, fenced in by an imposing wall. Here a
+halt was sounded, and in great haste the natives proceeded to throw down a
+portion of the stones. This accomplished, we were signed to enter the fortress
+thus carried by storm. Upon an artificial mound, opposite the breach, stood a
+small structure of bamboo, open in front. Within, was a long pedestal, like a
+settee, supporting three images, also of wood, and about the size of men;
+bearing, likewise, a remote resemblance to that species of animated nature.
+Before these idols was an altar, and at its base many fine mats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Entering the temple, as if he felt very much at home, Media disposed these mats
+so as to form a very pleasant lounge; where he deferentially entreated Yillah
+to recline. Then deliberately removing the first idol, he motioned me to seat
+myself in its place. Setting aside the middle one, he quietly established
+himself in its stead. The displaced ciphers, meanwhile, standing upright before
+us, and their blank faces looking upon this occasion unusually expressive. As
+yet, not a syllable as to the meaning of this cavalier treatment of their
+wooden godships.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We now tranquilly awaited what next might happen, and I earnestly prayed, that
+if sacrilege was being committed, the vengeance of the gods might be averted
+from an ignoramus like me; notwithstanding the petitioner himself hailed from
+the other world. Perfect silence was preserved: Jarl and Samoa standing a
+little without the temple; the first looking quite composed, but his comrade
+casting wondering glances at my sociable apotheosis with Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now happening to glance upon the image last removed, I was not long in
+detecting a certain resemblance between it and our host. Both were decorated in
+the same manner; the carving on the idol exactly corresponding with the
+tattooing of the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, the silence was relieved by a commotion without: and a butler
+approached, staggering under an immense wooden trencher; which, with profound
+genuflexions, he deposited upon the altar before us. The tray was loaded like
+any harvest wain; heaped up with good things sundry and divers: Bread-fruit,
+and cocoanuts, and plantains, and guavas; all pleasant to the eye, and
+furnishing good earnest of something equally pleasant to the palate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Transported at the sight of these viands, after so long an estrangement from
+full indulgence in things green, I was forthwith proceeding to help Yillah and
+myself, when, like lightning, a most unwelcome query obtruded. Did deities
+dine? Then also recurred what Media had declared about my shrine in Odo. Was
+this it? Self- sacrilegious demigod that I was, was I going to gluttonize on
+the very offerings, laid before me in my own sacred fane? Give heed to thy
+ways, oh Taji, lest thou stumble and be lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But hereupon, what saw we, but his cool majesty of Odo tranquilly proceeding to
+lunch in the temple?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How now? Was Media too a god? Egad, it must be so. Else, why his image here in
+the fane, and the original so entirely at his ease, with legs full cosily
+tucked away under the very altar itself. This put to flight all appalling
+apprehensions of the necessity of starving to keep up the assumption of my
+divinity. So without more ado I helped myself right and left; taking the best
+care of Yillah; who over fed her flushed beauty with juicy fruits, thereby
+transferring to her cheek the sweet glow of the guava.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our hunger appeased, and Media in token thereof celestially laying his hand
+upon the appropriate region, we proceeded to quit the inclosure. But coming to
+the wall where the breach had been made, lo, and behold, no breach was to be
+seen. But down it came tumbling again, and forth we issued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This overthrowing of walls, be it known, is an incidental compliment paid
+distinguished personages in this part of Mardi. It would seem to signify, that
+such gentry can go nowhere without creating an impression; even upon the most
+obdurate substances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to return to our ambrosial lunch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sublimate, as you will, the idea of our ethereality as intellectual beings; no
+sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast deal of satisfaction
+in dining. More: there is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare.
+Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And well knowing this, nature has provided this jolly round board, our globe,
+which in an endless sequence of courses and crops, spreads a perpetual feast.
+Though, as with most public banquets, there is no small crowding, and many go
+away famished from plenty.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0056"></a>
+CHAPTER LVI.<br/>
+King Media A Host</h2>
+
+<p>
+Striking into a grove, about sunset we emerged upon a fine, clear space, and
+spied a city in the woods.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the middle of all, like a generalissimo&rsquo;s marquee among tents, was a
+structure more imposing than the rest. Here, abode King Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were many palm posts staked
+firmly in the earth. A man&rsquo;s height from the ground, these supported
+numerous horizontal trunks, upon which lay a flooring of habiscus. High over
+this dais, but resting upon independent supports beyond, a gable-ended roof
+sloped away to within a short distance of the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was the palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We entered it by an arched, arbored entrance, at one of its palmetto-thatched
+ends. But not through this exclusive portal entered the Islanders. Humbly
+stooping, they found ingress under the drooping eaves. A custom immemorial, and
+well calculated to remind all contumacious subjects of the dignity of the
+habitation thus entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three steps led to the summit of the dais, where piles of soft mats, and light
+pillows of woven grass, stuffed with the golden down of a wild thistle, invited
+all loiterers to lounge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How pleasant the twilight that welled up from under the low eaves, above which
+we were seated. And how obvious now the design of the roof. No shade more
+grateful and complete; the garish sun lingering without like some lackey in
+waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But who is this in the corner, gaping at us like a butler in a quandary?
+Media&rsquo;s household deity, in the guise of a plethoric monster, his
+enormous head lolling back, and wide, gaping mouth stuffed full of fresh fruits
+and green leaves. Truly, had the idol possessed a soul under his knotty ribs,
+how tantalizing to hold so glorious a mouthful without the power of
+deglutition. Far worse than the inexorable lock-jaw, which will not admit of
+the step preliminary to a swallow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This jolly Josh image was that of an inferior deity, the god of Good Cheer, and
+often after, we met with his merry round mouth in many other abodes in Mardi.
+Daily, his jaws are replenished, as a flower vase in summer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But did the demi-divine Media thus brook the perpetual presence of a subaltern
+divinity? Still more; did he render it homage? But ere long the Mardian
+mythology will be discussed, thereby making plain what may now seem anomalous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Politely escorting us into his palace, Media did the honors by inviting his
+guests to recline. He then seemed very anxious to impress us with the fact,
+that, by bringing us to his home, and thereby charging the royal larder with
+our maintenance, he had taken no hasty or imprudent step. His merry butlers
+kept piling round us viands, till we were well nigh walled in. At every fresh
+deposit, Media directing our attention to the same, as yet additional evidence
+of his ample resources as a host. The evidence was finally closed by dragging
+under the eaves a felled plantain tree, the spike of red ripe fruit, sprouting
+therefrom, blushing all over, at so rude an introduction to the notice of
+strangers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During this scene, Jarl was privily nudging Samoa, in wonderment, to know what
+upon earth it all meant. But Samoa, scarcely deigning to notice interrogatories
+propounded through the elbow, only let drop a vague hint or two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was quite amusing, what airs Samoa now gave himself, at least toward my
+Viking. Among the Mardians he was at home. And who, when there, stretches not
+out his legs, and says unto himself, &ldquo;Who is greater than I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To be plain: concerning himself and the Skyeman, the tables were turned. At
+sea, Jarl had been the oracle: an old sea-sage, learned in hemp and helm. But
+our craft high and dry, the Upoluan lifted his crest as the erudite pagan;
+master of Gog and Magog, expounder of all things heathenish and obscure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour or two was now laughed away in very charming conversation with Media;
+when I hinted, that a couch and solitude would be acceptable. Whereupon,
+seizing a taper, our host escorted us without the palace. And ushering us into
+a handsome unoccupied mansion, gave me to understand that the same was mine.
+Mounting to the dais, he then instituted a vigorous investigation, to discern
+whether every thing was in order. Not fancying something about the mats, he
+rolled them up into bundles, and one by one sent them flying at the heads of
+his servitors; who, upon that gentle hint made off with them, soon after
+returning with fresh ones. These, with mathematical precision, Media in person
+now spread on the dais; looking carefully to the fringes or ruffles with which
+they were bordered, as if striving to impart to them a sentimental expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This done, he withdrew.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0057"></a>
+CHAPTER LVII.<br/>
+Taji Takes Counsel With Himself</h2>
+
+<p>
+My brief intercourse with our host, had by this time enabled me to form a
+pretty good notion of the light, in which I was held by him and his more
+intelligent subjects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my assumptions,
+he was no way overawed by them; treating me as familiarly, indeed, as if I were
+a mere mortal, one of the abject generation of mushrooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The scene in the temple, however, had done much toward explaining this demeanor
+of his. A demi-god in his own proper person, my claims to a similar dignity
+neither struck him with wonder, nor lessened his good opinion of himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for any thing foreign in my aspect, and my ignorance of Mardian
+customs&mdash;-all this, instead of begetting a doubt unfavorable to my
+pretensions, but strengthened the conviction of them as verities. Thus has it
+been in similar instances; but to a much greater extent. The celebrated
+navigator referred to in a preceding chapter, was hailed by the Hawaiians as
+one of their demi-gods, returned to earth, after a wide tour of the universe.
+And they worshiped him as such, though incessantly he was interrogating them,
+as to who under the sun his worshipers were; how their ancestors came on the
+island; and whether they would have the kindness to provide his followers with
+plenty of pork during his stay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a word or two concerning the idols in the shrine at Odo. Superadded to the
+homage rendered him as a temporal prince, Media was there worshiped as a
+spiritual being. In his corporeal absence, his effigy receiving all oblations
+intended for him. And in the days of his boyhood, listening to the old legends
+of the Mardian mythology, Media had conceived a strong liking for the fabulous
+Taji; a deity whom he had often declared was worthy a niche in any temple
+extant. Hence he had honored my image with a place in his own special shrine;
+placing it side by side with his worshipful likeness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I appreciated the compliment. But of the close companionship of the other image
+there, I was heartily ashamed. And with reason. The nuisance in question being
+the image of a deified maker of plantain- pudding, lately deceased; who had
+been famed far and wide as the most notable fellow of his profession in the
+whole Archipelago. During his sublunary career, having been attached to the
+household of Media, his grateful master had afterward seen fit to crown his
+celebrity by this posthumous distinction: a circumstance sadly subtracting from
+the dignity of an apotheosis. Nor must it here be omitted, that in this part of
+Mardi culinary artists are accounted worthy of high consideration. For among
+these people of Odo, the matter of eating and drinking is held a matter of life
+and of death. &ldquo;Drag away my queen from my arms,&rdquo; said old Tyty when
+overcome of Adommo, &ldquo;but leave me my cook.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, among the Mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to keep me in
+countenance. Most of the kings of the Archipelago, besides Media, claiming
+homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of hereditary descent, the divine
+spark being transmissable from father to son. In illustration of this, was the
+fact, that in several instances the people of the land addressed the supreme
+god Oro, in the very same terms employed in the political adoration of their
+sublunary rulers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ay: there were deities in Mardi far greater and taller than I: right royal
+monarchs to boot, living in jolly round tabernacles of jolly brown clay; and
+feasting, and roystering, and lording it in yellow tabernacles of bamboo. These
+demi-gods had wherewithal to sustain their lofty pretensions. If need were,
+could crush out of him the infidelity of a non-conformist. And by this
+immaculate union of church and state, god and king, in their own proper persons
+reigned supreme Caesars over the souls and bodies of their subjects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside these mighty magnates, I and my divinity shrank into nothing. In their
+woodland ante-chambers plebeian deities were kept lingering. For be it known,
+that in due time we met with several decayed, broken down demi-gods: magnificos
+of no mark in Mardi; having no temples wherein to feast personal admirers, or
+spiritual devotees. They wandered about forlorn and friendless. And oftentimes
+in their dinnerless despair hugely gluttonized, and would fain have grown fat,
+by reflecting upon the magnificence of their genealogies. But poor fellows!
+like shabby Scotch lords in London in King James&rsquo;s time, the very
+multitude of them confounded distinction. And since they could show no
+rent-roll, they were permitted to fume unheeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in Mardi, that I
+held my divinity but cheaply. And seeing such a host of immortals, and hearing
+of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their nature, haunting woodlands and
+streams; my views of theology grew strangely confused; I began to bethink me of
+the Jew that rejected the Talmud, and his all-permeating principle, to which
+Goethe and others have subscribed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to palm myself
+off as a god&mdash;the way in which the thing first impressed me&mdash;I now
+perceived that I might be a god as much as I pleased, and yet not whisk a
+lion&rsquo;s tail after all at least on that special account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Media&rsquo;s reception, its graciousness was not wholly owing to the
+divine character imputed to me. His, he believed to be the same. But to a whim,
+a freakishness in his soul, which led him to fancy me as one among many, not as
+one with no peer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the apparent unconcern of King Media with respect to my godship, by no
+means so much surprised me, as his unaffected indifference to my amazing voyage
+from the sun; his indifference to the sun itself; and all the wonderful
+circumstances that must have attended my departure. Whether he had ever been
+there himself, that he regarded a solar trip with so much unconcern, almost
+became a question in my mind. Certain it is, that as a mere traveler he must
+have deemed me no very great prodigy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My surprise at these things was enhanced by reflecting, that to the people of
+the Archipelago the map of Mardi was the map of the world. With the exception
+of certain islands out of sight and at an indefinite distance, they had no
+certain knowledge of any isles but their own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And, no long time elapsed ere I had still additional reasons to cease wondering
+at the easy faith accorded to the story which I had given of myself. For these
+Mardians were familiar with still greater marvels than mine; verily believing
+in prodigies of all sorts. Any one of them put my exploits to the blush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Look to thy ways then, Taji, thought I, and carry not thy crest too high. Of a
+surety, thou hast more peers than inferiors. Thou art overtopped all round.
+Bear thyself discreetly and not haughtily, Taji. It will not answer to give
+thyself airs. Abstain from all consequential allusions to the other world, and
+the genteel deities among whom thou hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy
+raiment, because it is novel in Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy
+Chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree, Taji; for
+Media himself will measure it with thee there by the furlong. Be not a
+&ldquo;snob,&rdquo; Taji.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So then, weighing all things well, and myself severely, I resolved to follow my
+Mentor&rsquo;s wise counsel; neither arrogating aught, nor abating of just
+dues; but circulating freely, sociably, and frankly, among the gods, heroes,
+high priests, kings, and gentlemen, that made up the principalities of Mardi.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0058"></a>
+CHAPTER LVIII.<br/>
+Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day</h2>
+
+<p>
+During the night following our arrival, many dreams were no doubt dreamt in
+Odo. But my thoughts were wakeful. And while all others slept, obeying a
+restless impulse, I stole without into the magical starlight. There are those
+who in a strange land ever love to view it by night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has been said, that the opening in the groves where was situated
+Media&rsquo;s city, was elevated above the surrounding plains. Hence was
+commanded a broad reach of prospect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Far and wide was deep low-sobbing repose of man and nature. The groves were
+motionless; and in the meadows, like goblins, the shadows advanced and
+retreated. Full before me, lay the Mardian fleet of isles, profoundly at anchor
+within their coral harbor. Near by was one belted round by a frothy luminous
+reef, wherein it lay, like Saturn in its ring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From all their summits, went up a milk-white smoke, as from Indian wigwams in
+the hazy harvest-moon. And floating away, these vapors blended with the faint
+mist, as of a cataract, hovering over the circumvallating reef. Far beyond all,
+and far into the infinite night, surged the jet-black ocean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how tranquil the wide lagoon, which mirrored the burning spots in heaven!
+Deep down into its innermost heart penetrated the slanting rays of Hesperus
+like a shaft of light, sunk far into mysterious Golcondas, where myriad gnomes
+seemed toiling. Soon a light breeze rippled the water, and the shaft was seen
+no more. But the moon&rsquo;s bright wake was still revealed: a silver track,
+tipping every wave-crest in its course, till each seemed a pearly,
+scroll-prowed nautilus, buoyant with some elfin crew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From earth to heaven! High above me was Night&rsquo;s shadowy bower, traversed,
+vine-like, by the Milky Way, and heavy with golden clusterings. Oh stars! oh
+eyes, that see me, wheresoe&rsquo;er I roam: serene, intent, inscrutable for
+aye, tell me Sybils, what I am.&mdash;Wondrous worlds on worlds! Lo, round and
+round me, shining, awful spells: all glorious, vivid constellations,
+God&rsquo;s diadem ye are! To you, ye stars, man owes his subtlest raptures,
+thoughts unspeakable, yet full of faith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how your mild effulgence stings the boding heart. Am I a murderer, stars?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hours pass. The starry trance is departed. Long waited for, the dawn now comes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First, breaking along the waking face; peeping from out the languid lids; then
+shining forth in longer glances; till, like the sun, up comes the soul, and
+sheds its rays abroad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When thus my Yillah did daily dawn, how she lit up my world; tinging more
+rosily the roseate clouds, that in her summer cheek played to and fro, like
+clouds in Italian air.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0059"></a>
+CHAPTER LIX.<br/>
+Their Morning Meal</h2>
+
+<p>
+Not wholly is our world made up of bright stars and bright eyes: so now to our
+story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A conscientious host should ever be up betimes, to look after the welfare of
+his guests, and see to it that their day begin auspiciously. King Media
+announced the advent of the sun, by rustling at my bower&rsquo;s eaves in
+person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A repast was spread in an adjoining arbor, which Media&rsquo;s pages had
+smoothed for our reception, and where his subordinate chiefs were in
+attendance. Here we reclined upon mats. Balmy and fresh blew the breath of the
+morning; golden vapors were upon the mountains, silver sheen upon the grass;
+and the birds were at matins in the groves; their bright plumage flashing into
+view, here and there, as if some rainbow were crouching in the foliage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spread before us were viands, served in quaint-shaped, curiously-dyed gourds,
+not Sevres, but almost as tasteful; and like true porcelain, fire had tempered
+them. Green and yielding, they are plucked from the tree; and emptied of their
+pulp, are scratched over with minute marks, like those of a line engraving. The
+ground prepared, the various figures are carefully etched. And the outlines
+filled up with delicate punctures, certain vegetable oils are poured over them,
+for coloring. Filled with a peculiar species of earth, the gourd is now placed
+in an oven in the ground. And in due time exhumed, emptied of its contents, and
+washed in the stream, it presents a deep-dyed exterior; every figure distinctly
+traced and opaque, but the ground semi-transparent. In some cases, owing to the
+variety of dyes employed, each figure is of a different hue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More glorious goblets than these for the drinking of wine, went never from hand
+to mouth. Capacious as pitchers, they almost superseded decanters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, in a tropical climate, fruit, with light wines, forms the only fit meal of
+a morning. And with orchards and vineyards forever in sight, who but the Hetman
+of the Cossacs would desire more? We had plenty of the juice of the grape. But
+of this hereafter; there are some fine old cellars, and plenty of good cheer in
+store.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the repast, Media, for a time, was much taken up with our raiment. He
+begged me to examine for a moment the texture of his right royal robe, and
+observe how much superior it was to my own. It put my mantle to the blush;
+being tastefully stained with rare devices in red and black; and bordered with
+dyed fringes of feathers, and tassels of red birds&rsquo; claws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next came under observation the Skyeman&rsquo;s Guayaquil hat; at whose
+preposterous shape, our host laughed in derision; clapping a great conical
+calabash upon the head of an attendant, and saying that now he was Jarl. At
+this, and all similar sallies, Samoa was sure to roar louder than any; though
+mirth was no constitutional thing with him. But he seemed rejoiced at the
+opportunity of turning upon us the ridicule, which as a barbarian among whites,
+he himself had so often experienced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These pleasantries over, King Media very slightly drew himself up, as if to
+make amends for his previous unbending. He discoursed imperially with his
+chiefs; nodded his sovereign will to his pages; called for another gourd of
+wine; in all respects carrying his royalty bravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The repast concluded, we journeyed to the canoe-house, where we found the
+little Chamois stabled like a steed. One solitary depredation had been
+committed. Its sides and bottom had been completely denuded of the minute green
+barnacles, and short sea-grass, which, like so many leeches, had fastened to
+our planks during our long, lazy voyage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the people they had been devoured as dainties.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0060"></a>
+CHAPTER LX.<br/>
+Belshazzar On The Bench</h2>
+
+<p>
+Now, Media was king of Odo. And from the simplicity of his manners hitherto,
+and his easy, frank demeanor toward ourselves, had we foolishly doubted that
+fact, no skepticism could have survived an illustration of it, which this very
+day we witnessed at noon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For at high noon, Media was wont to don his dignity with his symbols of state;
+and sit on his judgment divan or throne, to hear and try all causes brought
+before him, and fulminate his royal decrees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This divan was elevated at one end of a spacious arbor, formed by an avenue of
+regal palms, which in brave state, held aloft their majestical canopy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crown of the island prince was of the primitive old Eastern style; in
+shape, similar, perhaps, to that jauntily sported as a foraging cap by his
+sacred majesty King Nimrod, who so lustily followed the hounds. It was a
+plaited turban of red tappa, radiated by the pointed and polished white bones
+of the Ray-fish. These diverged from a bandeau or fillet of the most precious
+pearls; brought up from the sea by the deepest diving mermen of Mardi. From the
+middle of the crown rose a tri-foiled spear-head. And a spear- headed scepter
+graced the right hand of the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, for all the rant of your democrats, a fine king on a throne is a very fine
+sight to behold. He looks very much like a god. No wonder that his more dutiful
+subjects so swore, that their good lord and master King Media was demi-divine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A king on his throne! Ah, believe me, ye Gracchi, ye Acephali, ye Levelers, it
+is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at Babylon the Tremendous,
+when Nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old Scone in the days of Macbeth; at
+Rheims, among Oriflammes, at the coronation of Louis le Grand; at Westminster
+Abbey, when the gentlemanly George doffed his beaver for a diadem; or under the
+soft shade of palm trees on an isle in the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that Gabriel might
+well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold it in heaven. But
+Darius giving laws to the Medes and the Persians, or the conqueror of Bactria
+with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a whit more sublime, than Beau
+Brummel magnificently ringing for his valet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A king on his throne! It is Jupiter nodding in the councils of Olympus; Satan,
+seen among the coronets in Hell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A king on his throne! It is the sun over a mountain; the sun over law-giving
+Sinai; the sun in our system: planets, duke-like, dancing attendance, and
+baronial satellites in waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A king on his throne! After all, but a gentleman seated. And thus sat the good
+lord, King Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Time passed. And after trying and dismissing several minor affairs, Media
+called for certain witnesses to testify concerning one Jiromo, a foolhardy
+wight, who had been silly enough to plot against the majesty now sitting judge
+and jury upon him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His guilt was clear. And the witnesses being heard, from a bunch of palm plumes
+Media taking a leaf, placed it in the hand of a runner or pursuivant, saying,
+&ldquo;This to Jiromo, where he is prisoned; with his king&rsquo;s compliments;
+say we here wait for his head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was doffed like a turban before a Dey, and brought back on the instant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now came certain lean-visaged, poverty-stricken, and hence suspicious-looking
+varlets, grumbling and growling, and amiable as Bruin. They came muttering some
+wild jargon about &ldquo;bulwarks,&rdquo; &ldquo;bulkheads,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;cofferdams,&rdquo; &ldquo;safeguards,&rdquo; &ldquo;noble
+charters,&rdquo; &ldquo;shields,&rdquo; and &ldquo;paladiums,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;great and glorious birthrights,&rdquo; and other unintelligible
+gibberish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the pursuivants, these worthies asked audience of Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go, kneel at the throne,&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our knee-pans are stiff with sciatics,&rdquo; was the rheumatic reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An artifice to keep on your legs,&rdquo; said the pursuivants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And advancing they salamed, and told Media the excuse of those sour-looking
+varlets. Whereupon my lord commanded them to down on their marrow-bones
+instanter, either before him or the headsman, whichsoever they pleased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They preferred the former. And as they there kneeled, in vain did men with
+sharp ears (who abound in all courts) prick their auriculars, to list to that
+strange crackling and firing off of bone balls and sockets, ever incident to
+the genuflections of rheumatic courtiers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a row, then, these selfsame knee-pans did kneel before the king; who eyed
+them as eagles in air do goslings on dunghills; or hunters, hounds crouching
+round their calves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your prayer?&rdquo; said Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a petition, that thereafter all differences between man and man in Ode,
+together with all alleged offenses against the state, might be tried by twelve
+good men and true. These twelve to be unobnoxious to the party or parties
+concerned; their peers; and previously unbiased touching the matter at issue.
+Furthermore, that unanimity in these twelve should be indispensable to a
+verdict; and no dinner be vouchsafed till unanimity came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Loud and long laughed King Media in scorn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This be your judge,&rdquo; he cried, swaying his scepter. &ldquo;What!
+are twelve wise men more wise than one? or will twelve fools, put together,
+make one sage? Are twelve honest men more honest than one? or twelve knaves
+less knavish than one? And if, of twelve men, three be fools, and three wise,
+three knaves, and three upright, how obtain real unanimity from such?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if twelve judges be better than one, then are twelve hundred better
+than twelve. But take the whole populace for a judge, and you will long wait
+for a unanimous verdict.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If upon a thing dubious, there be little unanimity in the conflicting
+opinions of one man&rsquo;s mind, how expect it in the uproar of twelve puzzled
+brains? though much unanimity be found in twelve hungry stomachs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Judges unobnoxious to the accused! Apply it to a criminal case. Ha! ha!
+if peradventure a Cacti be rejected, because he had seen the accused commit the
+crime for which he is arraigned. Then, his mind would be biased: no
+impartiality from him! Or your testy accused might object to another, because
+of his tomahawk nose, or a cruel squint of the eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of all follies the most foolish! Know ye from me, that true peers render
+not true verdicts. Jiromo was a rebel. Had I tried him by his peers, I had
+tried him by rebels; and the rebel had rebelled to some purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Away! As unerring justice dwells in a unity, and as one judge will at
+last judge the world beyond all appeal; so&mdash;though often here below
+justice be hard to attain&mdash;does man come nearest the mark, when he
+imitates that model divine. Hence, one judge is better than twelve.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And as Justice, in ideal, is ever painted high lifted above the crowd;
+so, from the exaltation of his rank, an honest king is the best of those unical
+judges, which individually are better than twelve. And therefore am I, King
+Media, the best judge in this land.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Subjects! so long as I live, I will rule you and judge you alone. And
+though you here kneeled before me till you grew into the ground, and there took
+root, no yea to your petition will you get from this throne. I am king: ye are
+slaves. Mine to command: yours to obey. And this hour I decree, that henceforth
+no gibberish of bulwarks and bulkheads be heard in this land. For a dead
+bulwark and a bulkhead, to dam off sedition, will I make of that man, who again
+but breathes those bulky words. Ho! spears! see that these knee-pans here kneel
+till set of sun.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+High noon was now passed; and removing his crown, and placing it on the dais
+for the kneelers to look at during their devotions, King Media departed from
+that place, and once more played the agreeable host.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0061"></a>
+CHAPTER LXI.<br/>
+An Incognito</h2>
+
+<p>
+For the rest of that day, and several that followed, we were continually
+receiving visits from the neighboring islands; whose inhabitants in fleets and
+flotillas flocked round Odo to behold the guests of its lord. Among them came
+many messengers from the neighboring kings with soft speeches and gifts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it were needless to detail our various interviews, or relate in what
+manifold ways, the royal strangers gave token of their interest concerning us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon the third day, however, there was noticed a mysterious figure, like the
+inscrutable incognitos sometimes encountered, crossing the tower-shadowed Plaza
+of Assignations at Lima. It was enveloped in a dark robe of tappa, so drawn and
+plaited about the limbs; and with one hand, so wimpled about the face, as only
+to expose a solitary eye. But that eye was a world. Now it was fixed upon
+Yillah with a sinister glance, and now upon me, but with a different
+expression. However great the crowd, however tumultuous, that fathomless eye
+gazed on; till at last it seemed no eye, but a spirit, forever prying into my
+soul. Often I strove to approach it, but it would evade me, soon reappearing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pointing out the apparition to Media, I intreated him to take means to fix it,
+that my suspicions might be dispelled, as to its being incorporeal. He replied
+that, by courtesy, incognitos were sacred. Insomuch that the close-plaited robe
+and the wimple were secure as a castle. At last, to my relief, the phantom
+disappeared, and was seen no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Numerous and fervent the invitations received to return the calls wherewith we
+were honored. But for the present we declined them; preferring to establish
+ourselves firmly in the heart of Media, ere encountering the vicissitudes of
+roaming. In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful
+friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, while these civilities were being received, and on the fourth morning
+after our arrival, there landed on the beach three black-eyed damsels, deep
+brunettes, habited in long variegated robes, and with gay blossoms on their
+heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With many salams, the strangers were ushered into my presence by an old
+white-haired servitor of Media&rsquo;s, who with a parting congé murmured,
+&ldquo;From Queen Hautia,&rdquo; then departed. Surprised, I stood mute, and
+welcomed them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first, with many smiles and blandishments, waved before me a many-tinted
+Iris: the flag-flower streaming with pennons. Advancing, the second then
+presented three rose-hued purple-veined Circea flowers, the dew still clinging
+to them. The third placed in my hand a moss-rose bud; then, a Venus-car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks for your favors! now your message.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Starting at this reception, graciously intended, they conferred a moment; when
+the Iris-bearer said in winning phrase, &ldquo;We come from Hautia, whose
+moss-rose you hold.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All thanks to Hautia then; the bud is very fragrant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she pointed to the Venus-car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This too is sweet; thanks to Hautia for her flowers. Pray, bring me
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He mocks our mistress,&rdquo; and gliding from me, they waved witch-
+hazels, leaving me alone and wondering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Informing Media of this scene, he smiled; threw out queer hints of Hautia; but
+knew not what her message meant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first this affair occasioned me no little uneasiness, with much matter for
+marveling; but in the novel pleasure of our sojourn in Odo, it soon slipped
+from my mind; nor for some time, did I again hear aught of Queen Hautia.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0062"></a>
+CHAPTER LXII.<br/>
+Taji Retires From The World</h2>
+
+<p>
+After a while, when the strangers came not in shoals as before, I proposed to
+our host, a stroll over his dominions; desirous of beholding the same, and
+secretly induced by the hope of selecting an abode, more agreeable to my
+fastidious taste, than the one already assigned me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ramble over&mdash;a pleasant one it was&mdash;it resulted in a
+determination on my part to quit Odo. Yet not to go very far; only ten or
+twelve yards, to a little green tuft of an islet; one of many, which here and
+there, all round the island, nestled like birds&rsquo; nests in the branching
+boughs of the coral grove, whose roots laid hold of the foundations of the
+deep. Between these islets and the shore, extended shelving ledges, with
+shallows above, just sufficient to float a canoe. One of these islets was
+wooded and wined; an arbor in the sea. And here, Media permitting, I decided to
+dwell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not long was Media in complying; nor long, ere my retreat was in readiness.
+Laced together, the twisting boughs were closely thatched. And thatched were
+the sides also, with deep crimson pandannus leaves; whose long, forked spears,
+lifted by the breeze, caused the whole place to blaze, as with flames. Canes,
+laid on palm trunks, formed the floor. How elastic! In vogue all over Odo,
+among the chiefs, it imparted such a buoyancy to the person, that to this
+special cause may be imputed in good part the famous fine spirits of the
+nobles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hypochondriac! essay the elastic flooring! It shall so pleasantly and gently
+jolt thee, as to shake up, and pack off the stagnant humors mantling thy
+pool-like soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was my dwelling. But I make no mention of sundry little appurtenances of
+tropical housekeeping: calabashes, cocoanut shells, and rolls of fine tappa;
+till with Yillah seated at last in my arbor, I looked round, and wanted for
+naught.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what of Jarl and Samoa? Why Jarl must needs be fanciful, as well as myself.
+Like a bachelor in chambers, he settled down right opposite to me, on the main
+land, in a little wigwam in the grove.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Samoa, following not his comrade&rsquo;s example, still tarried in the camp
+of the Hittites and Jebusites of Odo. Beguiling men of their leisure by his
+marvelous stories: and maidens of their hearts by his marvelous wiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I chose, I was completely undisturbed in my arbor; an ukase of
+Media&rsquo;s forbidding indiscriminate intrusion. But thrice in the day came a
+garrulous old man with my viands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus sequestered, however, I could not entirely elude the pryings of the people
+of the neighboring islands; who often passed by, slowly paddling, and earnestly
+regarding my retreat. But gliding along at a distance, and never essaying a
+landing, their occasional vicinity troubled me but little. But now and then of
+an evening, when thick and fleet the shadows were falling, dim glimpses of a
+canoe would be spied; hovering about the place like a ghost. And once, in the
+stillness of the night, hearing the near ripple of a prow, I sallied forth, but
+the phantom quickly departed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night, Yillah shuddered as she slept. &ldquo;The whirl-pool,&rdquo; she
+murmured, &ldquo;sweet mosses.&rdquo; Next day she was lost in reveries,
+plucking pensive hyacinths, or gazing intently into the lagoon.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0063"></a>
+CHAPTER LXIII.<br/>
+Odo And Its Lord</h2>
+
+<p>
+Time now to enter upon some further description of the island and its lord.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And first for Media: a gallant gentleman and king. From a goodly stock he came.
+In his endless pedigree, reckoning deities by decimals, innumerable kings, and
+scores of great heroes, chiefs, and priests. Nor in person, did he belie his
+origin. No far-descended dwarf was he, the least of a receding race. He stood
+like a palm tree; about whose acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the
+silken fringes, than Media&rsquo;s locks upon his noble brow. Strong was his
+arm to wield the club, or hurl the javelin; and potent, I ween, round a
+maiden&rsquo;s waist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus much here for Media. Now comes his isle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by itself; full of beauties
+as a garden; chequered by charming groves; watered by roving brooks; and
+fringed all round by a border of palm trees, whose roots drew nourishment from
+the water. But though abounding in other quarters of the Archipelago, not a
+solitary bread-fruit grew in Odo. A noteworthy circumstance, observable in
+these regions, where islands close adjoining, so differ in their soil, that
+certain fruits growing genially in one, are foreign to another. But Odo was
+famed for its guavas, whose flavor was likened to the flavor of new-blown lips;
+and for its grapes, whose juices prompted many a laugh and many a groan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside the city where Media dwelt, there were few other clusters of habitations
+in Odo. The higher classes living, here and there, in separate households; but
+not as eremites. Some buried themselves in the cool, quivering bosoms of the
+groves. Others, fancying a marine vicinity, dwelt hard by the beach in little
+cages of bamboo; whence of mornings they sallied out with jocund cries, and
+went plunging into the refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the threshold
+of their dwellings. Others still, like birds, built their nests among the
+sylvan nooks of the elevated interior; whence all below, and hazy green, lay
+steeped in languor the island&rsquo;s throbbing heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. The common sort, including serfs,
+and Helots, war-captives held in bondage, lived in secret places, hard to find.
+Whence it came, that, to a stranger, the whole isle looked care-free and
+beautiful. Deep among the ravines and the rocks, these beings lived in noisome
+caves, lairs for beasts, not human homes; or built them coops of rotten
+boughs&mdash;living trees were banned them&mdash;whose mouldy hearts hatched
+vermin. Fearing infection of some plague, born of this filth, the chiefs of Odo
+seldom passed that way and looking round within their green retreats, and
+pouring out their wine, and plucking from orchards of the best, marveled how
+these swine could grovel in the mire, and wear such sallow cheeks. But they
+offered no sweet homes; from that mire they never sought to drag them out; they
+open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the mandates that condemned their
+drudges to a life of deaths. Sad sight! to see those round-shouldered Helots,
+stooping in their trenches: artificial, three in number, and concentric: the
+isle well nigh surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from
+heaven, and bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious Taro.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toil is man&rsquo;s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief
+that&rsquo;s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man
+toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to
+them&mdash;then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with
+these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be the brutes they seemed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed, and plenty
+without a pause?&mdash;Odo, in whose lurking-places infants turned from
+breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.&mdash;Odo, in whose inmost haunts, dark
+groves were brooding, passing which you heard most dismal cries, and voices
+cursing Media. There, men were scourged; their crime, a heresy; the heresy,
+that Media was no demigod. For this they shrieked. Their fathers shrieked
+before; their fathers, who, tormented, said, &ldquo;Happy we to groan, that our
+children&rsquo;s children may be glad.&rdquo; But their children&rsquo;s
+children howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous generations, and loudly swore,
+&ldquo;The pit that&rsquo;s dug for us may prove another&rsquo;s grave.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo seemed a happy
+land. The palm-trees waved&mdash;though here and there you marked one sear and
+palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed&mdash;though dead ones moldered in decay;
+the waves ran up the strand in glee&mdash;though, receding, they sometimes left
+behind bones mixed with shells.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle. Did men in
+Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon&rsquo;s fountain there? For near and far,
+you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations harvested in winrows. In
+Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a gentle epitaph; no
+requiescat-in-pace mocked a sinner damned; no memento-mori admonished men to
+live while yet they might. Here Death hid his skull; and hid it in the sea, the
+common sepulcher of Odo. Not dust to dust, but dust to brine; not hearses but
+canoes. For all who died upon that isle were carried out beyond the outer reef,
+and there were buried with their sires&rsquo; sires. Hence came the thought,
+that of gusty nights, when round the isles, and high toward heaven, flew the
+white reef&rsquo;s rack and foam, that then and there, kept chattering watch
+and ward, the myriads that were ocean-tombed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But why these watery obsequies?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead, and
+Life&rsquo;s small colony be dislodged by Death&rsquo;s grim hosts; as the
+gaunt tribes of Tamerlane o&rsquo;erspread the tented pastures of the Khan?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now, what follows, said these Islanders: &ldquo;Why sow corruption in the
+soil which yields us life? We would not pluck our grapes from over graves. This
+earth&rsquo;s an urn for flowers, not for ashes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more sublimely urned? Or do the
+minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of Charlemagne, show more of pomp, than
+all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked mariner?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not their company;
+though full soon we shall all have them for fellows.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0064"></a>
+CHAPTER LXIV.<br/>
+Yillah A Phantom</h2>
+
+<p>
+For a time we were happy in Odo: Yillah and I in our islet. Nor did the pearl
+on her bosom glow more rosily than the roses in her cheeks; though at intervals
+they waned and departed; and deadly pale was her glance, when she murmured of
+the whirlpool and mosses. As pale my soul, bethinking me of Aleema the priest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But day by day, did her spell weave round me its magic, and all the hidden
+things of her being grew more lovely and strange. Did I commune with a spirit?
+Often I thought that Paradise had overtaken me on earth, and that Yillah was
+verily an angel, and hence the mysteries that hallowed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.&mdash;Long memories
+of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours&mdash;how common are ye to
+all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say&mdash;&ldquo;Lo, thy felicity, my
+soul?&rdquo; No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back upon
+from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sped the hours, the days, the one brief moment of our joys. Fairy bower in the
+fair lagoon, scene of sylvan ease and heart&rsquo;s repose,&mdash;Oh, Yillah,
+Yillah! All the woods repeat the sound, the wild, wild woods of my wild soul.
+Yillah! Yillah! cry the small strange voices in me, and evermore, and far and
+deep, they echo on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Days passed. When one morning I found the arbor vacant. Gone! A dream. I closed
+my eyes, and would have dreamed her back. In vain. Starting, I called upon her
+name; but none replied. Fleeing from the islet, I gained the neighboring shore,
+and searched among the woods; and my comrades meeting, besought their aid. But
+idle all. No glimpse of aught, save trees and flowers. Then Media was sought
+out; the event made known; and quickly, bands were summoned to range the isle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Noon came; but no Yillah. When Media averred she was no longer in Odo. Whither
+she was gone, or how, he knew not; nor could any imagine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this juncture, there chanced to arrive certain messengers from abroad; who,
+presuming that all was well with Taji, came with renewed invitations to visit
+various pleasant places round about. Among these, came Queen Hautia&rsquo;s
+heralds, with their Iris flag, once more bringing flowers. But they came and
+went unheeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Setting out to return, these envoys were accompanied by numerous followers of
+Media, dispatched to the neighboring islands, to seek out the missing Yillah.
+But three days passed; and, one by one, they all returned; and stood before me
+silently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a time I raved. Then, falling into outer repose, lived for a space in moods
+and reveries, with eyes that knew no closing, one glance forever fixed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They strove to rouse me. Girls danced and sang; and tales of fairy times were
+told; of monstrous imps, and youths enchanted; of groves and gardens in the
+sea. Yet still I moved not, hearing all, yet noting naught. Media cried,
+&ldquo;For shame, oh Taji; thou, a god?&rdquo; and placed a spear in my
+nerveless hand. And Jarl loud called upon me to awake. Samoa marveled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still sped the days. And at length, my memory was restored. The thoughts of
+things broke over me like returning billows on a beach long bared. A rush, a
+foam of recollections!&mdash;Sweet Yillah gone, and I bereaved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another interval, and that mood was past. Misery became a memory. The keen pang
+a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though bowed
+with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls
+beneath life&rsquo;s sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may
+hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so with that other grief.
+Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck
+from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last I turned to Media, saying I must hie from Odo, and rove throughout all
+Mardi; for Yillah might yet be found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But hereafter, in words, little more of the maiden, till perchance her fate be
+learned.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0065"></a>
+CHAPTER LXV.<br/>
+Taji Makes Three Acquaintances</h2>
+
+<p>
+Down to this period, I had restrained Samoa from wandering to the neighboring
+islands, though he had much desired it, in compliance with the invitations
+continually received. But now I informed both him, and his comrade, of the tour
+I purposed; desiring their company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon the announcement of my intention to depart, to my no small surprise Media
+also proposed to accompany me: a proposition gladly embraced. It seems, that
+for some reason, he had not as yet extended his travels to the more distant
+islands. Hence the voyage in prospect was particularly agreeable to him. Nor
+did he forbear any pains to insure its prosperity; assuring me, furthermore,
+that its object must eventually be crowned with success. &ldquo;I myself am
+interested in this pursuit,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and trust me, Yillah will be
+found.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the tour of the lagoon, the docile Chamois was proposed; but Media
+dissented; saying, that it befitted not the lord of Odo to voyage in the
+equipage of his guest. Therefore, three canoes were selected from his own royal
+fleet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One for ourselves, and a trio of companions whom he purposed introducing to my
+notice; the rest were reserved for attendants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thanks to Media&rsquo;s taste and heedfulness, the strangers above mentioned
+proved truly acceptable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first was Mohi, or Braid-Beard, so called from the manner in which he wore
+that appendage, exceedingly long and gray. He was a venerable teller of stories
+and legends, one of the Keepers of the Chronicles of the Kings of Mardi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second was Babbalanja, a man of a mystical aspect, habited in a voluminous
+robe. He was learned in Mardian lore; much given to quotations from ancient and
+obsolete authorities: the Ponderings of Old Bardianna: the Pandects of
+Alla-Malolla.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Third and last, was Yoomy, or the Warbler. A youthful, long-haired, blue-eyed
+minstrel; all fits and starts; at times, absent of mind, and wan of cheek; but
+always very neat and pretty in his apparel; wearing the most becoming of
+turbans, a Bird of Paradise feather its plume, and sporting the gayest of
+sashes. Most given was Yoomy to amorous melodies, and rondos, and roundelays,
+very witching to hear. But at times disdaining the oaten reed, like a clarion
+he burst forth with lusty lays of arms and battle; or, in mournful strains,
+sounded elegies for departed bards and heroes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus much for Yoomy as a minstrel. In other respects, it would be hard to
+depict him. He was so capricious a mortal; so swayed by contrary moods; so
+lofty, so humble, so sad, so merry; so made up of a thousand contradictions,
+that we must e&rsquo;en let him depict himself as our story progresses. And
+herein it is hoped he will succeed; since no one in Mardi comprehended him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the trio, thus destined for companions on our voyage, had for some time
+been anxious to take the tour of the Archipelago. In particular, Babbalanja had
+often expressed the most ardent desire to visit every one of the isles, in
+quest of some object, mysteriously hinted. He murmured deep concern for my
+loss, the sincerest sympathy; and pressing my hand more than once, said lowly,
+&ldquo;Your pursuit is mine, noble Taji. Where&rsquo;er you search, I
+follow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So, too, Yoomy addressed me; but with still more feeling. And something like
+this, also, Braid-Beard repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to my sorrow, I marked that both Mohi and Babbalanja, especially the last,
+seemed not so buoyant of hope, concerning lost Yillah, as the youthful Yoomy,
+and his high-spirited lord, King Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As our voyage would embrace no small period of time, it behoved King Media to
+appoint some trustworthy regent, to rule during his absence. This regent was
+found in Almanni, a stem-eyed, resolute warrior, a kinsman of the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All things at last in readiness, and the ensuing morning appointed for a start,
+Media, on the beach, at eventide, when both light and water waned, drew a rude
+map of the lagoon, to compensate for the obstructions in the way of a
+comprehensive glance at it from Odo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thus was sketched the plan of our voyage; which islands first to visit; and
+which to touch at, when we should be homeward bound.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0066"></a>
+CHAPTER LXVI.<br/>
+With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail</h2>
+
+<p>
+True each to his word, up came the sun, and round to my isle came Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How glorious a morning! The new-born clouds all dappled with gold, and streaked
+with violet; the sun in high spirits; and the pleasant air cooled overnight by
+the blending circumambient fountains, forever playing all round the reef; the
+lagoon within, the coral-rimmed basin, into which they poured, subsiding,
+hereabouts, into green tranquillity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what monsters of canoes! Would they devour an innocent voyager? their great
+black prows curling aloft, and thrown back like trunks of elephants; a dark,
+snaky length behind, like the sea-serpent&rsquo;s train.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prow of the foremost terminated in a large, open, shark&rsquo;s mouth,
+garnished with ten rows of pearly human teeth, curiously inserted into the
+sculptured wood. The gunwale was ornamented with rows of rich spotted Leopard
+and Tiger-shells; here and there, varied by others, flat and round, and
+spirally traced; gay serpents petrified in coils. These were imbedded in a
+grooved margin, by means of a resinous compound, exhaling such spices, that the
+canoes were odoriferous as the Indian chests of the Maldives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The likeness of the foremost canoe to an elephant, was helped by a sort of
+canopied Howdah in its stern, of heavy, russet-dyed tappa, tasselled at the
+corners with long bunches of cocoanut fibres, stained red. These swayed to and
+fro, like the fox-tails on a Tuscarora robe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what is this, in the head of the canoe, just under the shark&rsquo;s mouth?
+A grinning little imp of an image; a ring in its nose; cowrie shells jingling
+at its ears; with an abominable leer, like that of Silenus reeling on his ass.
+It was taking its ease; cosily smoking a pipe; its bowl, a duodecimo edition of
+the face of the smoker. This image looked sternward; everlastingly mocking us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of these canoes, it may be well to state, that although during our stay in Odo,
+so many barges and shallops had touched there, nothing similar to Media&rsquo;s
+had been seen. But inquiring whence his sea- equipage came, we were thereupon
+taught to reverence the same as antiquities and heir-looms; claw-keeled,
+dragon-prowed crafts of a bygone generation; at present, superseded in general
+use by the more swan-like canoes, significant of the advanced stage of marine
+architecture in Mardi. No sooner was this known, than what had seemed almost
+hideous in my eyes, became merely grotesque. Nor could I help being greatly
+delighted with the good old family pride of our host.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The upper corners of our sails displayed the family crest of Media; three
+upright boars&rsquo; tusks, in an heraldic field argent. A fierce device: Whom
+rends he?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All things in readiness, we glided away: the multitude waving adieu; and our
+flotilla disposed in the following order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First went the royal Elephant, carrying Media, myself, Jarl, and Samoa; Mohi
+the Teller of Legends, Babbalanja, and Yoomy, and six vivacious paddlers; their
+broad paddle-blades carved with the royal boars&rsquo; tusks, the same tattooed
+on their chests for a livery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thus, as Media had promised, we voyaged in state. To crown all, seated
+sideways in the high, open shark&rsquo;s-mouth of our prow was a little dwarf
+of a boy, one of Media&rsquo;s pages, a red conch-shell, bugle-wise suspended
+at his side. Among various other offices, it was the duty of little Vee-Vee to
+announce the advent of his master, upon drawing near to the islands in our
+route. Two short bars, projecting from one side of the prow, furnished him the
+means of ascent to his perch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we gained the open lagoon with bellied sails, and paddles playing, a sheaf
+of foam borne upright at our prow; Yoomy, standing where the spicy spray flew
+over him, stretched forth his hand and cried&mdash;&ldquo;The dawn of day is
+passed, and Mardi lies all before us: all her isles, and all her lakes; all her
+stores of good and evil. Storms may come, our barks may drown. But blow before
+us, all ye winds; give us a lively blast, good clarion; rally round us all our
+wits; and be this voyage full gayly sailed, for Yillah will yet be
+found.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0067"></a>
+CHAPTER LXVII.<br/>
+Little King Peepi</h2>
+
+<p>
+Valapee, or the Isle of Yams, being within plain sight of Media&rsquo;s
+dominions, we were not very long in drawing nigh to its shores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two long parallel elevations, rising some three arrow-flights into the air,
+double-ridge the island&rsquo;s entire length, lapping between, a widening
+vale, so level withal, that at either extremity, the green of its groves blends
+with the green of the lagoon; and the isle seems divided by a strait.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Within several paces of the beach, our canoes keeled the bottom, and camel-like
+mutely hinted that we voyagers must dismount.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hereupon, the assembled islanders ran into the water, and with bent shoulders
+obsequiously desired the honor of transporting us to land. The beach gained,
+all present wearing robes instantly stripped them to the waist; a naked chest
+being their salute to kings. Very convenient for the common people, this; their
+half-clad forms presenting a perpetual and profound salutation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, Peepi, the ruler of Valapee drew near: a boy, hardly ten years old,
+striding the neck of a burly mute, bearing a long spear erect before him, to
+which was attached a canopy of five broad banana leaves, new plucked. Thus
+shaded, little Peepi advanced, steadying himself by the forelock of his bearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides his bright red robe, the young prince wore nothing but the symbol of
+Valapeean royalty; a string of small, close-fitting, concave shells, coiled and
+ambushed in his profuse, curly hair; one end falling over his ear, revealing a
+serpent&rsquo;s head, curiously carved from a nutmeg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quite proverbial, the unembarrassed air of young slips of royalty. But there
+was something so surprisingly precocious in this young Peepi, that at first one
+hardly knew what to conclude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first compliments over, the company were invited inland to a shady retreat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we pursued the path, walking between old Mohi the keeper of chronicles and
+Samoa the Upoluan, Babbalanja besought the former to enlighten a stranger
+concerning the history of this curious Peepi. Whereupon the chronicler gave us
+the following account; for all of which he alone is responsible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peepi, it seems, had been proclaimed king before he was born; his sire dying
+some few weeks previous to that event; and vacating his divan, declared that he
+left a monarch behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Marvels were told of Peepi. Along with the royal dignity, and superadded to the
+soul possessed in his own proper person, the infant monarch was supposed to
+have inherited the valiant spirits of some twenty heroes, sages, simpletons,
+and demi-gods, previously lodged in his sire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most opulent in spiritual gifts was this lord of Valapee; the legatee,
+moreover, of numerous anonymous souls, bequeathed to him by their late loyal
+proprietors. By a slavish act of his convocation of chiefs, he also possessed
+the reversion of all and singular the immortal spirits, whose first grantees
+might die intestate in Valapee. Servile, yet audacious senators! thus
+prospectively to administrate away the inalienable rights of posterity. But
+while yet unborn, the people of Valapee had been deprived of more than they now
+sought to wrest from their descendants. And former Peepies, infant and adult,
+had received homage more profound, than Peepi the Present. Witness the demeanor
+of the chieftains of old, upon every new investiture of the royal serpent. In a
+fever of loyalty, they were wont to present themselves before the heir to the
+isle, to go through with the court ceremony of the Pupera; a curious
+proceeding, so called: inverted endeavors to assume an erect posture: the nasal
+organ the base.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was to the frequent practice of this ceremony, that most intelligent
+observers imputed the flattened noses of the elderly chiefs of the island; who,
+nevertheless, much gloried therein.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was these chiefs, also, who still observed the old-fashioned custom of
+retiring from the presence of royalty with their heads between their thighs; so
+that while advancing in the contrary direction, their faces might be still
+deferentially turned toward their lord and master. A fine view of him did they
+obtain. All objects look well through an arch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to return to Peepi, the inheritor of souls and subjects. It was an article
+of faith with the people of Valapee, that Peepi not only actually possessed the
+souls bequeathed to him; but that his own was enriched by their peculiar
+qualities: The headlong valor of the late Tongatona; the pusillanimous
+discretion of Blandoo; the cunning of Voyo; the simplicity of Raymonda; the
+prodigality of Zonoree; the thrift of Titonti.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But had all these, and similar opposite qualities, simultaneously acted as
+motives upon Peepi, certes, he would have been a most pitiable mortal, in a
+ceaseless eddy of resolves, incapable of a solitary act.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But blessed be the gods, it was otherwise. Though it fared little better for
+his subjects as it was. His assorted souls were uppermost and active in him,
+one by one. Today, valiant Tongatona ruled the isle, meditating wars and
+invasions; tomorrow, thrice discreet Blandoo, who, disbanding the levies,
+turned his attention to the terraces of yams. And so on in rotation to the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whence, though capable of action, Peepi, by reason of these revolving souls in
+him, was one of the most unreliable of beings. What the open-handed Zonoree
+promised freely to-day, the parsimonious Titonti withheld to-morrow; and
+forever Raymonda was annulling the doings of Voyo; and Voyo the doings of
+Raymonda.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What marvel then, that in Valapee all was legislative uproar and confusion;
+advance and retreat; abrogations and revivals; foundations without
+superstructures; nothing permanent but the island itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor were there those in the neighboring countries, who failed to reap profit
+from this everlasting transition state of the affairs of the kingdom. All boons
+from Peepi were entreated when the prodigal Zonoree was lord of the ascendant.
+And audacious claims were urged upon the state when the pusillanimous Blandoo
+shrank from the thought of resisting them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus subject to contrary impulses, over which he had not the faintest control,
+Peepi was plainly denuded of all moral obligation to virtue. He was no more a
+free agent, than the heart which beat in his bosom. Wherefore, his complaisant
+parliament had passed a law, recognizing that curious, but alarming fact;
+solemnly proclaiming, that King Peepi was minus a conscience. Agreeable to
+truth. But when they went further, and vowed by statute, that Peepi could do no
+wrong, they assuredly did violence to the truth; besides, making a sad blunder
+in their logic. For far from possessing an absolute aversion to evil, by his
+very nature it was the hardest thing in the world for Peepi to do right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking all these things into consideration, then, no wonder that this wholly
+irresponsible young prince should be a lad of considerable assurance, and the
+easiest manners imaginable.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0068"></a>
+CHAPTER LXVIII.<br/>
+How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee</h2>
+
+<p>
+Coiling through the thickets, like the track of a serpent, wound along the path
+we pursued. And ere long we came to a spacious grove, embowering an oval arbor.
+Here, we reclined at our ease, and refreshments were served.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little worthy of mention occurred, save this. Happening to catch a glimpse of
+the white even teeth of Hohora one of our attendants, King Peepi coolly begged
+of Media the favor, to have those same dentals drawn on the spot, and presented
+to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now human teeth, extracted, are reckoned among the most valuable ornaments in
+Mardi. So open wide thy strong box, Hohora, and show thy treasures. What a
+gallant array! standing shoulder to shoulder, without a hiatus between. A
+complete set of jewelry, indeed, thought Peepi. But, it seems, not destined for
+him; Media leaving it to the present proprietor, whether his dentals should
+change owners or not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here, to prepare the way for certain things hereafter to be narrated,
+something farther needs be said concerning the light in which men&rsquo;s
+molars are regarded in Mardi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Strung together, they are sported for necklaces, or hung in drops from the ear;
+they are wrought into dice; in lieu of silken locks, are exchanged for love
+tokens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As in all lands, men smite their breasts, and tear their hair, when transported
+with grief; so, in some countries, teeth are stricken out under the sway of
+similar emotions. To a very great extent, this was once practiced in the
+Hawaiian Islands, ere idol and altar went down. Still living in Oahu, are many
+old chiefs, who were present at the famous obsequies of their royal old
+generalissimo, Tammahammaha, when there is no telling how many pounds of ivory
+were cast upon his grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah! had the regal white elephants of Siam been there, doubtless they had
+offered up their long, hooked tusks, whereon they impale the leopards, their
+foes; and the unicorn had surrendered that fixed bayonet in his forehead; and
+the imperial Cachalot-whale, the long chain of white towers in his jaw; yea,
+over that grim warrior&rsquo;s grave, the mooses, and elks, and stags, and
+fallow-deer had stacked their antlers, as soldiers their arms on the field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Terrific shade of tattooed Tammahammaha! if, from a vile dragon&rsquo;s molars,
+rose mailed men, what heroes shall spring from the cannibal canines once
+pertaining to warriors themselves!&mdash;Am I the witch of Endor, that I
+conjure up this ghost? Or, King Saul, that I so quake at the sight? For, lo!
+roundabout me Tammahammaha&rsquo;s tattooing expands, till all the sky seems a
+tiger&rsquo;s skin. But now, the spotted phantom sweeps by; as a
+man-of-war&rsquo;s main-sail, cloud-like, blown far to leeward in a gale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Banquo down, we return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Valapee, prevails not the barbarous Hindoo custom of offering up widows to
+the shades of their lords; for, bereaved, the widows there marry again. Nor yet
+prevails the savage Hawaiian custom of offering up teeth to the manes of the
+dead; for, at the decease of a friend, the people rob not their own mouths to
+testify their woe. On the contrary, they extract the teeth from the departed,
+distributing them among the mourners for memorial legacies; as elsewhere,
+silver spoons are bestowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the high value ascribed to dentals throughout the archipelago of Mardi,
+and also from their convenient size, they are circulated as money; strings of
+teeth being regarded by these people very much as belts of wampum among the
+Winnebagoes of the North; or cowries, among the Bengalese. So, that in Valapee
+the very beggars are born with a snug investment in their mouths; too soon,
+however, to be appropriated by their lords; leaving them toothless for the rest
+of their days, and forcing them to diet on poee-pudding and banana blanc-mange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a currency, teeth are far less clumsy than cocoanuts; which, among certain
+remote barbarians, circulate for coin; one nut being equivalent, perhaps, to a
+penny. The voyager who records the fact, chuckles over it hugely; as evincing
+the simplicity of those heathens; not knowing that he himself was the
+simpleton; since that currency of theirs was purposely devised by the men, to
+check the extravagance of their women; cocoanuts, for spending money, being
+such a burden to carry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It only remains to be added, that the most solemn oath of a native of Valapee
+is that sworn by his tooth. &ldquo;By this tooth,&rdquo; said Bondo to
+Noojoomo, &ldquo;by this tooth I swear to be avenged upon thee, oh
+Noojoomo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0069"></a>
+CHAPTER LXIX.<br/>
+The Company Discourse, And Braid-Beard Rehearses A Legend</h2>
+
+<p>
+Finding in Valapee no trace of her whom we sought, and but little pleased with
+the cringing demeanor of the people, and the wayward follies of Peepi their
+lord, we early withdrew from the isle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we glided away, King Media issued a sociable decree. He declared it his
+royal pleasure, that throughout the voyage, all stiffness and state etiquette
+should be suspended: nothing must occur to mar the freedom of the party. To
+further this charming plan, he doffed his symbols of royalty, put off his
+crown, laid aside his scepter, and assured us that he would not wear them
+again, except when we landed; and not invariably, then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are we not all now friends and companions?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;So
+companions and friends let us be. I unbend my bow; do ye likewise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But are we not to be dignified?&rdquo; asked Babbalanja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If dignity be free and natural, be as dignified as you please; but away
+with rigidities.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Away they go,&rdquo; said Babbalanja; &ldquo;and, my lord, now that you
+mind me of it, I have often thought, that it is all folly and vanity for any
+man to attempt a dignified carriage. Why, my lord,&rdquo;&mdash;frankly
+crossing his legs where he lay&mdash;&ldquo;the king, who receives his
+ambassadors with a majestic toss of the head, may have just recovered from the
+tooth- ache. That thought should cant over the spine he bears so
+bravely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have a care, sir! there is a king within hearing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pardon, my lord; I was merely availing myself of the immunity bestowed
+upon the company. Hereafter, permit a subject to rebel against your sociable
+decrees. I will not be so frank any more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well put, Babbalanja; come nearer; here, cross your legs by mine; you
+have risen a cubit in my regard. Vee-Vee, bring us that gourd of wine; so, pass
+it round with the cups. Now, Yoomy, a song!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And a song was sung.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thus did we sail; pleasantly reclining on the mats stretched out beneath
+the canopied howdah.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, we drew nigh to a rock, called Pella, or The Theft. A high, green
+crag, toppling over its base, and flinging a cavernous shadow upon the lagoon
+beneath, bubbling with the moisture that dropped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Passing under this cliff was like finding yourself, as some sea- hunters
+unexpectedly have, beneath the open, upper jaw of a whale; which, descending,
+infallibly entombs you. But familiar with the rock, our paddlers only threw
+back their heads, to catch the cool, pleasant tricklings from the mosses above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wiping away several glittering beads from his beard, old Mohi turning round
+where he sat, just outside the canopy, solemnly affirmed, that the drinking of
+that water had cured many a man of ambition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How so, old man?&rdquo; demanded Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because of its passing through the ashes of ten kings, of yore buried in
+a sepulcher, hewn in the heart of the rock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mighty kings, and famous, doubtless,&rdquo; said Babbalanja,
+&ldquo;whose bones were thought worthy of so noble and enduring as urn. Pray,
+Mohi, their names and terrible deeds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alas! their sepulcher only remains.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And, no doubt, like many others, they made that sepul for themselves.
+They sleep sound, my word for it, old man. But I very much question, if, were
+the rock rent, any ashes would be found. Mohi, I deny that those kings ever had
+any bones to bury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, Babbalanja,&rdquo; said Media, &ldquo;since you intimate that they
+never had ghosts to give up, you ignore them in toto; denying the very fact of
+their being even defunct.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ten thousand pardons, my lord, no such discourtesy would I do the
+anonymous memory of the illustrious dead. But whether they ever lived or not,
+it is all the same with them now. Yet, grant that they lived; then, if death be
+a deaf-and-dumb death, a triumphal procession over their graves would concern
+them not. If a birth into brightness, then Mardi must seem to them the most
+trivial of reminiscences. Or, perhaps, theirs may be an utter lapse of memory
+concerning sublunary things; and they themselves be not themselves, as the
+butterfly is not the larva.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Yoomy, &ldquo;Then, Babbalanja, you account that a fit illustration of the
+miraculous change to be wrought in man after death?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; for the analogy has an unsatisfactory end. From its chrysalis state,
+the silkworm but becomes a moth, that very quickly expires. Its longest
+existence is as a worm. All vanity, vanity, Yoomy, to seek in nature for
+positive warranty to these aspirations of ours. Through all her provinces,
+nature seems to promise immortality to life, but destruction to beings. Or, as
+old Bardianna has it, if not against us, nature is not for us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Media, rising, &ldquo;Babbalanja, you have indeed put aside the courtier;
+talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi- god! To renown, for
+your theme: a more agreeable topic.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pardon, once again, my lord. And since you will, let us discourse of
+that subject. First, I lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that in itself all
+posthumous renown, which is the only renown, is valueless. Be not offended, my
+lord. To the nobly ambitious, renown hereafter may be something to anticipate.
+But analyzed, that feverish typhoid feeling of theirs may be nothing more than
+a flickering fancy, that now, while living, they are recognized as those who
+will be as famous in their shrouds, as in their girdles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Yoomy, &ldquo;But those great and good deeds, Babbalanja, of which the
+philosophers so often discourse: must it not be sweet to believe that their
+memory will long survive us; and we ourselves in them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I speak now,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;of the ravening for fame
+which even appeased, like thirst slaked in the desert, yields no felicity, but
+only relief; and which discriminates not in aught that will satisfy its
+cravings. But let me resume. Not an hour ago, Braid-Beard was telling us that
+story of prince Ottimo, who inodorous while living, expressed much delight at
+the prospect of being perfumed and embalmed, when dead. But was not Ottimo the
+most eccentric of mortals? For few men issue orders for their shrouds, to
+inspect their quality beforehand. Far more anxious are they about the texture
+of the sheets in which their living limbs lie. And, my lord, with some rare
+exceptions, does not all Mardi, by its actions, declare, that it is far better
+to be notorious now, than famous hereafter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A base sentiment, my lord,&rdquo; said Yoomy. &ldquo;Did not poor Bonja,
+the unappreciated poet, console himself for the neglect of his contemporaries,
+by inspiriting thoughts of the future?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In plain words by bethinking him of the glorious harvest of bravos his
+ghost would reap for him,&rdquo; said Babbalanja; &ldquo;but
+Banjo,&mdash;Bonjo,&mdash;Binjo,&mdash;I never heard of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; said Mohi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; said Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; cried Babbalanja; &ldquo;I fear me his harvest is
+not yet ripe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; cried Yoomy; &ldquo;he died more than a century ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But now that you speak of unappreciated poets, Yoomy,&rdquo; said
+Babbalanja, &ldquo;Shall I give you a piece of my mind?&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Do,&rdquo; said Mohi, stroking his beard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He, who on all hands passes for a cypher to-day, if at all remembered
+hereafter, will be sure to pass for the same. For there is more likelihood of
+being overrated while living, than of being underrated when dead. And to insure
+your fame, you must die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A rather discouraging thought for your race. But answer: I assume that
+King Media is but a mortal like you; now, how may I best perpetuate my
+name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long pondered Babbalanja; then said, &ldquo;Carve it, my lord, deep into a
+ponderous stone, and sink it, face downward, into the sea; for the unseen
+foundations of the deep are more enduring than the palpable tops of the
+mountains.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sailing past Pella, we gained a view of its farther side; and seated in a lofty
+cleft, beheld a lonely fisherman; solitary as a seal on an iceberg; his
+motionless line in the water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What recks he of the ten kings,&rdquo; said Babbalanja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mohi,&rdquo; said Media, &ldquo;methinks there is another tradition
+concerning that rock: let us have it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In old times of genii and giants, there dwelt in barren lands, not very
+remote from our outer reef, but since submerged, a band of evil- minded,
+envious goblins, furlongs in stature, and with immeasurable arms; who from time
+to time cast covetous glances upon our blooming isles. Long they lusted; till
+at last, they waded through the sea, strode over the reef, and seizing the
+nearest islet, rolled it over and over, toward an adjoining outlet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the task was hard; and day-break surprised them in the midst of
+their audacious thieving; while in the very act of giving the devoted land
+another doughty surge and Somerset. Leaving it bottom upward and midway poised,
+gardens under water, its foundations in air, they precipitately fled; in their
+great haste, deserting a comrade, vainly struggling to liberate his foot caught
+beneath the overturned land.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This poor fellow now raised such an outcry, as to awaken the god Upi, or
+the Archer, stretched out on a long cloud in the East; who forthwith resolved
+to make an example of the unwilling lingerer. Snatching his bow, he let fly an
+arrow. But overshooting its mark, it pierced through and through, the lofty
+promontory of a neighboring island; making an arch in it, which remaineth even
+unto this day. A second arrow, however, accomplished its errand: the slain
+giant sinking prone to the bottom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; added Mohi, &ldquo;glance over the gunwale, and you will
+see his remains petrified into white ribs of coral.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, there they are,&rdquo; said Yoomy, looking down into the water where
+they gleamed. &ldquo;A fanciful legend, Braid-beard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very entertaining,&rdquo; said Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even so,&rdquo; said Babbalanja. &ldquo;But perhaps we lost time in
+listening to it; for though we know it, we are none the wiser.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be not a cynic,&rdquo; said Media. &ldquo;No pastime is lost
+time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Musing a moment, Babbalanja replied, &ldquo;My lord, that maxim may be good as
+it stands; but had you made six words of it, instead of six syllables, you had
+uttered a better and a deeper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0070"></a>
+CHAPTER LXX.<br/>
+The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle-Song; And A Message Is Received From
+Abroad</h2>
+
+<p>
+From seaward now came a breeze so blithesome and fresh, that it made us
+impatient of Babbalanja&rsquo;s philosophy, and Mohi&rsquo;s incredible
+legends. One and all, we called upon the minstrel Yoomy to give us something in
+unison with the spirited waves wide-foaming around us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If my lord will permit, we will give Taji the Paddle-Chant of the
+warriors of King Bello.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; said Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the three canoes were brought side to side; their sails rolled up; and
+paddles in hand, our paddlers seated themselves sideways on the gunwales;
+Yoomy, as leader, occupying the place of the foremast, or Bow-Paddler of the
+royal barge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon the six rows of paddle-blades being uplifted, and every eye on the
+minstrel, this song was sung, with actions corresponding; the canoes at last
+shooting through the water, with a violent roll.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+        (All.)<br/>
+    Thrice waved on high,<br/>
+    Our paddles fly:<br/>
+Thrice round the head, thrice dropt to feet:<br/>
+    And then well timed,<br/>
+    Of one stout mind,<br/>
+All fall, and back the waters heap!<br/>
+<br/>
+        (Bow-Paddler.)<br/>
+    Who lifts this chant?<br/>
+    Who sounds this vaunt?<br/>
+<br/>
+        (All.)<br/>
+The wild sea song, to the billows&rsquo; throng,<br/>
+    Rising, falling,<br/>
+    Hoarsely calling,<br/>
+Now high, now low, as fast we go,<br/>
+Fast on our flying foe!<br/>
+<br/>
+        (Bow-Paddler.)<br/>
+    Who lifts this chant?<br/>
+    Who sounds this vaunt?<br/>
+<br/>
+        (All.)<br/>
+Dip, dip, in the brine our paddles dip,<br/>
+Dip, dip, the fins of our swimming ship!<br/>
+    How the waters part,<br/>
+    As on we dart;<br/>
+      Our sharp prows fly,<br/>
+      And curl on high,<br/>
+As the upright fin of the rushing shark,<br/>
+Rushing fast and far on his flying mark!<br/>
+    Like him we prey;<br/>
+    Like him we slay;<br/>
+      Swim on the fog,<br/>
+      Our prow a blow!<br/>
+<br/>
+        (Bow-Paddler.)<br/>
+    Who lifts this chant?<br/>
+    Who sounds this vaunt?<br/>
+<br/>
+        (All.)<br/>
+Heap back; heap back; the waters back!<br/>
+Pile them high astern, in billows black;<br/>
+    Till we leave our wake,<br/>
+    In the slope we make;<br/>
+    And rush and ride,<br/>
+    On the torrent&rsquo;s tide!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here we were overtaken by a swift gliding canoe, which, bearing down upon us
+before the wind, lowered its sail when close by: its occupants signing our
+paddlers to desist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The strangers were three hooded damsels the enigmatical Queen Hautia&rsquo;s
+heralds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their pursuit surprised and perplexed me. Nor was there wanting a vague feeling
+of alarm to heighten these emotions. But perhaps I was mistaken, and this time
+they meant not me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seated in the prow, the foremost waved her Iris flag. Cried Yoomy, &ldquo;Some
+message! Taji, that Iris points to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was then, I first divined, that some meaning must have lurked in those
+flowers they had twice brought me before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second damsel now flung over to me Circe flowers; then, a faded jonquil,
+buried in a tuft of wormwood leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third sat in the shallop&rsquo;s stern, and as it glided from us, thrice
+waved oleanders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What dumb show is this?&rdquo; cried Media. &ldquo;But it looks like
+poetry: minstrel, you should know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Interpret then,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I, then, be your Flora&rsquo;s flute, and Hautia&rsquo;s dragoman?
+Held aloft, the Iris signified a message. These purple-woven Circe flowers mean
+that some spell is weaving. That golden, pining jonquil, which you hold, buried
+in those wormwood leaves, says plainly to you&mdash;Bitter love in
+absence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Media, &ldquo;Well done, Taji, you have killed a queen.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yet
+no Queen Hautia have these eyes beheld.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Babbalanja, &ldquo;The thrice waved oleanders, Yoomy; what meant
+they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beware&mdash;beware&mdash;beware.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then that, at least, seems kindly meant,&rdquo; said Babbalanja;
+&ldquo;Taji, beware of Hautia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0071"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXI.<br/>
+They Land Upon The Island Of Juam</h2>
+
+<p>
+Crossing the lagoon, our course now lay along the reef to Juam; a name bestowed
+upon one of the largest islands hereabout; and also, collectively, upon several
+wooded isles engulfing it, which together were known as the dominions of one
+monarch. That monarch was Donjalolo. Just turned of twenty-five, he was
+accounted not only the handsomest man in his dominions, but throughout the
+lagoon. His comeliness, however, was so feminine, that he was sometimes called
+&ldquo;Fonoo,&rdquo; or the Girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our first view of Juam was imposing. A dark green pile of cliffs, towering some
+one hundred toises; at top, presenting a range of steep, gable-pointed
+projections; as if some Titanic hammer and chisel had shaped the mass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sailing nearer, we perceived an extraordinary rolling of the sea; which
+bursting into the lagoon through an adjoining breach in the reef, surged toward
+Juam in enormous billows. At last, dashing against the wall of the cliff; they
+played there in unceasing fountains. But under the brow of a beetling crag, the
+spray came and went unequally. There, the blue billows seemed swallowed up, and
+lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Right regally was Juam guarded. For, at this point, the rock was pierced by a
+cave, into which the great waves chased each other like lions; after a hollow,
+subterraneous roaring issuing forth with manes disheveled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cautiously evading the dangerous currents here ruffling the lagoon, we rounded
+the wall of cliff; and shot upon a smooth expanse; on one side, hemmed in by
+the long, verdent, northern shore of Juam; and across the water, sentineled by
+its tributary islets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With sonorous Vee-Vee in the shark&rsquo;s mouth, we swept toward the beach,
+tumultuous with a throng.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our canoes were secured. And surrounded by eager glances, we passed the lower
+ends of several populous valleys; and crossing a wide, open meadow, gradually
+ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs. Here, we wended our way down
+a narrow defile, almost cleaving this quarter of the island to its base. Black
+crags frowned overhead: among them the shouts of the Islanders reverberated.
+Yet steeper grew the defile, and more overhanging the crags till at last, the
+keystone of the arch seemed dropped into its place. We found ourselves in a
+subterranean tunnel, dimly lighted by a span of white day at the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Emerging, what a scene was revealed! All round, embracing a circuit of some
+three leagues, stood heights inaccessible, here and there, forming buttresses,
+sheltering deep recesses between. The bosom of the place was vivid with
+verdure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shining aslant into this wild hollow, the afternoon sun lighted up its eastern
+side with tints of gold. But opposite, brooded a somber shadow, double-shading
+the secret places between the salient spurs of the mountains. Thus cut in twain
+by masses of day and night, it seemed as if some Last Judgment had been enacted
+in the glen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner did we emerge from the defile, than we became sensible of a dull,
+jarring sound; and Yoomy was almost tempted to turn and flee, when informed
+that the sea-cavern, whose mouth we had passed, was believed to penetrate deep
+into the opposite hills; and that the surface of the amphitheater was depressed
+beneath that of the lagoon. But all over the lowermost hillsides, and sloping
+into the glen, stood grand old groves; still and stately, as if no insolent
+waves were throbbing in the mountain&rsquo;s heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such was Willamilla, the hereditary abode of the young monarch of Juam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was Yillah immured in this strange retreat? But from those around us naught
+could we learn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our attention was now directed to the habitations of the glen; comprised in two
+handsome villages; one to the west, the other to the east; both stretching
+along the base of the cliffs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Media, &ldquo;Had we arrived at Willamilla in the morning, we had found
+Donjalolo and his court in the eastern village; but being afternoon, we must
+travel farther, and seek him in his western retreat; for that is now in the
+shade.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wending our way, Media added, that aside from his elevated station as a
+monarch, Donjalolo was famed for many uncommon traits; but more especially for
+certain peculiar deprivations, under which he labored.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon Braid-Beard unrolled his old chronicles; and regaled us with the
+history, which will be found in the following chapter.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0072"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXII.<br/>
+A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi</h2>
+
+<p>
+Many ages ago, there reigned in Juam a king called Teei. This Teei&rsquo;s
+succession to the sovereignty was long disputed by his brother Marjora; who at
+last rallying round him an army, after many vicissitudes, defeated the
+unfortunate monarch in a stout fight of clubs on the beach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In those days, Willamilla during a certain period of the year was a place set
+apart for royal games and diversions; and was furnished with suitable
+accommodations for king and court. From its peculiar position, moreover, it was
+regarded as the last stronghold of the Juam monarchy: in remote times having
+twice withstood the most desperate assaults from without. And when Roonoonoo, a
+famous upstart, sought to subdue all the isles in this part of the Archipelago,
+it was to Willamilla that the banded kings had repaired to take counsel
+together; and while there conferring, were surprised at the sudden onslaught of
+Roonoonoo in person. But in the end, the rebel was captured, he and all his
+army, and impaled on the tops of the hills.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, defeated and fleeing for his life, Teei with his surviving followers was
+driven across the plain toward the mountains. But to cut him off from all
+escape to inland Willamilla, Marjora dispatched a fleet band of warriors to
+occupy the entrance of the defile. Nevertheless, Teei the pursued ran faster
+than his pursuers; first gained the spot; and with his chiefs, fled swiftly
+down the gorge, closely hunted by Marjora&rsquo;s men. But arriving at the
+further end, they in vain sought to defend it. And after much desperate
+fighting, the main body of the foe corning up with great slaughter the
+fugitives were driven into the glen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They ran to the opposite wall of cliff; where turning, they fought at bay,
+blood for blood, and life for life, till at last, overwhelmed by numbers, they
+were all put to the point of the spear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With fratricidal hate, singled out by the ferocious Marjora, Teei fell by that
+brother&rsquo;s hand. When stripping from the body the regal girdle, the victor
+wound it round his own loins; thus proclaiming himself king over Juam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long torn by this intestine war, the island acquiesced in the new sovereignty.
+But at length a sacred oracle declared, that since the conqueror had slain his
+brother in deep Willamilla, so that Teei never more issued from that refuge of
+death; therefore, the same fate should be Marjora&rsquo;s; for never,
+thenceforth, from that glen, should he go forth; neither Marjora; nor any son
+of his girdled loins; nor his son&rsquo;s sons; nor the uttermost scion of his
+race.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But except this denunciation, naught was denounced against the usurper; who,
+mindful of the tenure by which he reigned, ruled over the island for many
+moons; at his death bequeathing the girdle to his son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In those days, the wildest superstitions concerning the interference of the
+gods in things temporal, prevailed to a much greater extent than at present.
+Hence Marjora himself, called sometimes in the traditions of the island,
+The-Heart-of-Black-Coral, even unscrupulous Marjora had quailed before the
+oracle. &ldquo;He bowed his head,&rdquo; say the legends. Nor was it then
+questioned, by his most devoted adherents, that had he dared to act counter to
+that edict, he had dropped dead, the very instant he went under the shadow of
+the defile. This persuasion also guided the conduct of the son of Marjora, and
+that of his grandson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there at last came to pass a change in the popular fancies concerning this
+ancient anathema. The penalty denounced against the posterity of the usurper
+should they issue from the glen, came to be regarded as only applicable to an
+invested monarch, not to his relatives, or heirs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A most favorable construction of the ban; for all those related to the king,
+freely passed in and out of Willamilla.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the time of the usurpation, there had always been observed a certain
+ceremony upon investing the heir to the sovereignty with the girdle of Teei.
+Upon these occasions, the chief priests of the island were present, acting an
+important part. For the space of as many days, as there had reigned kings of
+Marjora&rsquo;s dynasty, the inner mouth of the defile remained sealed; the new
+monarch placing the last stone in the gap. This symbolized his relinquishment
+forever of all purpose of passing out of the glen. And without this observance,
+was no king girdled in Juam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was likewise an invariable custom, for the heir to receive the regal
+investiture immediately upon the decease of his sire. No delay was permitted.
+And instantly upon being girdled, he proceeded to take part in the ceremony of
+closing the cave; his predecessor yet remaining uninterred on the purple mat
+where he died.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the history of the island, three instances were recorded; wherein, upon the
+vacation of the sovereignty, the immediate heir had voluntarily renounced all
+claim to the succession, rather than surrender the privilege of roving, to
+which he had been entitled, as a prince of the blood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Rani, one of these young princes, in reply to the remonstrances of his
+friends, &ldquo;What! shall I be a king, only to be a slave? Teei&rsquo;s
+girdle would clasp my waist less tightly, than my soul would be banded by the
+mountains of Willamilla. A subject, I am free. No slave in Juam but its king;
+for all the tassels round his loins.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To guard against a similar resolution in the mind of his only son, the wise
+sire of Donjalolo, ardently desirous of perpetuating his dignities in a child
+so well beloved, had from his earliest infancy, restrained the boy from passing
+out of the glen, to contract in the free air of the Archipelago, tastes and
+predilections fatal to the inheritance of the girdle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as he grew in years, so impatient became young Donjalolo of the king his
+father&rsquo;s watchfulness over him, though hitherto a most dutiful son, that
+at last he was prevailed upon by his youthful companions to appoint a day, on
+which to go abroad, and visit Mardi. Hearing this determination, the old king
+sought to vanquish it. But in vain. And early on the morning of the day, that
+Donjalolo was to set out, he swallowed poison, and died; in order to force his
+son into the instant assumption of the honors thus suddenly inherited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The event, but not its dreadful circumstances, was communicated to the prince;
+as with a gay party of young chiefs, he was about to enter the mouth of the
+defile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My sire dead!&rdquo; cried Donjalolo. &ldquo;So sudden, it seems a bolt
+from Heaven.&rdquo; And bursting into exclamations of grief, he wept upon the
+bosom of Talara his friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But starting from his side:&mdash;&ldquo;My fate converges to a point. If I but
+cross that shadow, my kingdom is lost. One lifting of my foot, and the girdle
+goes to my proud uncle Darfi, who would so joy to be my master. Haughty Dwarf!
+Oh Oro! would that I had ere this passed thee, fatal cavern; and seen for
+myself, what outer Mardi is. Say ye true, comrades, that Willamilla is less
+lovely than the valleys without? that there is bright light in the eyes of the
+maidens of Mina? and wisdom in the hearts of the old priests of Maramma; that
+it is pleasant to tread the green earth where you will; and breathe the free
+ocean air? Would, oh would, that I were but the least of yonder sun-clouds,
+that look down alike on Willamilla and all places besides, that I might
+determine aright. Yet why do I pause? did not Rani, and Atama, and Mardonna, my
+ancestors, each see for himself, free Mardi; and did they not fly the proffered
+girdle; choosing rather to be free to come and go, than bury themselves forever
+in this fatal glen? Oh Mardi! Mardi! art thou then so fair to see? Is liberty a
+thing so glorious? Yet can I be no king, and behold thee! Too late, too late,
+to view thy charms and then return. My sire! my sire! thou hast wrung my heart
+with this agony of doubt. Tell me, comrades,&mdash;for ye have seen
+it,&mdash;is Mardi sweeter to behold, than it is royal to reign over Juam?
+Silent, are ye? Knowing what ye do, were ye me, would ye be kings? Tell me,
+Talara.&mdash;No king: no king:&mdash;that were to obey, and not command. And
+none hath Donjalolo ere obeyed but the king his father. A king, and my voice
+may be heard in farthest Mardi, though I abide in narrow Willamilla. My sire!
+my sire! Ye flying clouds, what look ye down upon? Tell me, what ye see abroad?
+Methinks sweet spices breathe from out the cave.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hail, Donjalolo, King of Juam,&rdquo; now sounded with acclamations from
+the groves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Starting, the young prince beheld a multitude approaching: warriors with
+spears, and maidens with flowers; and Kubla, a priest, lifting on high the
+tasseled girdle of Teei, and waving it toward him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young chiefs fell back. Kubla, advancing, came close to the prince, and
+unclasping the badge of royalty, exclaimed, &ldquo;Donjalolo, this instant it
+is king or subject with thee: wilt thou be girdled monarch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gazing one moment up the dark defile, then staring vacantly, Donjalolo turned
+and met the eager gaze of Darfi. Stripping off his mantle, the next instant he
+was a king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Loud shouted the multitude, and exulted; but after mutely assisting at the
+closing of the cavern, the new-girdled monarch retired sadly to his dwelling,
+and was not seen again for many days.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0073"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXIII.<br/>
+Something More Of The Prince</h2>
+
+<p>
+Previous to recording our stay in his dominions, it only remains to be related
+of Donjalolo, that after assuming the girdle, a change came over him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the lifetime of his father, he had been famed for his temperance and
+discretion. But when Mardi was forever shut out; and he remembered the law of
+his isle, interdicting abdication to its kings; he gradually fell into
+desperate courses, to drown the emotions at times distracting him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His generous spirit thirsting after some energetic career, found itself
+narrowed down within the little glen of Willamilla, where ardent impulses
+seemed idle. But these are hard to die; and repulsed all round, recoil upon
+themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So with Donjalolo; who, in many a riotous scene, wasted the powers which might
+have compassed the noblest designs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not many years had elapsed since the death of the king, his father. But the
+still youthful prince was no longer the bright-eyed and elastic boy who at the
+dawn of day had sallied out to behold the landscapes of the neighboring isles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not more effeminate Sardanapalus, than he. And, at intervals, he was the victim
+of unaccountable vagaries; haunted by specters, and beckoned to by the ghosts
+of his sires.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At times, loathing his vicious pursuits, which brought him no solid
+satisfaction, but ever filled him with final disgust, he would resolve to amend
+his ways; solacing himself for his bitter captivity, by the society of the wise
+and discreet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But brief the interval of repentance. Anew, he burst into excesses, a hundred
+fold more insane than ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus vacillating between virtue and vice; to neither constant, and upbraided by
+both; his mind, like his person in the glen, was continually passing and
+repassing between opposite extremes.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0074"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXIV.<br/>
+Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo</h2>
+
+<p>
+From the mouth of the cavern, a broad shaded way over-arched by fraternal trees
+embracing in mid-air, conducted us to a cross-path, on either hand leading to
+the opposite cliffs, shading the twin villages before mentioned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Level as a meadow, was the bosom of the glen. Here, nodding with green orchards
+of the Bread-fruit and the Palm; there, flashing with golden plantations of the
+Banana. Emerging from these, we came out upon a grassy mead, skirting a
+projection of the mountain. And soon we crossed a bridge of boughs, spanning a
+trench, thickly planted with roots of the Tara, like alligators, or Hollanders,
+reveling in the soft alluvial. Strolling on, the wild beauty of the mountains
+excited our attention. The topmost crags poured over with vines; which,
+undulating in the air, seemed leafy cascades; their sources the upland groves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Midway up the precipice, along a shelf of rock, sprouted the multitudinous
+roots of an apparently trunkless tree. Shooting from under the shallow soil,
+they spread all over the rocks below, covering them with an intricate net-work.
+While far aloft, great boughs&mdash;each a copse&mdash;clambered to the very
+summit of the mountain; then bending over, struck anew into the soil; forming
+along the verge an interminable colonnade; all manner of antic architecture
+standing against the sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+According to Mohi, this tree was truly wonderful; its seed having been dropped
+from the moon; where were plenty more similar forests, causing the dark spots
+on its surface.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here and there, the cool fluid in the veins of the mountains gushed forth in
+living springs; their waters received in green mossy tanks, half buried in
+grasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one place, a considerable stream, bounding far out from a wooded height, ere
+reaching the ground was dispersed in a wide misty shower, falling so far from
+the base of the cliff; that walking close underneath, you felt little moisture.
+Passing this fall of vapors, we spied many Islanders taking a bath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what is yonder swaying of the foliage? And what now issues forth, like a
+habitation astir? Donjalolo drawing nigh to his guests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came in a fair sedan; a bower, resting upon three long, parallel poles,
+borne by thirty men, gayly attired; five at each pole-end. Decked with dyed
+tappas, and looped with garlands of newly-plucked flowers, from which, at every
+step, the fragrant petals were blown; with a sumptuous, elastic motion the gay
+sedan came on; leaving behind it a long, rosy wake of fluttering leaves and
+odors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Drawing near, it revealed a slender, enervate youth, of pallid beauty,
+reclining upon a crimson mat, near the festooned arch of the bower. His
+anointed head was resting against the bosom of a girl; another stirred the air,
+with a fan of Pintado plumes. The pupils of his eyes were as floating isles in
+the sea. In a soft low tone he murmured &ldquo;Media!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bearers paused; and Media advancing; the Island Kings bowed their foreheads
+together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through tubes ignited at the end, Donjaloln&rsquo;s reclining attendants now
+blew an aromatic incense around him. These were composed of the stimulating
+leaves of the &ldquo;Aina,&rdquo; mixed with the long yellow blades of a
+sweet-scented upland grass; forming a hollow stem. In general, the agreeable
+fumes of the &ldquo;Aina&rdquo; were created by one&rsquo;s own inhalations;
+but Donjalolo deeming the solace too dearly purchased by any exertion of the
+royal lungs, regaled himself through those of his attendants, whose lips were
+as moss-rose buds after a shower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In silence the young prince now eyed us attentively; meanwhile gently waving
+his hand, to obtain a better view through the wreaths of vapor. He was about to
+address us, when chancing to catch a glimpse of Samoa, he suddenly started;
+averted his glance; and wildly commanded the warrior out of sight. Upon this,
+his attendants would have soothed him; and Media desired the Upoluan to
+withdraw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While we were yet lost in wonder at this scene, Donjalolo, with eyes closed,
+fell back into the arms of his damsels. Recovering, he fetched a deep sigh, and
+gazed vacantly around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seems, that he had fancied Samoa the noon-day specter of his ancestor
+Marjora; the usurper having been deprived of an arm in the battle which gained
+him the girdle. Poor prince: this was one of those crazy conceits, so puzzling
+to his subjects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Media now hastened to assure Donjalolo, that Samoa, though no cherub to behold,
+was good flesh and blood, nevertheless. And soon the king unconcernedly gazed;
+his monomania having departed as a dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But still suffering from the effects of an overnight feast, he presently
+murmured forth a desire to be left to his women; adding that his people would
+not fail to provide for the entertainment of his guests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The curtains of the sedan were now drawn; and soon it disappeared in the
+groves. Journeying on, ere long we arrived at the western side of the glen;
+where one of the many little arbors scattered among the trees, was assigned for
+our abode. Here, we reclined to an agreeable repast. After which, we strolled
+forth to view the valley at large; more especially the far-famed palaces of the
+prince.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0075"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXV.<br/>
+Time And Temples</h2>
+
+<p>
+In the oriental Pilgrimage of the pious old Purchas, and in the fine old folio
+Voyages of Hakluyt, Thevenot, Ramusio, and De Bry, we read of many glorious old
+Asiatic temples, very long in erecting. And veracious Gaudentia di Lucca hath a
+wondrous narration of the time consumed in rearing that mighty
+three-hundred-and-seventy-five- pillared Temple of the Year, somewhere beyond
+Libya; whereof, the columns did signify days, and all round fronted upon
+concentric zones of palaces, cross-cut by twelve grand avenues symbolizing the
+signs of the zodiac, all radiating from the sun-dome in their midst. And in
+that wild eastern tale of his, Marco Polo tells us, how the Great Mogul began
+him a pleasure-palace on so imperial a scale, that his grandson had much ado to
+complete it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no matter for marveling all this: great towers take time to construct.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so of all else.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And that which long endures full-fledged, must have long lain in the germ. And
+duration is not of the future, but of the past; and eternity is eternal,
+because it has been, and though a strong new monument be builded to-day, it
+only is lasting because its blocks are old as the sun. It is not the Pyramids
+that are ancient, but the eternal granite whereof they are made; which had been
+equally ancient though yet in the quarry. For to make an eternity, we must
+build with eternities; whence, the vanity of the cry for any thing alike
+durable and new; and the folly of the reproach&mdash;Your granite hath come
+from the old-fashioned hills. For we are not gods and creators; and the
+controversialists have debated, whether indeed the All-Plastic Power itself can
+do more than mold. In all the universe is but one original; and the very suns
+must to their source for their fire; and we Prometheuses must to them for ours;
+which, when had, only perpetual Vestal tending will keep alive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let us back from fire to store. No fine firm fabric ever yet grew like a
+gourd. Nero&rsquo;s House of Gold was not raised in a day; nor the Mexican
+House of the Sun; nor the Alhambra; nor the Escurial; nor Titus&rsquo;s
+Amphitheater; nor the Illinois Mounds; nor Diana&rsquo;s great columns at
+Ephesus; nor Pompey&rsquo;s proud Pillar; nor the Parthenon; nor the Altar of
+Belus; nor Stonehenge; nor Solomon&rsquo;s Temple; nor Tadmor&rsquo;s towers;
+nor Susa&rsquo;s bastions; nor Persepolis&rsquo; pediments. Round and round,
+the Moorish turret at Seville was not wound heavenward in the revolution of a
+day; and from its first founding, five hundred years did circle, ere
+Strasbourg&rsquo;s great spire lifted its five hundred feet into the air. No:
+nor were the great grottos of Elephanta hewn out in an hour; nor did the
+Troglodytes dig Kentucky&rsquo;s Mammoth Cave in a sun; nor that of Trophonius,
+nor Antiparos; nor the Giant&rsquo;s Causeway. Nor were the subterranean arched
+sewers of Etruria channeled in a trice; nor the airy arched aqueducts of Nerva
+thrown over their values in the ides of a month. Nor was Virginia&rsquo;s
+Natural Bridge worn under in a year; nor, in geology, were the eternal
+Grampians upheaved in an age. And who shall count the cycles that revolved ere
+earth&rsquo;s interior sedimentary strata were crystalized into stone. Nor Peak
+of Piko, nor Teneriffe, were chiseled into obelisks in a decade; nor had Mount
+Athos been turned into Alexander&rsquo;s statue so soon. And the bower of
+Artaxerxes took a whole Persian summer to grow; and the Czar&rsquo;s Ice Palace
+a long Muscovite winter to congéal. No, no: nor was the Pyramid of Cheops
+masoned in a month; though, once built, the sands left by the deluge might not
+have submerged such a pile. Nor were the broad boughs of Charles&rsquo; Oak
+grown in a spring; though they outlived the royal dynasties of Tudor and
+Stuart. Nor were the parts of the great Iliad put together in haste; though old
+Homer&rsquo;s temple shall lift up its dome, when St. Peter&rsquo;s is a
+legend. Even man himself lives months ere his Maker deems him fit to be born;
+and ere his proud shaft gains its full stature, twenty-one long Julian years
+must elapse. And his whole mortal life brings not his immortal soul to
+maturity; nor will all eternity perfect him. Yea, with uttermost reverence, as
+to human understanding, increase of dominion seems increase of power; and day
+by day new planets are being added to elder-born Saturn, even as six thousand
+years ago our own Earth made one more in this system; so, in incident, not in
+essence, may the Infinite himself be not less than more infinite now, than when
+old Aldebaran rolled forth from his hand. And if time was, when this round
+Earth, which to innumerable mortals has seemed an empire never to be wholly
+explored; which, in its seas, concealed all the Indies over four thousand five
+hundred years; if time was, when this great quarry of Assyrias and Romes was
+not extant; then, time may have been, when the whole material universe lived
+its Dark Ages; yea, when the Ineffable Silence, proceeding from its
+unimaginable remoteness, espied it as an isle in the sea. And herein is no
+derogation. For the Immeasurable&rsquo;s altitude is not heightened by the
+arches of Mahomet&rsquo;s heavens; and were all space a vacuum, yet would it be
+a fullness; for to Himself His own universe is He.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus deeper and deeper into Time&rsquo;s endless tunnel, does the winged soul,
+like a night-hawk, wend her wild way; and finds eternities before and behind;
+and her last limit is her everlasting beginning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But sent over the broad flooded sphere, even Noah&rsquo;s dove came back, and
+perched on his hand. So comes back my spirit to me, and folds up her wings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus, then, though Time be the mightiest of Alarics, yet is he the mightiest
+mason of all. And a tutor, and a counselor, and a physician, and a scribe, and
+a poet, and a sage, and a king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yea, and a gardener, as ere long will be shown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But first must we return to the glen.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0076"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXVI.<br/>
+A Pleasant Place For A Lounge</h2>
+
+<p>
+Whether the hard condition of their kingly state, very naturally demanding some
+luxurious requital, prevailed upon the monarchs of Juam to house themselves so
+delightfully as they did; whether buried alive in their glen, they sought to
+center therein a secret world of enjoyment; however it may have been,
+throughout the Archipelago this saying was a proverb&mdash;&ldquo;You are
+lodged like the king in Willamilla.&rdquo; Hereby was expressed the utmost
+sumptuousness of a palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A well warranted saying; for of all the bright places, where my soul loves to
+linger, the haunts of Donjalolo are most delicious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the eastern quarter of the glen was the House of the Morning. This fanciful
+palace was raised upon a natural mound, many rods square, almost completely
+filling up a deep recess between deep-green and projecting cliffs, overlooking
+many abodes distributed in the shadows of the groves beyond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, if it indeed be, that from the time employed in its construction, any just
+notion may be formed of the stateliness of an edifice, it must needs be
+determined, that this retreat of Donjalolo could not be otherwise than
+imposing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Full five hundred moons was the palace in completing; for by some architectural
+arborist, its quadrangular foundations had been laid in seed-cocoanuts,
+requiring that period to sprout up into pillars. In front, these were
+horizontally connected, by elaborately carved beams, of a scarlet hue, inserted
+into the vital wood; which, swelling out, and over lapping, firmly secured
+them. The beams supported the rafters, inclining from the rear; while over the
+aromatic grasses covering the roof, waved the tufted tops of the Palms, green
+capitals to their dusky shafts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through and through this vibrating verdure, bright birds flitted and sang; the
+scented and variegated thatch seemed a hanging-garden; and between it and the
+Palm tops, was leaf-hung an arbor in the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without these columns, stood a second and third colonnade, forming the most
+beautiful bowers; advancing through which, you fancied that the palace beyond
+must be chambered in a fountain, or frozen in a crystal. Three sparkling
+rivulets flowing from the heights were led across its summit, through great
+trunks half buried in the thatch; and emptying into a sculptured channel,
+running along the eaves, poured over in one wide sheet, plaited and
+transparent. Received into a basin beneath, they were thence conducted down the
+vale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sides of the palace were hedged by Diomi bushes bearing a flower, from its
+perfume, called Lenora, or Sweet Breath; and within these odorous hedges, were
+heavy piles of mats, richly dyed and embroidered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here lounging of a glowing noon, the plaited cascade playing, the verdure
+waving, and the birds melodious, it was hard to say, whether you were an inmate
+of a garden in the glen, or a grotto in the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But enough for the nonce, of the House of the Morning. Cross we the hollow, to
+the House of the Afternoon.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0077"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXVII.<br/>
+The House Of The Afternoon</h2>
+
+<p>
+For the most part, the House of the Afternoon was but a wing built against a
+mansion wrought by the hand of Nature herself; a grotto running into the side
+of the mountain. From high over the mouth of this grotto, sloped a long arbor,
+supported by great blocks of stone, rudely chiseled into the likeness of idols,
+each bearing a carved lizard on its chest: a sergeant&rsquo;s guard of the gods
+condescendingly doing duty as posts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the grotto thus vestibuled, issued hilariously forth the most considerable
+stream of the glen; which, seemingly overjoyed to find daylight in Willamilla,
+sprang into the arbor with a cheery, white bound. But its youthful enthusiasm
+was soon repressed; its waters being caught in a large stone basin, scooped out
+of the natural rock; whence, staid and decorous, they traversed sundry moats;
+at last meandering away, to join floods with the streams trained to do service
+at the other end of the vale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Truant streams: the livelong day wending their loitering path to the
+subterraneous outlet, flowing into which, they disappeared. But no wonder they
+loitered; passing such ravishing landscapes. Thus with life: man bounds out of
+night; runs and babbles in the sun; then returns to his darkness again; though,
+peradventure, once more to emerge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the grotto was not a mere outlet to the stream. Flowing through a dark
+flume in the rock, on both sides it left a dry, elevated shelf, to which you
+ascend from the arbor by three artificially-wrought steps, sideways disposed,
+to avoid the spray of the rejoicing cataract. Mounting these, and pursuing the
+edge of the flume, the grotto gradually expands and heightens; your way lighted
+by rays in the inner distance. At last you come to a lofty subterraneous dome,
+lit from above by a cleft in the mountain; while full before you, in the
+opposite wall, from a low, black arch, midway up, and inaccessible, the stream,
+with a hollow ring and a dash, falls in a long, snowy column into a bottomless
+pool, whence, after many an eddy and whirl, it entered the flume, and away with
+a rush. Half hidden from view by an overhanging brow of the rock, the white
+fall looked like the sheeted ghost of the grotto.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet gallantly bedecked was the cave, as any old armorial hall hung round with
+banners and arras. Streaming from the cleft, vines swung in the air; or crawled
+along the rocks, wherever a tendril could be fixed. High up, their leaves were
+green; but lower down, they were shriveled; and dyed of many colors; and
+tattered and torn with much rustling; as old banners again; sore raveled with
+much triumphing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the middle of this hall in the hill was incarcerated the stone image of one
+Demi, the tutelar deity of Willamina. All green and oozy like a stone under
+water, poor Demi looked as if sore harassed with sciatics and lumbagos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he was cheered from aloft, by the promise of receiving a garland all
+blooming on his crown; the Dryads sporting in the woodlands above, forever
+peeping down the cleft, and essaying to drop him a coronal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, the still, panting glen of Willamilla, nested so close by the mountains,
+and a goodly green mark for the archer in the sun, would have been almost
+untenable were it not for the grotto. Hereby, it breathed the blessed breezes
+of Omi; a mountain promontory buttressing the island to the east, receiving the
+cool stream of the upland Trades; much pleasanter than the currents beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At all times, even in the brooding noon-day, a gush of cool air came
+hand-in-hand with the cool waters, that burst with a shout into the palace of
+Donjalolo. And as, after first refreshing the king, as in loyalty bound, the
+stream flowed at large through the glen, and bathed its verdure; so, the
+blessed breezes of Omi, not only made pleasant the House of the Afternoon; but
+finding ample outlet in its wide, open front, blew forth upon the bosom of all
+Willamilla.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come let us take the air of Omi,&rdquo; was a very common saying in the
+glen. And the speaker would hie with his comrade toward the grotto; and
+flinging himself on the turf, pass his hand through his locks, and recline;
+making a joy and a business of breathing; for truly the breezes of Omi were as
+air-wine to the lungs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet was not this breeze over-cool; though at times the zephyrs grew boisterous.
+Especially at the season of high sea, when the strong Trades drawn down the
+cleft in the mountain, rushed forth from the grotto with wonderful force.
+Crossing it then, you had much ado to keep your robe on your back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus much for the House of the Afternoon. Whither&mdash;after spending the
+shady morning under the eastern cliffs of the glen&mdash;daily, at a certain
+hour, Donjalolo in his palanquin was borne; there, finding new shades; and
+there tarrying till evening; when again he was transported whence he came:
+thereby anticipating the revolution of the sun. Thus dodging day&rsquo;s
+luminary through life, the prince hied to and fro in his dominions; on his
+smooth, spotless brow Sol&rsquo;s rays never shining.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0078"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXVIII.<br/>
+Babbalanja Solus</h2>
+
+<p>
+Of the House of the Afternoon something yet remains to be said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was chiefly distinguished by its pavement, where, according to the strange
+customs of the isle, were inlaid the reputed skeletons of Donjalolo&rsquo;s
+sires; each surrounded by a mosaic of corals,&mdash;red, white, and black,
+intermixed with vitreous stones fallen from the skies in a meteoric shower.
+These delineated the tattooing of the departed. Near by, were imbedded their
+arms: mace, bow, and spear, in similar marquetry; and over each skull was the
+likeness of a scepter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First and conspicuous lay the half-decayed remains of Marjora, the father of
+these Coral Kings; by his side, the storied, sickle-shaped weapon, wherewith he
+slew his brother Teei.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Line of kings and row of scepters,&rdquo; said Babbalanja as he gazed.
+&ldquo;Donjalolo, come forth and ponder on thy sires. Here they lie, from dread
+Marjora down to him who fathered thee. Here are their bones, their spears, and
+their javelins; their scepters, and the very fashion of their tattooing: all
+that can be got together of what they were. Tell me, oh king, what are thy
+thoughts? Dotest thou on these thy sires? Art thou more truly royal, that they
+were kings? Or more a man, that they were men? Is it a fable, or a verity about
+Marjora and the murdered Teei? But here is the mighty conqueror,&mdash;ask him.
+Speak to him: son to sire: king to king. Prick him; beg; buffet; entreat;
+spurn; split the globe, he will not budge. Walk over and over thy whole
+ancestral line, and they will not start. They are not here. Ay, the dead are
+not to be found, even in their graves. Nor have they simply departed; for they
+willed not to go; they died not by choice; whithersoever they have gone,
+thither have they been dragged; and if so be, they are extinct, their
+nihilities went not more against their grain, than their forced quitting of
+Mardi. Either way, something has become of them that they sought not. Truly,
+had stout-hearted Marjora sworn to live here in Willamilla for ay, and kept the
+vow, that would have been royalty indeed; but here he lies. Marjora! rise! Juam
+revolteth! Lo, I stamp upon thy scepter; base menials tread upon thee where
+thou hest! Up, king, up! What? no reply? Are not these bones thine? Oh, how the
+living triumph over the dead! Marjora! answer. Art thou? or art thou not? I see
+thee not; I hear thee not; I feel thee not; eyes, ears, hands, are worthless to
+test thy being; and if thou art, thou art something beyond all human thought to
+compass. We must have other faculties to know thee by. Why, thou art not even a
+sightless sound; not the echo of an echo; here are thy bones. Donjalolo,
+methinks I see thee fallen upon by assassins:&mdash;which of thy fathers riseth
+to the rescue? I see thee dying:&mdash;which of them telleth thee what cheer
+beyond the grave? But they have gone to the land unknown. Meet phrase. Where is
+it? Not one of Oro&rsquo;s priests telleth a straight story concerning it;
+&rsquo;twill be hard finding their paradises. Touching the life of Alma, in
+Mohi&rsquo;s chronicles, &rsquo;tis related, that a man was once raised from
+the tomb. But rubbed he not his eyes, and stared he not most vacantly? Not one
+revelation did he make. Ye gods! to have been a bystander there!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At best, &rsquo;tis but a hope. But will a longing bring the thing
+desired? Doth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative. The fire
+I shrink from, may consume me.&mdash;But dead, and yet alive; alive, yet
+dead;&mdash;thus say the sages of Maramma. But die we then living? Yet if our
+dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our unborn sons? For backward
+or forward, eternity is the same; already have we been the nothing we dread to
+be. Icy thought! But bring it home,&mdash;it will not stay. What ho, hot heart
+of mine: to beat thus lustily awhile, to feel in the red rushing blood, and
+then be ashes,&mdash;can this be so? But peace, peace, thou liar in me, telling
+me I am immortal&mdash;shall I not be as these bones? To come to this! But the
+balsam-dropping palms, whose boles run milk, whose plumes wave boastful in the
+air, they perish in their prime, and bow their blasted trunks. Nothing abideth;
+the river of yesterday floweth not to-day; the sun&rsquo;s rising is a setting;
+living is dying; the very mountains melt; and all revolve:&mdash;systems and
+asteroids; the sun wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a revolution.
+Ah gods! in all this universal stir, am I to prove one stable thing?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dust of
+beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and filch their
+skulls. This, great Marjora&rsquo;s arm? No, some old paralytic&rsquo;s. Ye,
+kings? ye, men? Where are your vouchers? I do reject your brother-hood, ye
+libelous remains. But no, no; despise them not, oh Babbalanja! Thy own
+skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through this mortal life; and aye
+would view it, but for kind nature&rsquo;s screen; thou art death alive; and
+e&rsquo;en to what&rsquo;s before thee wilt thou come. Ay, thy children&rsquo;s
+children will walk over thee: thou, voiceless as a calm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0079"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXIX.<br/>
+The Center Of Many Circumferences</h2>
+
+<p>
+Like Donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we pace to the
+House of the Morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to less public
+apartments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you to open
+ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of the prince: a square
+structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, as inscrutable. Down to the very
+ground, its walls are thatched; but on the farther side a passage-way opens,
+which you enter. But not yet are you within. Scarce a yard distant, stands an
+inner thatched wall, blank as the first. Passing along the intervening
+corridor, lighted by narrow apertures, you reach the opposite side, and a
+second opening is revealed. This entering, another corridor; lighted as the
+first, but more dim, and a third blank wall. And thus, three times three, you
+worm round and round, the twilight lessening as you proceed; until at last, you
+enter the citadel itself: the innermost arbor of a nest; whereof, each has its
+roof, distinct from the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heart of the place is but small; illuminated by a range of open sky-lights,
+downward contracting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Innumerable as the leaves of an endless folio, multitudinous mats cover the
+floor; whereon reclining by night, like Pharaoh on the top of his patrimonial
+pile, the inmate looks heavenward, and heavenward only; gazing at the
+torchlight processions in the skies, when, in state, the suns march to be
+crowned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered the
+universe-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef- sashed,
+mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped, self-hugged,
+indivisible Donjalolo, absolute monarch of Juam:&mdash;the husk-inhusked meat
+in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; the juice-nested seed in a
+goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in an effeminate peach; the insphered
+sphere of spheres.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0080"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXX.<br/>
+Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family</h2>
+
+<p>
+To pretend to relate the manner in which Juam&rsquo;s ruler passed his captive
+days, without making suitable mention of his harem, would be to paint
+one&rsquo;s full-length likeness and omit the face. For it was his harem that
+did much to stamp the character of Donjalolo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous, surely, to have
+overlooked the princess; much more, then, as it is; and by how-much the more, a
+plurality exceeds a unit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the person of the king,
+he had wives thirty in number, corresponding in name to the nights of the moon.
+For, in Juam, time is not reckoned by days, but by nights; each night of the
+lunar month having its own designation; which, relatively only, is extended to
+the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In uniform succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of the king&rsquo;s heart.
+An arrangement most wise and judicious; precluding much of that jealousy and
+confusion prevalent in ill-regulated seraglios. For as thirty spouses must be
+either more desirable, or less desirable than one; so is a harem thirty times
+more difficult to manage than an establishment with one solitary mistress. But
+Donjalolo&rsquo;s wives were so nicely drilled, that for the most part, things
+went on very smoothly. Nor were his brows much furrowed with wrinkles referable
+to domestic cares and tribulations. Although, as in due time will be seen, from
+these he was not altogether exempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, according to Braid-Beard, who, among other abstruse political researches,
+had accurately informed himself concerning the internal administration of
+Donjalolo&rsquo;s harem, the following was the method pursued therein.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the Aquella, or First Night of the month, the queen of that name assumes her
+diadem, and reigns. So too with Azzolino the Second, and Velluvi the Third
+Night of the Moon; and so on, even unto the utter eclipse thereof; through
+Calends, Nones, and Ides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For convenience, the king is furnished with a card, whereon are copied the
+various ciphers upon the arms of his queens; and parallel thereto, the
+hieroglyphics significant of the corresponding Nights of the month. Glancing
+over this, Donjalolo predicts the true time of the rising and setting of all
+his stars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This Moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios, which few mortals
+beheld. For, so deeply were they buried in a grove; so overpowered with
+verdure; so overrun with vines; and so hazy with the incense of flowers; that
+they were almost invisible, unless closely approached. Certain it was, that it
+demanded no small enterprise, diligence, and sagacity, to explore the
+mysterious wood in search of them. Though a strange, sweet, humming sound, as
+of the clustering and swarming of warm bees among roses, at last hinted the
+royal honey at hand. High in air, toward the summit of the cliff, overlooking
+this side of the glen, a narrow ledge of rocks might have been seen, from
+which, rumor whispered, was to be caught an angular peep at the tip of the apex
+of the roof of the nearest seraglio. But this wild report had never been
+established. Nor, indeed, was it susceptible of a test. For was not that rock
+inaccessible as the eyrie of young eagles? But to guard against the possibility
+of any visual profanation, Donjalolo had authorized an edict, forever tabooing
+that rock to foot of man or pinion of fowl. Birds and bipeds both trembled and
+obeyed; taking a wide circuit to avoid the spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors leading from the
+palace. The seraglio to the right was denominated &ldquo;Ravi&rdquo; (Before),
+that to the left &ldquo;Zono&rdquo; (After). The meaning of which was, that
+upon the termination of her reign the queen wended her way to the Zono; there
+tarrying with her predecessors till the Ravi was emptied; when the entire Moon
+of wives, swallow-like, migrated back whence they came; and the procession was
+gone over again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with their respective
+ciphers. In the Ravi, the mat of the queen-apparent, or next in succession, was
+spread by the portal. In the Zono, the newly- widowed queen reposed furthest
+from it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned. Notwithstanding these
+excellent arrangements, the mature result of ages of progressive improvement in
+the economy of the royal seraglios in Willamilla, it must needs be related,
+that at times the order of precedence became confused, and was very hard to
+restore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to the no small delight of
+the remainder; but to their equal vexation her place would soon after be
+supplied by some beautiful stranger; who assuming the denomination of the
+vacated Night of the Moon, thenceforth commenced her monthly revolutions in the
+king&rsquo;s infallible calendar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone, thin of leg, and
+puny of frame; whose grateful task it was, to tarry in the garden of
+Donjalolo&rsquo;s delights, without ever touching the roses. Along with
+innumerable other duties, they were perpetually kept coming and going upon ten
+thousand errands; for they had it in strict charge to obey the slightest
+behests of the damsels; and with all imaginable expedition to run, fly, swim,
+or dissolve into impalpable air, at the shortest possible notice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So laborious their avocations, that none could discharge them for more than a
+twelvemonth, at the end of that period giving up the ghost out of pure
+exhaustion of the locomotive apparatus. It was this constant drain upon the
+stock of masculine old age in the glen, that so bethinned its small population
+of gray-beards and hoary-heads. And any old man hitherto exempted, who happened
+to receive a summons to repair to the palace, and there wait the pleasure of
+the king: this unfortunate, at once suspecting his doom, put his arbor in
+order; oiled and suppled his joints; took a long farewell of his friends;
+selected his burial-place; and going resigned to his fate, in due time expired
+like the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance, he might
+possibly have derived some little consolation from the thought, that though a
+slave to the whims of thirty princesses, he was nevertheless one of their
+guardians, and as such, he might ingeniously have concluded, their superior.
+But small consolation this. For the damsels were as blithe as larks, more
+playful than kittens; never looking sad and sentimental, projecting clandestine
+escapes. But supplied with the thirtieth part of all that Aspasia could desire;
+glorying in being the spouses of a king; nor in the remotest degree anxious
+about eventual dowers; they were care-free, content, and rejoicing, as the rays
+of the morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of your fate, one drop of
+the balm of consolation. For, commissioned to watch over those who forever kept
+you on the trot, affording you no time to hunt up peccadilloes; was not this
+circumstance an aggravation of hard times? a sharpening and edge-giving to the
+steel in your souls?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But much yet remains unsaid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident to these attenuated
+old warders, they were intensely hated by the damsels. Inasmuch, as it was
+archly opined, for what ulterior purposes they were retained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless old bronze
+dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old men ever and anon cried out
+mightily, by reason of sore pinches and scratches received in the dark: And
+tri-trebly-tri-triply girt about as he was, Donjalolo himself started from his
+slumbers, raced round and round through his ten thousand corridors; at last
+bursting all dizzy among his twenty-nine queens, to see what under the
+seventh-heavens was the matter. When, lo and behold! there lay the innocents
+all sound asleep; the dragons moaning over their mysterious bruises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight and the torment of
+the days and nights of Donjalolo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in one special matter was he either eminently miserable, or otherwise: for
+all his multiplicity of wives, he had never an heir. Not his, the proud
+paternal glance of the Grand Turk Solyman, looking round upon a hundred sons,
+all bone of his bone, and squinting with his squint.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0081"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXI.<br/>
+Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The Land Of
+Shades</h2>
+
+<p>
+At our morning repast on the second day of our stay in the hollow, our party
+indulged in much lively discourse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Samoa,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;those isles of yours, of whose beauty you
+so often make vauntful mention, can those isles, good Samoa, furnish a valley
+in all respects equal to Willamilla?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Disdainful answer was made, that Willamilla might be endurable enough for a
+sojourn, but as a permanent abode, any glen of his own natal isle was
+unspeakably superior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the great valley of Savaii,&rdquo; cried Samoa, &ldquo;for every leaf
+grown here in Willamilla, grows a stately tree; and for every tree here waving,
+in Savaii flourishes a goodly warrior.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immeasurable was the disgust of the Upoluan for the enervated subjects of
+Donjalolo; and for Donjalolo himself; though it was shrewdly divined, that his
+annoying reception at the hands of the royalty of Juam, had something to do
+with his disdain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Jarl, no similar question was put; for he was sadly deficient in a taste for
+the picturesque. But he cursorily observed, that in his blue-water opinion,
+Willamilla was next to uninhabitable, all view of the sea being intercepted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here it may be well to relate a comical blunder on the part of honest Jarl;
+concerning which, Samoa, the savage, often afterward twitted him; as indicating
+a rusticity, and want of polish in his breeding. It rather originated, however,
+in his not heeding the conventionalities of the strange people among whom he
+was thrown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The anecdote is not an epic; but here it is.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reclining in our arbor, we breakfasted upon a marble slab; so frost-white, and
+flowingly traced with blue veins, that it seemed a little lake sheeted over
+with ice: Diana&rsquo;s virgin bosom congéaled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before each guest was a richly carved bowl and gourd, fruit and wine freighted
+also the empty hemisphere of a small nut, the purpose of which was a problem.
+Now, King Jarl scorned to admit the slightest degree of under-breeding in the
+matter of polite feeding. So nothing was a problem to him. At once reminded of
+the morsel of Arvaroot in his mouth, a substitute for another sort of sedative
+then unattainable, he was instantly illuminated concerning the purpose of the
+nut; and very complacently introduced each to the other; in the innocence of
+his ignorance making no doubt that he had acquitted himself with discretion;
+the little hemisphere plainly being intended as a place of temporary deposit
+for the Arva of the guests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The company were astounded: Samoa more than all. King Jarl, meanwhile, looking
+at all present with the utmost serenity. At length, one of the horrified
+attendants, using two sticks for a forceps, disappeared with the obnoxious nut,
+Upon which, the meal proceeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This attendant was not seen again for many days; which gave rise to the
+supposition, that journeying to the sea-side, he had embarked for some distant
+strand; there, to bury out of sight the abomination with which he was
+freighted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this, his egregious misadventure, calculated to do discredit to our party,
+and bring Media himself into contempt, Babbalanja had no scruples in taking
+Jarl roundly to task. He assured him, that it argued but little brains to
+evince a desire to be thought familiar with all things; that however desirable
+as incidental attainments, conventionalities, in themselves, were the very
+least of arbitrary trifles; the knowledge of them, innate with no man.
+&ldquo;Moreover Jarl,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;in essence, conventionalities are
+but mimickings, at which monkeys succeed best. Hence, when you find yourself at
+a loss in these matters, wait patiently, and mark what the other monkeys do:
+and then follow suit. And by so doing, you will gain a vast reputation as an
+accomplished ape. Above all things, follow not the silly example of the young
+spark Karkeke, of whom Mohi was telling me. Dying, and entering the other world
+with a mincing gait, and there finding certain customs quite strange and new;
+such as friendly shades passing through each other by way of a
+salutation;&mdash;Karkeke, nevertheless, resolved to show no sign of
+embarrassment. Accosted by a phantom, with wings folded pensively, plumes
+interlocked across its chest, he off head; and stood obsequiously before it.
+Staring at him for an instant, the spirit cut him dead; murmuring to itself,
+&lsquo;Ah, some terrestrial bumpkin, I fancy,&rsquo; and passed on with its
+celestial nose in the highly rarified air. But silly Karkeke undertaking to
+replace his head, found that it would no more stay on; but forever tumbled off;
+even in the act of nodding a salute; which calamity kept putting him out of
+countenance. And thus through all eternity is he punished for his folly, in
+having pretended to be wise, wherein he was ignorant. Head under arm, he
+wanders about, the scorn and ridicule of the other world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our repast concluded, messengers arrived from the prince, courteously inviting
+our presence at the House of the Morning. Thither we went; journeying in
+sedans, sent across the hollow, for that purpose, by Donjalolo.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0082"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXII.<br/>
+How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding Isles; With The Result</h2>
+
+<p>
+Ere recounting what was beheld on entering the House of the Morning, some
+previous information is needful. Though so many of Donjalolo&rsquo;s days were
+consumed by sloth and luxury, there came to him certain intervals of
+thoughtfulness, when all his curiosity concerning the things of outer Mardi
+revived with augmented intensity. In these moods, he would send abroad
+deputations, inviting to Willamilla the kings of the neighboring islands;
+together with the most celebrated priests, bards, story-tellers, magicians, and
+wise men; that he might hear them converse of those things, which he could not
+behold for himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at last, he bethought him, that the various narrations he had heard, could
+not have been otherwise than unavoidably faulty; by reason that they had been
+principally obtained from the inhabitants of the countries described; who, very
+naturally, must have been inclined to partiality or uncandidness in their
+statements. Wherefore he had very lately dispatched to the isles special agents
+of his own; honest of heart, keen of eye, and shrewd of understanding; to seek
+out every thing that promised to illuminate him concerning the places they
+visited, and also to collect various specimens of interesting objects; so that
+at last he might avail himself of the researches of others, and see with their
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though two observers were sent to every one of the neighboring lands; yet
+each was to act independently; make his own inquiries; form his own
+conclusions; and return with his own specimens; wholly regardless of the
+proceedings of the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It so came to pass, that on the very day of our arrival in the glen, these
+pilgrims returned from their travels. And Donjalolo had set apart the following
+morning to giving them a grand public reception. And it was to this, that our
+party had been invited, as related in the chapter preceding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the great Palm-hall of the House of the Morning, we were assigned
+distinguished mats, to the right of the prince; his chiefs, attendants, and
+subjects assembled in the open colonnades without.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When all was in readiness, in marched the company of savans and travelers; and
+humbly standing in a semi-circle before the king, their numerous hampers were
+deposited at their feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Donjalolo was now in high spirits, thinking of the rich store of reliable
+information about to be furnished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Zuma,&rdquo; said he, addressing the foremost of the company, &ldquo;you
+and Varnopi were directed to explore the island of Rafona. Proceed now, and
+relate all you know of that place. Your narration heard, we will list to
+Varnopi.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a profound inclination the traveler obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But soon Donjalolo interrupted him. &ldquo;What say you, Zuma, about the secret
+cavern, and the treasures therein? A very different account, this, from all I
+have heard hitherto; but perhaps yours is the true version. Go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But very soon, poor Zuma was again interrupted by exclamations of surprise.
+Nay, even to the very end of his mountings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when he had done, Donjalolo observed, that if from any cause Zuma was in
+error or obscure, Varnopi would not fail to set him right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Varnopi was called upon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not long had Varnopi proceeded, when Donjalolo changed color.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;will ye contradict each other before
+our very face. Oh Oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! Fifty accounts
+have I had of Rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here, these two varlets,
+sent expressly to behold and report, these two lying knaves, speak crookedly
+both. How is it? Are the lenses in their eyes diverse-hued, that objects seem
+different to both; for undeniable is it, that the things they thus clashingly
+speak of are to be known for the same; though represented with unlike colors
+and qualities. But dumb things can not lie nor err. Unpack thy hampers, Zuma.
+Here, bring them close: now: what is this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; tremblingly replied Zuma, &ldquo;is a specimen of the
+famous reef- bar on the west side of the island of Rafona; your highness
+perceives its deep red dyes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Donjalolo, &ldquo;Varnopi, hast thou a piece of this coral, also?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have, your highness,&rdquo; said Varnopi; &ldquo;here it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking it from his hand, Donjalolo gazed at its bleached, white hue; then
+dashing it to the pavement, &ldquo;Oh mighty Oro! Truth dwells in her
+fountains; where every one must drink for himself. For me, vain all hope of
+ever knowing Mardi! Away! Better know nothing, than be deceived. Break
+up!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Donjalolo rose, and retired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All present now broke out in a storm of vociferation; some siding with Zuma;
+others with Varnopi; each of whom, in turn, was declared the man to be relied
+upon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Marking all this, Babbalanja, who had been silently looking on, leaning against
+one of the palm pillars, quietly observed to Media:&mdash; &ldquo;My lord, I
+have seen this same reef at Rafona. In various places, it is of various hues.
+As for Zuma and Varnopi, both are wrong, and both are right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0083"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXIII.<br/>
+They Visit The Tributary Islets</h2>
+
+<p>
+In Willamilla, no Yillah being found, on the third day we took leave of
+Donjalolo; who lavished upon us many caresses and, somewhat reluctantly on
+Media&rsquo;s part, we quitted the vale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One by one, we now visited the outer villages of Juam; and crossing the waters,
+wandered several days among its tributary isles. There we saw the viceroys of
+him who reigned in the hollow: chieftains of whom Donjalolo was proud; so
+honest, humble, and faithful; so bent upon ameliorating the condition of those
+under their rule. For, be it said, Donjalolo was a charitable prince; in his
+serious intervals, ever seeking the welfare of his subjects, though after an
+imperial view of his own. But alas, in that sunny donjon among the mountains,
+where he dwelt, how could Donjalolo be sure, that the things he decreed were
+executed in regions forever remote from his view. Ah! very bland, very
+innocent, very pious, the faces his viceroys presented during their monthly
+visits to Willamilla. But as cruel their visage, when, returned to their
+islets, they abandoned themselves to all the license of tyrants; like Verres
+reveling down the rights of the Sicilians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Like Carmelites, they came to Donjalolo, barefooted; but in their homes, their
+proud latchets were tied by their slaves. Before their king-belted prince, they
+stood rope-girdled like self-abased monks of St. Francis; but with those ropes,
+before their palaces, they hung Innocence and Truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As still seeking Yillah, and still disappointed, we roved through the lands
+which these chieftains ruled, Babbalanja exclaimed&mdash;&ldquo;Let us depart;
+idle our search, in isles that have viceroys for kings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At early dawn, about embarking for a distant land, there came to us certain
+messengers of Donjalolo, saying that their lord the king, repenting of so soon
+parting company with Media and Taji, besought them to return with all haste;
+for that very morning, in Willamilla, a regal banquet was preparing; to which
+many neighboring kings had been invited, most of whom had already arrived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Declaring that there was no alternative but compliance, Media acceded; and with
+the king&rsquo;s messengers we returned to the glen.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0084"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXIV.<br/>
+Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five-And-Twenty Kings, And A Royal Time They
+Have</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was afternoon when we emerged from the defile. And informed that our host
+was receiving his guests in the House of the Afternoon, thither we directed our
+steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soft in our face, blew the blessed breezes of Omi, stirring the leaves
+overhead; while, here and there, through the trees, showed the idol-bearers of
+the royal retreat, hand in hand, linked with festoons of flowers. Still beyond,
+on a level, sparkled the nodding crowns of the kings, like the constellation
+Corona-Borealis, the horizon just gained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Close by his noon-tide friend, the cascade at the mouth of the grotto, reposed
+on his crimson mat, Donjalolo:&mdash;arrayed in a vestment of the finest white
+tappa of Mardi, figured all over with bright yellow lizards, so curiously
+stained in the gauze, that he seemed overrun, as with golden mice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Marjora&rsquo;s girdle girdled his loins, tasseled with the congregated teeth
+of his sires. A jeweled turban-tiara, milk-white, surmounted his brow, over
+which waved a copse of Pintado plumes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what sways in his hand? A scepter, similar to those likenesses of scepters,
+imbedded among the corals at his feet. A polished thigh- bone; by Braid-Beard
+declared once Teei&rsquo;s the Murdered. For to emphasize his intention utterly
+to rule, Marjora himself had selected this emblem of dominion over mankind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But even this last despite done to dead Teei had once been transcended. In the
+usurper&rsquo;s time, prevailed the belief, that the saliva of kings must never
+touch ground; and Mohi&rsquo;s Chronicles made mention, that during the life
+time of Marjora, Teei&rsquo;s skull had been devoted to the basest of purposes:
+Marjora&rsquo;s, the hate no turf could bury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet, traditions like these ever seem dubious. There be many who deny the hump,
+moral and physical, of Gloster Richard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still advancing unperceived, in social hilarity we descried their Highnesses,
+chatting together like the most plebeian of mortals; full as merry as the monks
+of old. But marking our approach, all changed. A pair of potentates, who had
+been playfully trifling, hurriedly adjusted their diadems, threw themselves
+into attitudes, looking stately as statues. Phidias turned not out his Jupiter
+so soon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In various-dyed robes the five-and-twenty kings were arrayed; and various their
+features, as the rows of lips, eyes and ears in John Caspar Lavater&rsquo;s
+physiognomical charts. Nevertheless, to a king, all their noses were aquiline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins, like those
+of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and wrinkles: forms
+erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was deaf; by his side,
+another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard. They were old and young, tall
+and short, handsome and ugly, fat and lean, cunning and simple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With animated courtesy our host received us; assigning a neighboring bower for
+Babbalanja and the rest; and among so many right-royal, demi-divine guests, how
+could the demi-gods Media and Taji be otherwise than at home?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The unwonted sprightliness of Donjalolo surprised us. But he was in one of
+those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his failures in
+efforts to amend his life. And the bootless issue of his late mission to outer
+Mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry. Nor had he lately shunned a wild
+wine, called Morando.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated freely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the Morando much. A nutty, pungent flavor
+it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the Philippine isles. And a
+marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving the crystalization of the brain;
+leaving nothing but precious little drops of good humor, beading round the bowl
+of the cranium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars, and
+stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended hangings of crimson
+tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the pavement they rustled in the
+breeze from the grot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a porphyry hue,
+deep-hollowed out of a tree. Outside, were innumerable grotesque conceits;
+conspicuous among which, for a border, was an endless string of the royal
+lizards circumnavigating the basin in inverted chase of their tails.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peculiar to the groves of Willamilla, the yellow lizard formed part of the arms
+of Juam. And when Donjalolo&rsquo;s messenger went abroad, they carried its
+effigy, as the emblem of their royal master; themselves being known, as the
+Gentlemen of the Golden Lizard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The porphyry-hued basin planted full in our midst, the attendants forthwith
+filled the same with the living waters from the cascade; a proceeding, for
+which some of the company were at a loss to account, unless his highness, our
+host, with all the coolness of royalty, purposed cooling himself still further,
+by taking a bath in presence of his guests. A conjecture, most premature; for
+directly, the basin being filled to within a few inches of the lizards, the
+attendants fell to launching therein divers goodly sized trenchers, all laden
+with choice viands:&mdash;wild boar meat; humps of grampuses; embrowned
+bread-fruit, roasted in odoriferous fires of sandal wood, but suffered to cool;
+gold fish, dressed with the fragrant juices of berries; citron sauce; rolls of
+the baked paste of yams; juicy bananas, steeped in a saccharine oil; marmalade
+of plantains; jellies of guava; confections of the treacle of palm sap; and
+many other dainties; besides numerous stained calabashes of Morando, and other
+beverages, fixed in carved floats to make them buoyant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guests assigned seats, by the woven handles attached to his purple mat, the
+prince, our host, was now gently moved by his servitors to the head of the
+porphyry-hued basin. Where, flanked by lofty crowned-heads, white-tiaraed, and
+radiant with royalty, he sat; like snow-turbaned Mont Blanc, at sunrise
+presiding over the head waters of the Rhone; to right and left, looming the
+gilded summits of the Simplon, the Gothard, the Jungfrau, the Great St.
+Bernard, and the Grand Glockner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet turbid from the launching of its freight, Lake Como tossed to and fro its
+navies of good cheer, the shadows of the king-peaks wildly flitting thereupon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no frigid wine and fruit cooler, Lake Como; as at first it did seem; but a
+tropical dining table, its surface a slab of light blue St. Pons marble in a
+state of fluidity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, many a crown was doffed; scepters laid aside; girdles slackened; and among
+those verdant viands the bearded kings like goats did browse; or tusking their
+wild boar&rsquo;s meat, like mastiffs ate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And like unto some well-fought fight, beginning calmly, but pressing forward to
+a fiery rush, this well-fought feast did now wax warm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few royal epicures, however, there were: epicures intent upon concoctions,
+admixtures, and masterly compoundings; who comported themselves with all due
+deliberation and dignity; hurrying themselves into no reckless deglutition of
+the dainties. Ah! admirable conceit, Lake Como: superseding attendants. For,
+from hand to hand the trenchers sailed; no sooner gaining one port, than
+dispatched over sea to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well suited they were for the occasion; sailing high out of water, to resist
+the convivial swell at times ruffling the sociable sea; and sharp at both ends,
+still better adapting them to easy navigation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But soon, the Morando, in triumphant decanters, went round, reeling like barks
+before a breeze. But their voyages were brief; and ere long, in certain havens,
+the accumulation of empty vessels threatened to bridge the lake with pontoons.
+In those directions, Trade winds were setting. But full soon, cut out were all
+unladen and unprofitable gourds; and replaced by jolly-bellied calabashes, for
+a time sailing deep, yawing heavily to the push.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, the whole flotilla of trenchers&mdash;wrecks and all&mdash;were sent
+swimming to the further end of Lake Como; and thence removed, gave place to
+ruddy hillocks of fruit, and floating islands of flowers. Chief among the
+former, a quince-like, golden sphere, that filled the air with such fragrance,
+you thought you were tasting its flavor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor did the wine cease flowing. That day the Juam grape did bleed; that day the
+tendril ringlets of the vines, did all uncurl and grape by grape, in sheer
+dismay, the sun ripe clusters dropped. Grape-glad were five-and-twenty kings:
+five-and-twenty kings were merry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Morando&rsquo;s vintage had no end; nor other liquids, in the royal cellar
+stored, somewhere secret in the grot. Oh! where&rsquo;s the endless
+Niger&rsquo;s source? Search ye here, or search ye there; on, on, through
+ravine, vega, vale&mdash;no head waters will ye find. But why need gain the
+hidden spring, when its lavish stream flows by? At three-fold mouths that
+Delta-grot discharged; rivers golden, white, and red.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But who may sing for aye? Down I come, and light upon the old and prosy plain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among other decanters set afloat, was a pompous, lordly-looking demijohn, but
+old and reverend withal, that sailed about, consequential as an autocrat going
+to be crowned, or a treasure- freighted argosie bound home before the wind. It
+looked solemn, however, though it reeled; peradventure, far gone with its own
+potent contents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oh! russet shores of Rhine and Rhone! oh, mellow memories of ripe old vintages!
+oh, cobwebs in the Pyramids! oh, dust on Pharaoh&rsquo;s tomb!&mdash;all, all
+recur, as I bethink me of that glorious gourd, its contents cogent as Tokay,
+itself as old as Mohi&rsquo;s legends; more venerable to look at than his
+beard. Whence came it? Buried in vases, so saith the label, with the heart of
+old Marjora, now dead one hundred thousand moons. Exhumed at last, it looked no
+wine, but was shrunk into a subtile syrup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This special calabash was distinguished by numerous trappings, caparisoned like
+the sacred bay steed led before the Great Khan of Tartary. A most curious and
+betasseled network encased it; and the royal lizard was jealously twisted about
+its neck, like a hand on a throat containing some invaluable secret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All Hail, Marzilla! King&rsquo;s Own Royal Particular! A vinous Percy! Dating
+back to the Conquest! Distilled of yore from purple berries growing in the
+purple valley of Ardair! Thrice hail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the imperial Marzilla was not for all; gods only could partake; the Kings
+and demigods of the isles; excluding left-handed descendants of sad rakes of
+immortals, in old times breaking heads and hearts in Mardi, bequeathing
+bars-sinister to many mortals, who now in vain might urge a claim to a cup-full
+of right regal Marzilla.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Royal Particular was pressed upon me, by the now jovial Donjalolo. With his
+own sceptered hand charging my flagon to the brim, he declared his despotic
+pleasure, that I should quaff it off to the last lingering globule. No hard
+calamity, truly; for the drinking of this wine was as the singing of a mighty
+ode, or frenzied lyric to the soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Drink, Taji,&rdquo; cried Donjalolo, &ldquo;drink deep. In this wine a
+king&rsquo;s heart is dissolved. Drink long; in this wine lurk the seeds of the
+life everlasting. Drink deep; drink long: thou drinkest wisdom and valor at
+every draught. Drink forever, oh Taji, for thou drinkest that which will enable
+thee to stand up and speak out before mighty Oro himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Borabolla,&rdquo; he added, turning round upon a domed old king at his
+left, &ldquo;Was it not the god Xipho, who begged of my great-great- grandsire
+a draught of this same wine, saying he was about to beget a hero?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even so. And thy glorious Marzilla produced thrice valiant Ononna, who
+slew the giants of the reef.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha, ha, hear&rsquo;st that, oh Taji?&rdquo; And Donjalolo drained
+another cup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amazing! the flexibility of the royal elbow, and the rigidity of the royal
+spine! More especially as we had been impressed with a notion of their
+debility. But, sometimes these seemingly enervated young blades approve
+themselves steadier of limb, than veteran revelers of very long standing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Discharge the basin, and refill it with wine,&rdquo; cried Donjalolo.
+&ldquo;Break all empty gourds! Drink, kings, and dash your cups at every
+draught.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So saying, he started from his purple mat; and with one foot planted
+unknowingly upon the skull of Marjora; while all the skeletons grinned at him
+from the pavement; Donjalolo, holding on high his blood-red goblet, burst forth
+with the following invocation:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all;<br/>
+Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call!<br/>
+Fill fast, and fill frill; &rsquo;gainst the goblet ne&rsquo;er sin;<br/>
+Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:&mdash;<br/>
+    Flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim!<br/>
+<br/>
+Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his cares?<br/>
+Who sighs to be wise, when wine in him flares?<br/>
+Water sinks down below, in currents full slow;<br/>
+But wine mounts on high with its genial glow:&mdash;<br/>
+    Welling up, till the brain overflow!<br/>
+<br/>
+As the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul,<br/>
+Others golden, with music, revolve round the pole;<br/>
+<br/>
+So let our cups, radiant with many hued wines,<br/>
+Round and round in groups circle, our Zodiac&rsquo;s Signs:&mdash;<br/>
+    Round reeling, and ringing their chimes!<br/>
+<br/>
+Then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment brings;<br/>
+It bounds through the veins; there, jubilant sings.<br/>
+Let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never grows dim;<br/>
+Drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded rim:&mdash;<br/>
+    Fill up, every cup, to the brim!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Caught by all present, the chorus resounded again and again. The beaded wine
+danced on many a beard; the cataract lifted higher its voice; the grotto sent
+back a shout; the ghosts of the Coral Monarchs seemed starting from their
+insulted bones. But ha, ha, ha, roared forth the five-and-twenty
+kings&mdash;alive, not dead&mdash;holding both hands to their girdles, and
+baying out their laughter from abysses; like Nimrod&rsquo;s hounds over some
+fallen elk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mad and crazy revelers, how ye drank and roared! but kings no more: vestures
+loosed; and scepters rolling on the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Glorious agrarian, thou wine! bringing all hearts on a level, and at last all
+legs to the earth; even those of kings, who, to do them justice, have been much
+maligned for imputed qualities not theirs. For whoso has touched flagons with
+monarchs, bear they their back bones never so stiffly on the throne, well know
+the rascals, to be at bottom royal good fellows; capable of a vinous frankness
+exceeding that of base-born men. Was not Alexander a boon companion? And daft
+Cambyses? and what of old Rowley, as good a judge of wine and other matters, as
+ever sipped claret or kisses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If ever Taji joins a club, be it a Beef-Steak Club of Kings!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Donjalolo emptied yet another cup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mirth now blew a gale; like a ship&rsquo;s shrouds in a Typhoon, every
+tendon vibrated; the breezes of Omi came forth with a rush; the hangings shook;
+the goblets danced fandangos; and Donjalolo, clapping his hands, called before
+him his dancing women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forth came from the grotto a reed-like burst of song, making all start, and
+look that way to behold such enchanting strains. Sounds heralding sights!
+Swimming in the air, emerged the nymphs, lustrous arms interlocked like Indian
+jugglers&rsquo; glittering snakes. Round the cascade they thronged; then paused
+in its spray. Of a sudden, seemed to spring from its midst, a young form of
+foam, that danced into the soul like a thought. At last, sideways floating off,
+it subsided into the grotto, a wave. Evening drawing on apace, the crimson
+draperies were lifted, and festooned to the arms of the idol-pillars, admitting
+the rosy light of the even.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yielding to the re-action of the banquet, the kings now reclined; and two mute
+damsels entered: one with a gourd of scented waters; the other with napkins.
+Bending over Donjalolo&rsquo;s steaming head, the first let fall a shower of
+aromatic drops, slowly aborbed by her companion. Thus, in turn, all were
+served; nothing heard but deep breathing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a marble vase they now kindled some incense: a handful of spices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after, came three of the king&rsquo;s beautiful smokers; who, lighting
+their tubes at this odorous fire, blew over the company the sedative fumes of
+the Aina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Steeped in languor, I strove against it long; essayed to struggle out of the
+enchanted mist. But a syren hand seemed ever upon me, pressing me back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half-revealed, as in a dream, and the last sight that I saw, was
+Donjalolo:&mdash;eyes closed, face pale, locks moist, borne slowly to his
+sedan, to cross the hollow, and wake in the seclusion of his harem.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0085"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXV.<br/>
+After Dinner</h2>
+
+<p>
+As in dreams I behold thee again, Willamila! as in dreams, once again I stroll
+through thy cool shady groves, oh fairest of the vallies of Mardi! the thought
+of that mad merry feasting steals over my soul till I faint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prostrate here and there over the bones of Donjalolo&rsquo;s sires, the royal
+bacchanals lay slumbering till noon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which are the deadest?&rdquo; said Babbalanja, peeping in, &ldquo;the
+live kings, or the dead ones?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the former were drooping flowers sought to be revived by watering. At
+intervals the sedulous attendants went to and fro, besprinkling their heads
+with the scented contents of their vases.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, one by one, the five-and-twenty kings lifted their ambrosial curls;
+and shaking the dew therefrom, like eagles opened their right royal eyes, and
+dilated their aquiline nostrils, full upon the golden rays of the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But why absented himself, Donjalolo? Had he cavalierly left them to survive the
+banquet by themselves? But this apparent incivility was soon explained by
+heralds, announcing to their prone majesties, that through the over solicitude
+of his slaves, their lord the king had been borne to his harem, without being a
+party to the act. But to make amends, in his sedan, Donjalolo was even now
+drawing nigh. Not, however, again to make merry; but socially to sleep in
+company with his guests; for, together they had all got high, and together they
+must all lie low.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So at it they went: each king to his bones, and slumbered like heroes till
+evening; when, availing themselves of the cool moonlight approaching, the royal
+guests bade adieu to their host; and summoning their followers, quitted the
+glen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early next day, having determined to depart for our canoes, we proceeded to the
+House of the Morning, to take leave of Donjalolo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An amazing change, one night of solitude had wrought! Pale and languid, we
+found him reclining: one hand on his throbbing temples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Near an overturned vessel of wine, the royal girdle lay tossed at his feet. He
+had waved off his frightened attendants, who crouched out of sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We advanced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do ye too leave me? Ready enough are ye to partake of my banquetings,
+which, to such as ye, are but mad incidents in one round of more tranquil
+diversions. But heed me not, Media;&mdash;I am mad. Oh, ye gods! am I forever a
+captive?&mdash;Ay, free king of Odo, when you list, condescend to visit the
+poor slave in Willamilla. I account them but charity, your visits; would fain
+allure ye by sumptuous fare. Go, leave me; go, and be rovers again throughout
+blooming Mardi. For, me, I am here for aye.&mdash;Bring me wine, slaves! quick!
+that I may pledge my guests fitly. Alas, Media, at the bottom of this cup are
+no sparkles as at top. Oh, treacherous, treacherous friend! full of smiles and
+daggers. Yet for such as me, oh wine, thou art e&rsquo;en a prop, though it
+pierce the side; for man must lean. Thou wine art the friend of the friendless,
+though a foe to all. King Media, let us drink. More cups!&mdash;And now,
+farewell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Falling back, he averted his face; and silently we quitted the palace.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0086"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXVI.<br/>
+Of Those Scamps The Plujii</h2>
+
+<p>
+The beach gained, we embarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In good time our party recovered from the seriousness into which we had been
+thrown; and a rather long passage being now before us, we whiled away the hours
+as best we might.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among many entertaining, narrations, old Braid-Beard, crossing his calves, and
+peaking his beard, regaled us with some account of certain invisible spirits,
+ycleped the Plujii, arrant little knaves as ever gulped moonshine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were spoken of as inhabiting the island of Quelquo, in a remote corner of
+the lagoon; the innocent people of which island were sadly fretted and put out
+by their diabolical proceedings. Not to be wondered at; since, dwelling as they
+did in the air, and completely inaccessible, these spirits were peculiarly
+provocative of ire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Detestable Plujii! With malice aforethought, they brought about high winds that
+destroyed the banana plantations, and tumbled over the heads of its occupants
+many a bamboo dwelling. They cracked the calabashes; soured the
+&ldquo;poee;&rdquo; induced the colic; begat the spleen; and almost rent people
+in twain with stitches in the side. In short, from whatever evil, the cause of
+which the Islanders could not directly impute to their gods, or in their own
+opinion was not referable to themselves,&mdash;of that very thing must the
+invisible Plujii be guilty. With horrible dreams, and blood-thirsty gnats, they
+invaded the most innocent slumbers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All things they bedeviled. A man with a wry neck ascribed it to the Plujii; he
+with a bad memory railed against the Plujii; and the boy, bruising his finger,
+also cursed those abominable spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor, to some minds, at least, was there wanting strong presumptive evidence,
+that at times, with invisible fingers, the above mentioned Plujii did leave
+direct and tangible traces of their presence; pinching and pounding the
+unfortunate Islanders; pulling their hair; plucking their ears, and tweaking
+their beards and their noses. And thus perpetually vexing, incensing,
+tormenting, and exasperating their helpless victims, the atrocious Plujii
+reveled in their malicious dominion over the souls and bodies of the people of
+Quelquo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What it was, that induced them to enact such a part, Oro only knew; and never
+but once, it seems, did old Mohi endeavor to find out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once upon a time, visiting Quelquo, he chanced to encounter an old woman almost
+doubled together, both hands upon her abdomen; in that manner running about
+distracted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My good woman,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;what under the firmament is the
+matter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Plujii! the Plujii!&rdquo; affectionately caressing the field of
+their operations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why do they torment you?&rdquo; he soothingly inquired. &ldquo;How
+should I know? and what good would it do me if I did?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And on she ran.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this part of his narration, Mohi was interrupted by Media; who, much to the
+surprise of all present, observed, that, unbeknown to him (Braid-Beard), he
+happened to have been on that very island, at that very time, and saw that
+identical old lady in the very midst of those abdominal tribulations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That she was really in great distress,&rdquo; he went on to say,
+&ldquo;was plainly to be seen; but that in that particular instance, your
+Plujii had any hand in tormenting her, I had some boisterous doubts. For,
+hearing that an hour or two previous she had been partaking of some twenty
+unripe bananas, I rather fancied that that circumstance might have had
+something to do with her sufferings. But however it was, all the herb-leeches
+on the island would not have altered her own opinions on the subject.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Braid-Beard; &ldquo;a post-mortem examination would not
+have satisfied her ghost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Curious to relate,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;the people of that island
+never abuse the Plujii, notwithstanding all they suffer at their hands, unless
+under direct provocation; and a settled matter of faith is it, that at such
+times all bitter words and hasty objurgations are entirely overlooked, nay,
+pardoned on the spot, by the unseen genii against whom they are
+directed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Magnanimous Plujii!&rdquo; cried Media. &ldquo;But, Babbalanja, do you,
+who run a tilt at all things, suffer this silly conceit to be uttered with
+impunity in your presence? Why so silent?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been thinking, my lord,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;that
+though the people of that island may at times err, in imputing their calamities
+to the Plujii, that, nevertheless, upon the whole, they indulge in a reasonable
+belief. For, Plujii or no Plujii, it is undeniable, that in ten thousand ways,
+as if by a malicious agency, we mortals are woefully put out and tormented; and
+that, too, by things in themselves so exceedingly trivial, that it would seem
+almost impiety to ascribe them to the august gods. No; there must exist some
+greatly inferior spirits; so insignificant, comparatively, as to be overlooked
+by the supernal powers; and through them it must be, that we are thus
+grievously annoyed. At any rate; such a theory would supply a hiatus in my
+system of meta-physics.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, peace to the Plujii,&rdquo; said Media; &ldquo;they trouble not
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0087"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXVII.<br/>
+Nora-Bamma</h2>
+
+<p>
+Still onward gliding, the lagoon a calm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hours pass; and full before us, round and green, a Moslem turban by us
+floats&mdash;Nora-Bamma, Isle of Nods.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Noon-tide rolls its flood. Vibrates the air, and trembles. And by illusion
+optical, thin-draped in azure haze, drift here and there the brilliant lands:
+swans, peacock-plumaged, sailing through the sky. Down to earth hath heaven
+come; hard telling sun-clouds from the isles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And high in air nods Nora-Bamma. Nid-nods its tufted summit like three ostrich
+plumes; its beetling crags, bent poppies, shadows, willowy shores, all nod; its
+streams are murmuring down the hills; its wavelets hush the shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who dwells in Nora-Bamma? Dreamers, hypochondriacs, somnambulists; who, from
+the cark and care of outer Mardi fleeing, in the poppy&rsquo;s jaded odors,
+seek oblivion for the past, and ecstasies to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Open-eyed, they sleep and dream; on their roof-trees, grapes unheeded drop. In
+Nora-Bamma, whispers are as shouts; and at a zephyr&rsquo;s breath, from the
+woodlands shake the leaves, as of humming-birds, a flight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this spake Braid-Beard, of the isle. How that none ere touched its strand,
+without rendering instant tribute of a nap; how that those who thither voyaged,
+in golden quest of golden gourds, fast dropped asleep, ere one was plucked;
+waking not till night; how that you must needs rub hard your eyes, would you
+wander through the isle; and how that silent specters would be met, haunting
+twilight groves, and dreamy meads; hither gliding, thither fading, end or
+purpose none.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+True or false, so much for Mohi&rsquo;s Nora Bamma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as we floated on, it looked the place described. We yawned, and yawned, as
+crews of vessels may; as in warm Indian seas, their winnowing sails all swoon,
+when by them glides some opium argosie.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0088"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII.<br/>
+In A Calm, Hautia&rsquo;s Heralds Approach</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How still!&rdquo; cried Babbalanja. &ldquo;This calm is like unto
+Oro&rsquo;s everlasting serenity, and like unto man&rsquo;s last
+despair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now the silence was broken by a strange, distant, intermitted melody in the
+water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gazing over the side, we saw naught but a far-darting ray in its depths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Yoomy, before buried in a reverie, burst forth with a verse, sudden as a
+jet from a Geyser.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Like the fish of the bright and twittering fin,<br/>
+    Bright fish! diving deep as high soars the lark,<br/>
+So, far, far, far, doth the maiden swim,<br/>
+    Wild song, wild light, in still ocean&rsquo;s dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What maiden, minstrel?&rdquo; cried Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None of these,&rdquo; answered Yoomy, pointing out a shallop gliding
+near.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The damsels three:&mdash;Taji, they pursue you yet.&rdquo; That still
+canoe drew nigh, the Iris in its prow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gliding slowly by, one damsel flung a Venus-car, the leaves yet fresh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Yoomy&mdash;&ldquo;Fly to love.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second maiden flung a pallid blossom, buried in hemlock leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Yoomy, starting&mdash;&ldquo;I have wrought a death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came showering Venus-cars, and glorious moss-roses numberless, and odorous
+handfuls of Verbena.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Yoomy&mdash;&ldquo;Yet fly, oh fly to me: all rosy joys and sweets are
+mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the damsels floated on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was ever queen more enigmatical?&rdquo; cried
+Media&mdash;&ldquo;Love,&mdash;death,&mdash;joy,&mdash;fly to me? But what
+says Taji?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I turn not back for Hautia; whoe&rsquo;er she be, that wild witch I
+contemn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then spread our pinions wide! a breeze! up sails! ply paddles all! Come,
+Flora&rsquo;s flute, float forth a song.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To pieces picking the thorny roses culled from Hautia&rsquo;s gifts, and
+holding up their blighted cores, thus plumed and turbaned Yoomy sang, leaning
+against the mast:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Oh! royal is the rose,<br/>
+    But barbed with many a dart;<br/>
+Beware, beware the rose,<br/>
+    &rsquo;Tis cankered at the heart.<br/>
+<br/>
+    Sweet, sweet the sunny down,<br/>
+Oh! lily, lily, lily down!<br/>
+    Sweet, sweet, Verbena&rsquo;s bloom!<br/>
+Oh! pleasant, gentle, musky bloom!<br/>
+<br/>
+Dread, dread the sunny down;<br/>
+    Lo! lily-hooded asp;<br/>
+Blooms, blooms no more Verbena;<br/>
+    White-withered in your clasp.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0089"></a>
+CHAPTER LXXXIX.<br/>
+Braid-Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues</h2>
+
+<p>
+Judge not things by their names. This, the maxim illustrated respecting the
+isle toward which we were sailing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ohonoo was its designation, in other words the Land of Rogues. So what but a
+nest of villains and pirates could one fancy it to be: a downright Tortuga,
+swarming with &ldquo;Brethren of the coast,&rdquo;&mdash;such as Montbars,
+L&rsquo;Ollonais, Bartolomeo, Peter of Dieppe, and desperadoes of that kidney.
+But not so. The men of Ohonoo were as honest as any in Mardi. They had a
+suspicious appellative for their island, true; but not thus seemed it to them.
+For, upon nothing did they so much plume themselves as upon this very name.
+Why? Its origin went back to old times; and being venerable they gloried
+therein; though they disclaimed its present applicability to any of their race;
+showing, that words are but algebraic signs, conveying no meaning except what
+you please. And to be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how came the Ohonoose by their name?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Listen, and Braid-Beard, our Herodotus, will tell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long and long ago, there were banished to Ohonoo all the bucaniers,
+flibustiers, thieves, and malefactors of the neighboring islands; who, becoming
+at last quite a numerous community, resolved to make a stand for their dignity,
+and number one among the nations of Mardi. And even as before they had been
+weeded out of the surrounding countries; so now, they went to weeding out
+themselves; banishing all objectionable persons to still another island.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These events happened at a period so remote, that at present it was uncertain
+whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second exile by reason of
+their superlative knavery, or because of their comparative honesty. If the
+latter, then must the residue have been a precious enough set of scoundrels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However it was, the commonwealth of knaves now mustered together their
+gray-beards, and wise-pates, and knowing-ones, of which last there was a
+plenty, chose a king to rule over them, and went to political housekeeping for
+themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in the fullness of time, this people became numerous and mighty. And the
+more numerous and mighty they waxed, by so much the more did they take pride
+and glory in their origin, frequently reverting to it with manifold boastings.
+The proud device of their monarch was a hand with the forefinger crooked,
+emblematic of the peculatory propensities of his ancestors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And all this, at greater length, said Mohi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would seem, then, my lord,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, reclining,
+&ldquo;as if these men of Ohonoo had canonized the derelictions of their
+progenitors, though the same traits are deemed scandalous among themselves. But
+it is time that makes the difference. The knave of a thousand years ago seems a
+fine old fellow full of spirit and fun, little malice in his soul; whereas, the
+knave of to-day seems a sour- visaged wight, with nothing to redeem him. Many
+great scoundrels of our Chronicler&rsquo;s chronicles are heroes to
+us:&mdash;witness, Marjora the usurper. Ay, time truly works wonders. It
+sublimates wine; it sublimates fame; nay, is the creator thereof; it enriches
+and darkens our spears of the Palm; enriches and enlightens the mind; it ripens
+cherries and young lips; festoons old ruins, and ivies old heads; imparts a
+relish to old yams, and a pungency to the Ponderings of old Bardianna; of
+fables distills truths; and finally, smooths, levels, glosses, softens, melts,
+and meliorates all things. Why, my lord, round Mardi itself is all the better
+for its antiquity, and the more to be revered; to the cozy-minded, more
+comfortable to dwell in. Ah! if ever it lay in embryo like a green seed in the
+pod, what a damp, shapeless thing it must have been, and how unpleasant from
+the traces of its recent creation. The first man, quoth old Bardianna, must
+have felt like one going into a new habitation, where the bamboos are green. Is
+there not a legend in Maramma, that his family were long troubled with
+influenzas and catarrhs?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh Time, Time, Time!&rdquo; cried Yoomy&mdash;&ldquo;it is Time, old
+midsummer Time, that has made the old world what it is. Time hoared the old
+mountains, and balded their old summits, and spread the old prairies, and built
+the old forests, and molded the old vales. It is Time that has worn glorious
+old channels for the glorious old rivers, and rounded the old lakes, and
+deepened the old sea! It is Time&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, full time to cease,&rdquo; cried Media. &ldquo;What have you to do
+with cogitations not in verse, minstrel? Leave prose to Babbalanja, who is
+prosy enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even so,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;Yoomy, you have overstepped your
+province. My lord Media well knows, that your business is to make the metal in
+you jingle in tags, not ring in the ingot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0090"></a>
+CHAPTER XC.<br/>
+Rare Sport At Ohonoo</h2>
+
+<p>
+Approached from the northward, Ohonoo, midway cloven down to the sea, one half
+a level plain; the other, three mountain terraces&mdash;Ohonoo looks like the
+first steps of a gigantic way to the sun. And such, if Braid-Beard spoke truth,
+it had formerly been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ere Mardi was made,&rdquo; said that true old chronicler, &ldquo;Vivo,
+one of the genii, built a ladder of mountains whereby to go up and go down. And
+of this ladder, the island of Ohonoo was the base. But wandering here and
+there, incognito in a vapor, so much wickedness did Vivo spy out, that in high
+dudgeon he hurried up his ladder, knocking the mountains from under him as he
+went. These here and there fell into the lagoon, forming many isles, now green
+and luxuriant; which, with those sprouting from seeds dropped by a bird from
+the moon, comprise all the groups in the reef.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Surely, oh, surely, if I live till Mardi be forgotten by Mardi, I shall not
+forget the sight that greeted us, as we drew nigh the shores of this same
+island of Ohonoo; for was not all Ohonoo bathing in the surf of the sea?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let the picture be painted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Where eastward the ocean rolls surging against the outer reef of Mardi, there,
+facing a flood-gate in the barrier, stands cloven Ohonoo; her plains sloping
+outward to the sea, her mountains a bulwark behind. As at Juam, where the wild
+billows from seaward roll in upon its cliffs; much more at Ohonoo, in billowy
+battalions charge they hotly into the lagoon, and fall on the isle like an army
+from the deep. But charge they never so boldly, and charge they forever, old
+Ohonoo gallantly throws them back till all before her is one scud and rack. So
+charged the bright billows of cuirassiers at Waterloo: so hurled them off the
+long line of living walls, whose base was as the sea-beach, wreck-strown, in a
+gale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without the break in the reef wide banks of coral shelve off, creating the bar,
+where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in water-bolts, that shake the
+whole reef, till its very spray trembles. And then is it, that the swimmers of
+Ohonoo most delight to gambol in the surf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For this sport, a surf-board is indispensable: some five feet in length; the
+width of a man&rsquo;s body; convex on both sides; highly polished; and rounded
+at the ends. It is held in high estimation; invariably oiled after use; and
+hung up conspicuously in the dwelling of the owner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ranged on the beach, the bathers, by hundreds dash in; and diving under the
+swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the comparatively
+smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here, throwing themselves upon their
+boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that suits. Snatching them up, it
+hurries them landward, volume and speed both increasing, till it races along a
+watery wall, like the smooth, awful verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll,
+looking down from it as from a precipice, the bathers halloo; every limb in
+motion to preserve their place on the very crest of the wave. Should they fall
+behind, the squadrons that follow would whelm them; dismounted, and thrown
+forward, as certainly would they be run over by the steed they ride. &rsquo;Tis
+like charging at the head of cavalry: you must on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank; now half striding it; and
+anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in the scud, coming on
+like a man in the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts like a
+bomb. Adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out; and like seals at
+the Orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Landing in smooth water, some distance from the scene, we strolled forward; and
+meeting a group resting, inquired for Uhia, their king. He was pointed out in
+the foam. But presently drawing nigh, he embraced Media, bidding all welcome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bathing over, and evening at hand, Uhia and his subjects repaired to their
+canoes; and we to ours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Landing at another quarter of the island, we journeyed up a valley called
+Monlova, and were soon housed in a very pleasant retreat of our host.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon supper was spread. But though the viands were rare, and the red wine went
+round and round like a foaming bay horse in the ring; yet we marked, that
+despite the stimulus of his day&rsquo;s good sport, and the stimulus of his
+brave good cheer, Uhia our host was moody and still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Babbalanja &ldquo;My lord, he fills wine cups for others to quaff.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But whispered King Media, &ldquo;Though Uhia be sad, be we merry, merry
+men.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And merry some were, and merrily went to their mats.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0091"></a>
+CHAPTER XCI.<br/>
+Of King Uhia And His Subjects</h2>
+
+<p>
+As beseemed him, Uhia was royally lodged. Ample his roof. Beneath it a hundred
+attendants nightly laying their heads. But long since, he had disbanded his
+damsels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Springing from syren embrace&mdash;&ldquo;They shall sap and mine me no
+more&rdquo; he cried &ldquo;my destiny commands me. I will don my manhood. By
+Keevi! no more will I clasp a waist.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From that time forth,&rdquo; said Braid-Beard, &ldquo;young Uhia spread
+like the tufted top of the Palm; his thigh grew brawny as the limb of the
+Banian; his arm waxed strong as the back bone of the shark; yea, his voice grew
+sonorous as a conch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now he bent his whole soul to the accomplishment of the destiny
+believed to be his. Nothing less than bodily to remove Ohonoo to the center of
+the lagoon, in fulfillment of an old prophecy running thus&mdash;When a
+certain island shall stir from its foundations and stand in the middle of the
+still water, then shall the ruler of that island be ruler of all Mardi.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The task was hard, but how glorious the reward! So at it he went, and all
+Ohonoo helped him. Not by hands, but by calling in the magicians. Thus far,
+nevertheless, in vain. But Uhia had hopes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, informed of all this, said Babbalanja to Media, &ldquo;My lord, if the
+continual looking-forward to something greater, be better than an acquiescence
+in things present; then, wild as it is, this belief of Uhia&rsquo;s he should
+hug to his heart, as erewhile his wives. But my lord, this faith it is, that
+robs his days of peace; his nights of sweet unconsciousness. For holding
+himself foreordained to the dominion of the entire Archipelago, he upbraids the
+gods for laggards, and curses himself as deprived of his rights; nay, as having
+had wrested from him, what he never possessed. Discontent dwarfs his horizon
+till he spans it with his hand. &lsquo;Most miserable of demi-gods,&rsquo; he
+cries, &lsquo;here am I cooped up in this insignificant islet, only one hundred
+leagues by fifty, when scores of broad empires own me not for their
+lord.&rsquo; Yet Uhia himself is envied. &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; cries Karrolono, one
+of his chieftains, master of a snug little glen, &lsquo;Here am I cabined in
+this paltry cell among the mountains, when that great King Uhia is lord of the
+whole island, and every cubic mile of matter therein.&rsquo; But this same
+Karrolono is envied. &lsquo;Hard, oh beggarly lot is mine,&rsquo; cries Donno,
+one of his retainers. &lsquo;Here am I fixed and screwed down to this paltry
+plantation, when my lord Karrolono owns the whole glen, ten long parasangs from
+cliff to sea.&rsquo; But Donno too is envied. &lsquo;Alas, cursed fate!&rsquo;
+cries his servitor Flavona. &lsquo;Here am I made to trudge, sweat, and labor
+all day, when Donno my master does nothing but command.&rsquo; But others envy
+Flavona; and those who envy him are envied in turn; even down to poor bed-
+ridden Manta, who dying of want, groans forth, &lsquo;Abandoned wretch that I
+am! here I miserably perish, while so many beggars gad about and live!&rsquo;
+But surely; none envy Manta! Yes; great Uhia himself. &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; cries
+the king. &lsquo;Here am I vexed and tormented by ambition; no peace night nor
+day; my temples chafed sore by this cursed crown that I wear; while that
+ignoble wight Manta, gives up the ghost with none to molest him.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In vain we wandered up and down in this isle, and peered into its innermost
+recesses: no Yillah was there.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0092"></a>
+CHAPTER XCII.<br/>
+The God Keevi And The Precipice Of Mondo</h2>
+
+<p>
+One object of interest in Ohonoo was the original image of Keevi the god of
+Thieves; hence, from time immemorial, the tutelar deity of the isle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His shrine was a natural niche in a cliff, walling in the valley of Monlova And
+here stood Keevi, with his five eyes, ten hands, and three pair of legs,
+equipped at all points for the vocation over which he presided. Of mighty
+girth, his arms terminated in hands, every finger a limb, spreading in
+multiplied digits: palms twice five, and fifty fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+According to the legend, Keevi fell from a golden cloud, burying himself to the
+thighs in the earth, tearing up the soil all round. Three meditative mortals,
+strolling by at the time, had a narrow escape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A wonderful recital; but none of us voyagers durst flout it. Did they not show
+us the identical spot where the idol fell? We descended into the hollow, now
+verdant. Questionless, Keevi himself would have vouched for the truth of the
+miracle, had he not been unfortunately dumb. But by far the most cogent, and
+pointed argument advanced in support of this story, is a spear which the
+priests of Keevi brought forth, for Babbalanja to view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me look at it closer,&rdquo; said Babbalanja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And turning it over and over and curiously inspecting it, &ldquo;Wonderful
+spear,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Doubtless, my reverends, this self-same spear
+must have persuaded many recusants!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, the most stubborn,&rdquo; they answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And all afterward quoted as additional authority for the truth of the
+legend?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Assuredly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the sea to the shrine of this god, the fine valley of Monlova ascends with
+a gentle gradation, hardly perceptible; but upon turning round toward the
+water, one is surprised to find himself high elevated above its surface. Pass
+on, and the same silent ascent deceives you; and the valley contracts; and on
+both sides the cliffs advance; till at last you come to a narrow space,
+shouldered by buttresses of rock. Beyond, through this cleft, all is blue sky.
+If the Trades blow high, and you came unawares upon the spot, you would think
+Keevi himself pushing you forward with all his hands; so powerful is the
+current of air rushing through this elevated defile. But expostulate not with
+the tornado that blows you along; sail on; but soft; look down; the land breaks
+off in one sheer descent of a thousand feet, right down to the wide plain
+below. So sudden and profound this precipice, that you seem to look off from
+one world to another. In a dreamy, sunny day, the spangled plain beneath
+assumes an uncertain fleeting aspect. Had you a deep-sea-lead you would almost
+be tempted to sound the ocean-haze at your feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This, mortal! is the precipice of Mondo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From this brink, spear in hand, sprang fifty rebel warriors, driven back into
+the vale by a superior force. Finding no spot to stand at bay, with a fierce
+shout they took the fatal leap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Mohi, &ldquo;Their souls ascended, ere their bodies touched.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This tragical event took place many generations gone by, and now a dizzy,
+devious way conducts one, firm of foot, from the verge to the plain. But none
+ever ascended. So perilous, indeed, is the descent itself, that the islanders
+venture not the feat, without invoking supernatural aid. Flanking the precipice
+beneath beetling rocks, stand the guardian deities of Mondo; and on altars
+before them, are placed the propitiatory offerings of the traveler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the right of the brink of the precipice, and far over it, projects a narrow
+ledge. The test of legitimacy in the Ohonoo monarchs is to stand hereon, arms
+folded, and javelins darting by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And there in his youth Uhia stood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How felt you, cousin?&rdquo; asked Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like the King of Ohonoo,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;As I shall again
+feel; when King of all Mardi.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0093"></a>
+CHAPTER XCIII.<br/>
+Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy Relates A Legend</h2>
+
+<p>
+Embarking from Ohonoo, we at length found ourselves gliding by the pleasant
+shores of Tupia, an islet which according to Braid-Beard had for ages remained
+uninhabited by man. Much curiosity being expressed to know more of the isle,
+Mohi was about to turn over his chronicles, when, with modesty, the minstrel
+Yoomy interposed; saying, that if my Lord Media permitted, he himself would
+relate the legend. From its nature, deeming the same pertaining to his province
+as poet; though, as yet, it had not been versified. But he added, that true
+pearl shells rang musically, though not strung upon a cord.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this presumptuous interference, Mohi looked highly offended; and nervously
+twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about frippery young
+poetasters being too full of silly imaginings to tell a plain tale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Yoomy, in reply, adjusting his turban, &ldquo;Old Mohi, let us not clash.
+I honor your calling; but, with submission, your chronicles are more wild than
+my cantos. I deal in pure conceits of my own; which have a shapeliness and a
+unity, however unsubstantial; but you, Braid-Beard, deal in mangled realities.
+In all your chapters, you yourself grope in the dark. Much truth is not in
+thee, historian. Besides, Mohi: my songs perpetuate many things which you sage
+scribes entirely overlook. Have you not oftentimes come to me, and my ever dewy
+ballads for information, in which you and your musty old chronicles were
+deficient?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In much that is precious, Mohi, we poets are the true historians; we
+embalm; you corrode.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this Mohi, with some ire, was about to make answer, when, flinging over his
+shoulder a new fold of his mantle, Babbalanja spoke thus: &ldquo;Peace, rivals.
+As Bardianna has it, like all who dispute upon pretensions of their own, you
+are each nearest the right, when you speak of the other; and furthest
+therefrom, when you speak of yourselves.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Mohi and Yoomy in a breath, &ldquo;Who sought your opinion, philosopher?
+you filcher from old Bardianna, and monger of maxims!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You, who have so long marked the vices of Mardi, that you flatter
+yourself you have none of your own,&rdquo; added Braid-Beard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You, who only seem wise, because of the contrasting follies of others,
+and not of any great wisdom in yourself,&rdquo; continued the minstrel, with
+unwonted asperity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now here,&rdquo; said Babballanja, &ldquo;am I charged upon by a bearded
+old ram, and a lamb. One butting with his carious and brittle old frontlet; the
+other pushing with its silly head before its horns are sprouted. But this comes
+of being impartial. Had I espoused the cause of Yoomy versus Mohi, or that of
+Mohi versus Yoomy, I had been sure to have had at least one voice in my favor.
+The impartialist insulteth all sides, saith old Bardianna; but smite with but
+one hand, and the other shall be kissed.&mdash;Oh incomparable
+Bardianna!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will no one lay that troubled old ghost,&rdquo; exclaimed Media,
+devoutly. &ldquo;Proceed with thy legend, Yoomy; and see to it, that it be
+brief; for I mistrust me, these legends do but test the patience of the
+hearers. But draw a long breath, and begin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A long bow,&rdquo; muttered Mohi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Yoomy began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is now about ten hundred thousand moons&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Oro! How long since, say you?&rdquo; cried Mohi, making Gothic
+arches of his brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Looking at him disdainfully, but vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy began over again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is now above ten hundred thousand moons, since there died the last of
+a marvelous race, once inhabiting the very shores by which we are sailing. They
+were a very diminutive people, only a few inches high&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop, minstrel,&rdquo; cried Mohi; &ldquo;how many pennyweights did they
+weigh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Continued Yoomy, unheedingly, &ldquo;They were covered all over with a soft,
+silky down, like that on the rind of the Avee; and there grew upon their heads
+a green, lance-leaved vine, of a most delicate texture. For convenience, the
+manikins reduced their tendrils, sporting, nothing but coronals. Whereas,
+priding themselves upon the redundancy of their tresses, the little maidens
+assiduously watered them with the early dew of the morning; so that all
+wreathed and festooned with verdure, they moved about in arbors, trailing after
+them trains.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can hear no more,&rdquo; exclaimed Mohi, stopping his ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Continued Yoomy, &ldquo;The damsels lured to their bowers, certain red-
+plumaged insect-birds, and taught them to nestle therein, and warble; which,
+with the pleasant vibrating of the leaves, when the little maidens moved,
+produced a strange blending of sweet, singing sounds. The little maidens
+embraced not with their arms, but with their viny locks; whose tendrils
+instinctively twined about their lovers, till both were lost in the
+bower.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what then?&rdquo; asked Mohi, who, notwithstanding the fingers in
+his ears, somehow contrived to listen; &ldquo;What then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At a certain age, but while yet the maidens were very young, their vines
+bore blossoms. Ah! fatal symptoms. For soon as they burst, the maidens died in
+their arbors; and were buried in the valleys; and their vines spread forth; and
+the flowers bloomed; but the maidens themselves were no more. And now
+disdaining the earth, the vines shot upward: climbing to the topmost boughs of
+the trees; and flowering in the sunshine forever and aye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yoomy here paused for a space; but presently continued:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The little eyes of the people of Tupia were very strange to behold: full
+of stars, that shone from within, like the Pleiades, deep- bosomed in blue. And
+like the stars, they were intolerant of sunlight; and slumbering through the
+day, the people of Tupia only went abroad by night. But it was chiefly when the
+moon was at full, that they were mostly in spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the little manikins would dive down into the sea, and rove about in
+the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. Or, racing round, make a mad
+merry night of it with the sea-urchins:&mdash;plucking the reverend mullets by
+the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells; worrying the sea-nettles; or
+tormenting with their antics the touchy torpedos. Sometimes they went prying
+about with the starfish, that have an eye at the end of each ray; and often
+with coral files in their hands stole upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting
+their weapons. In short, these stout little manikins were passionately fond of
+the sea, and swore by wave and billow, that sooner or later they would embark
+thereon in nautilus shells, and spend the rest of their roving days thousands
+of inches from Tupia. Too true, they were shameless little rakes. Oft would
+they return to their sweethearts, sporting musky girdles of sea-kelp, tasseled
+with green little pouches of grass, brimful of seed-pearls; and jingling their
+coin in the ears of the damsels, throw out inuendoes about the beautiful and
+bountiful mermaids: how wealthy and amorous they were, and how they delighted
+in the company of the brave gallants of Tupia. Ah! at such heartless bravadoes,
+how mourned the poor little nymphs. Deep into their arbors they went; and their
+little hearts burst like rose-buds, and filled the whole air with an odorous
+grief. But when their lovers were gentle and true, no happier maidens haunted
+the lilies than they. By some mystical process they wrought minute balls of
+light: touchy, mercurial globules, very hard to handle; and with these, at
+pitch and toss, they played in the groves. Or mischievously inclined, they
+toiled all night long at braiding the moon-beams together, and entangling the
+plaited end to a bough; so that at night, the poor planet had much ado to
+set.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Yoomy once more was mute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pause you to invent as you go on?&rdquo; said old Mohi, elevating his
+chin, till his beard was horizontal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yoomy resumed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Little or nothing more, my masters, is extant of the legend; only it
+must be mentioned, that these little people were very tasteful in their
+personal adornings; the manikins wearing girdles of fragrant leaves, and
+necklaces of aromatic seeds; and the little damsels, not content with their
+vines, and their verdure, sporting pearls in their ears; bracelets of wee
+little porpoise teeth; and oftentimes dancing with their mates in the moonlit
+glades, coquettishly fanned themselves with the transparent wings of the flying
+fish.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, I appeal to you, royal Media; to you, noble Taji; to you,
+Babbalanja;&rdquo; said the chronicler, with an impressive gesture,
+&ldquo;whether this seems a credible history: Yoomy has invented.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But perhaps he has entertained, old Mohi,&rdquo; said Babbalanja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has not spoken the truth,&rdquo; persisted the chronicler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mohi,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;truth is in things, and not in
+words: truth is voiceless; so at least saith old Bardianna. And I, Babbalanja,
+assert, that what are vulgarly called fictions are as much realities as the
+gross mattock of Dididi, the digger of trenches; for things visible are but
+conceits of the eye: things imaginative, conceits of the fancy. If duped by
+one, we are equally duped by the other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Clear as this water,&rdquo; said Yoomy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Opaque as this paddle,&rdquo; said Mohi, &ldquo;But, come now, thou
+oracle, if all things are deceptive, tell us what is truth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old interrogatory; did they not ask it when the world began? But ask
+it no more. As old Bardianna hath it, that question is more final than any
+answer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0094"></a>
+CHAPTER XCIV.<br/>
+Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of His, Mondoldo; And
+Of The Fish-Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish </h2>
+
+<p>
+Drawing near Mondoldo, our next place of destination, we were greeted by six
+fine canoes, gayly tricked out with streamers, and all alive with the gestures
+of their occupants. King Borabolla and court were hastening to welcome our
+approach; Media, unbeknown to all, having notified him at the Banquet of the
+Five-and-Twenty Kings, of our intention to visit his dominions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon, side by side, these canoes floated with ours; each barge of Odo
+courteously flanked by those of Mondoldo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not long were we in identifying Borabolla: the portly, pleasant old monarch,
+seated cross-legged upon a dais, projecting over the bow of the largest canoe
+of the six, close-grappling to the side of the Sea Elephant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was he not a goodly round sight to behold? Round all over; round of eye and of
+head; and like the jolly round Earth, roundest and biggest about the Equator. A
+girdle of red was his Equinoctial Line, giving a compactness to his plumpness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This old Borabolla permitted naught to come between his head and the sun; not
+even gray hairs. Bald as a gourd, right down on his brazen skull, the rays of
+the luminary converged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was all hilarity; full of allusions to the feast at Willamilla, where he had
+done royal execution. Rare old Borabolla! thou wert made for dining out; thy
+ample mouth an inlet for good cheer, and a sally-port for good humor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bustling about on his dais, he now gave orders for the occupants of our canoes
+to be summarily emptied into his own; saying, that in that manner only did he
+allow guests to touch the beach of Mondoldo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So, with no little trouble&mdash;for the waves were grown somewhat
+riotous&mdash;we proceeded to comply; bethinking ourselves all the while, how
+annoying is sometimes an over-strained act of hospitality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were now but little less than a mile from the shore. But what of that? There
+was plenty of time, thought Borabolla, for a hasty lunch, and the getting of a
+subsequent appetite ere we effected a landing. So viands were produced; to
+which the guests were invited to pay heedful attention; or take the
+consequences, and famish till the long voyage in prospect was ended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon the water shoaled (approaching land is like nearing truth in metaphysics),
+and ere we yet touched the beach, Borabolla declared, that we were already
+landed. Which paradoxical assertion implied, that the hospitality of Mondoldo
+was such, that in all directions it radiated far out upon the lagoon, embracing
+a great circle; so that no canoe could sail by the island, without its
+occupants being so long its guests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In most hospitable vicinity to the water, was a fine large structure, inclosed
+by a stockade; both rather dilapidated; as if the cost of entertaining its
+guests, prevented outlays for repairing the place. But it was one of
+Borabolla&rsquo;s maxims, that generally your tumble-down old homesteads yield
+the most entertainment; their very dilapidation betokening their having seen
+good service in hospitality; whereas, spruce-looking, finical portals, have a
+phiz full of meaning; for niggards are oftentimes neat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, after what has been said, who so silly as to fancy, that because
+Borabolla&rsquo;s mansion was inclosed by a stockade, that the same was
+intended as a defense against guests? By no means. In the palisade was a mighty
+breach, not an entrance-way, wide enough to admit six Daniel Lamberts abreast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look,&rdquo; cried Borabolla, as landing we stepped toward the place.
+&ldquo;Look Media! look all. These gates, you here see, lashed back with
+osiers, have been so lashed during my life-time; and just where they stand,
+shall they rot; ay, they shall perish wide open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why have them at all?&rdquo; inquired Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! there you have old Borabolla,&rdquo; cried the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;a fence whose gate is ever kept open,
+seems unnecessary, I grant; nevertheless, it gives a notable hint, otherwise
+not so aptly conveyed; for is not the open gate the sign of the open
+heart?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right, right,&rdquo; cried Borabolla; &ldquo;so enter both, cousin
+Media;&rdquo; and with one hand smiting his chest, with the other he waved us
+on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure within seemed only a
+roof; for nothing but a slender pillar here and there, supported it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is my mode of building,&rdquo; said Borabolla; &ldquo;I will have
+no outside to my palaces. Walls are superfluous. And to a high-minded guest,
+the entering a narrow doorway is like passing under a yoke; every time he goes
+in, or comes out, it reminds him, that he is being entertained at the cost of
+another. So storm in all round.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we looked up to endless rows
+of brown calabashes, and trenchers suspended along the rafters; promissory of
+ample cheer as regiments of old hams in a baronial refectory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were replenished with both meat and drink; the trenchers readily
+accessible by means of cords; but the gourds containing arrack, suspended neck
+downward, were within easy reach where they swung.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a cautious young
+bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making, Taji stood on his guard. And when
+Borabolla urged him to empty a gourd or two, by way of making room in him for
+the incidental repast about to be served, Taji civilly declined; not wishing to
+cumber the floor, before the cloth was laid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of the unities of time
+and place, went freely about, from gourd to gourd, concocting in him a punch.
+At which, Samoa expressed much surprise, that he should be so unobservant as
+not to know, that in Mardi, guests might be pressed to demean themselves,
+without its being expected that so they would do. A true toss-pot himself, he
+bode his time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second lunch over, Borabolla placed both hands to the ground, and giving
+the sigh of the fat man, after three vigorous efforts, succeeded in gaining his
+pins; which pins of his, were but small for his body; insomuch that they hugely
+staggered about, under the fine old load they carried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture, was to put
+himself in motion, and conduct us to his fish-ponds, famous throughout the
+Archipelago as the hobby of the king of Mondoldo. Furthermore, as the great
+repast of the day, yet to take place, was to be a grand piscatory one, our host
+was all anxiety, that we should have a glimpse of our fish, while yet alive and
+hearty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors were preparing to
+accompany us with trenchers of edibles. It begat the notion, that our trip to
+the fish-ponds was to prove a long journey. But they were not three hundred
+yards distant; though Borabolla being a veteran traveler, never stirred from
+his abode without his battalion of butlers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ponds were four in number, close bordering the water, embracing about an
+acre each, and situated in a low fen, draining several valleys. The excavated
+soil was thrown up in dykes, made tight by being beaten all over, while in a
+soft state, with the heavy, flat ends of Palm stalks. Lying side by side, by
+three connecting trenches, these ponds could be made to communicate at
+pleasure; while two additional canals afforded means of letting in upon them
+the salt waters of the lagoon on one hand, or those of an inland stream on the
+other. And by a third canal with four branches, together or separately, they
+could be partially drained. Thus, the waters could be mixed to suit any gills;
+and the young fish taken from the sea, passed through a stated process of
+freshening; so that by the time they graduated, the salt was well out of them,
+like the brains out of some diplomaed collegians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fresh-water fish are only to be obtained in Mondoldo by the artificial process
+above mentioned; as the streams and brooks abound not in trout or other
+Waltonian prey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taken all floundering from the sea, Borabolla&rsquo;s fish, passing through
+their regular training for the table, and daily tended by their keepers, in
+course of time became quite tame and communicative. To prove which, calling his
+Head Ranger, the king bade him administer the customary supply of edibles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly, mouthfuls were thrown into the ponds. Whereupon, the fish darted
+in a shoal toward the margin; some leaping out of the water in their eagerness.
+Crouching on the bank, the Ranger now called several by name, patted their
+scales, carrying on some heathenish nursery-talk, like St. Anthony, in ancient
+Coptic, instilling virtuous principles into his finny flock on the sea shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But alas, for the hair-shirted old dominie&rsquo;s backsliding disciples. For,
+of all nature&rsquo;s animated kingdoms, fish are the most unchristian,
+inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures. At least, so seem they
+to strangers; though at bottom, somehow, they must be all right. And truly it
+is not to be wondered at, that the very reverend Anthony strove after the
+conversion of fish. For, whoso shall Christianize, and by so doing, humanize
+the sharks, will do a greater good, by the saving of human life in all time to
+come, than though he made catechumens of the head-hunting Dyaks of Borneo, or
+the blood-bibbing Battas of Sumatra. And are these Dyaks and Battas one whit
+better than tiger-sharks? Nay, are they so good? Were a Batta your intimate
+friend, you would often mistake an orang-outang for him; and have orang-outangs
+immortal souls? True, the Battas believe in a hereafter; but of what sort? Full
+of Blue-Beards and bloody bones. So, also, the sharks; who hold that Paradise
+is one vast Pacific, ploughed by navies of mortals, whom an endless gale
+forever drops into their maws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not wholly a surmise. For, does it not appear a little unreasonable to imagine,
+that there is any creature, fish, flesh, or fowl, so little in love with life,
+as not to cherish hopes of a future state? Why does man believe in it? One
+reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he desires it. Who shall say, then, that the
+leviathan this day harpooned on the coast of Japan, goes not straight to his
+ancestor, who rolled all Jonah, as a sweet morsel, under his tongue?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best hold themselves in a
+state of philosophical suspense. Say they&mdash;&ldquo;That catastrophe took
+place in the Mediterranean; and the only whales frequenting the Mediterranean,
+are of a sort having not a swallow large enough to pass a man entire; for those
+Mediterranean whales feed upon small things, as horses upon oats.&rdquo; But
+hence, the sailors draw a rash inference. Are not the Straits of Gibralter wide
+enough to admit a sperm-whale, even though none have sailed through, since
+Nineveh and the gourd in its suburbs dried up?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature eighty feet long
+without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist before dinner, is not
+inconsiderately to be consigned to annihilation.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0095"></a>
+CHAPTER XCV.<br/>
+That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very good palace, this, coz, for you and me,&rdquo; said waddling old
+Borabolla to Media, as, returned from our excursion, he slowly lowered himself
+down to his mat, sighing like a grampus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this, he again made known the vastness of his hospitality, which led him for
+the nonce to parcel out his kingdom with his guests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But apart from these extravagant expressions of good feeling, Borabolla was the
+prince of good fellows. His great tun of a person was indispensable to the
+housing of his bullock-heart; under which, any lean wight would have sunk. But
+alas! unlike Media and Taji, Borabolla, though a crowned king, was accounted no
+demi-god; his obesity excluding him from that honor. Indeed, in some quarters
+of Mardi, certain pagans maintain, that no fat man can be even immortal. A
+dogma! truly, which should be thrown to the dogs. For fat men are the salt and
+savor of the earth; full of good humor, high spirits, fun, and all manner of
+jollity. Their breath clears the atmosphere: their exhalations air the world.
+Of men, they are the good measures; brimmed, heaped, pressed down, piled up,
+and running over. They are as ships from Teneriffe; swimming deep, full of old
+wine, and twenty steps down into their holds. Soft and susceptible, all round
+they are easy of entreaty. Wherefore, for all their rotundity, they are too
+often circumnavigated by hatchet-faced knaves. Ah! a fat uncle, with a fat
+paunch, and a fat purse, is a joy and a delight to all nephews; to
+philosophers, a subject of endless speculation, as to how many droves of oxen
+and Lake Eries of wine might have run through his great mill during the full
+term of his mortal career. Fat men not immortal! This very instant, old Lambert
+is rubbing his jolly abdomen in Paradise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, to the fact of his not being rated a demi-god, was perhaps ascribable the
+circumstance, that Borabolla comported himself with less dignity, than was the
+wont of their Mardian majesties. And truth to say, to have seen him regaling
+himself with one of his favorite cuttle-fish, its long snaky arms and feelers
+instinctively twining round his head as he ate; few intelligent observers would
+have opined that the individual before them was the sovereign lord of Mondoldo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what of the banquet of fish? Shall we tell how the old king ungirdled
+himself thereto; how as the feast waxed toward its close, with one sad
+exception, he still remained sunny-sided all round; his disc of a face joyous
+as the South Side of Madeira in the hilarious season of grapes? Shall we tell
+how we all grew glad and frank; and how the din of the dinner was heard far
+into night?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Media ate slowly, Borabolla took him to task, bidding him dispatch his
+viands more speedily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon said Media &ldquo;But Borabolla, my round fellow, that would abridge
+the pleasure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all, my dear demi-god; do like me: eat fast and eat long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the middle of the feast, a huge skin of wine was brought in. The portly
+peltry of a goat; its horns embattling its effigy head; its mouth the nozzle;
+and its long beard flowed to its jet-black hoofs. With many ceremonial salams,
+the attendants bore it along, placing it at one end of the convivial mats, full
+in front of Borabolla; where seated upon its haunches it made one of the party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Brimming a ram&rsquo;s horn, the mellowest of bugles, Borabolla bowed to his
+silent guest, and thus spoke&mdash;&ldquo;In this wine, which yet smells of the
+grape, I pledge you my reverend old toper, my lord Capricornus; you alone have
+enough; and here&rsquo;s full skins to the rest!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How jolly he is,&rdquo; whispered Media to Babbalanja.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, his lungs laugh loud; but is laughing, rejoicing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Help! help!&rdquo; cried Borabolla &ldquo;lay me down! lay me down! good
+gods, what a twinge!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The goblet fell from his hand; the purple flew from his wine to his face; and
+Borabolla fell back into the arms of his servitors. &ldquo;That gout! that
+gout!&rdquo; he groaned. &ldquo;Lord! lord! no more cursed wine will I
+drink!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then at ten paces distant, a clumsy attendant let fall a
+trencher&mdash;&ldquo;Take it off my foot, you knave!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Afar off another entered gallanting a calabash&mdash;&ldquo;Look out for my
+toe, you hound!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During all this, the attendants tenderly nursed him. And in good time, with its
+thousand fangs, the gout-fiend departed for a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reprieved, the old king brightened up; by degrees becoming jolly as ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come! let us be merry again,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;what shall we eat?
+and what shall we drink? that infernal gout is gone; come, what will your
+worships have?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So at it once more we went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But of our feast, little more remains to be related than this;&mdash;that out
+of it, grew a wondrous kindness between Borabolla and Jarl. Strange to tell,
+from the first our fat host had regarded my Viking with a most friendly eye.
+Still stranger to add, this feeling was returned. But though they thus fancied
+each other, they were very unlike; Borabolla and Jarl. Nevertheless, thus is it
+ever. And as the convex fits not into the convex, but into the concave; so do
+men fit into their opposites; and so fitted Borabolla&rsquo;s arched paunch
+into Jarl&rsquo;s, hollowed out to receive it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how now? Borabolla was jolly and loud: Jarl demure and silent; Borabolla a
+king: Jarl only a Viking;&mdash;how came they together? Very plain, to
+repeat:&mdash;because they were heterogeneous; and hence the affinity. But as
+the affinity between those chemical opposites chlorine and hydrogen, is
+promoted by caloric; so the affinity between Borabolla and Jarl was promoted by
+the warmth of the wine that they drank at this feast. For of all blessed
+fluids, the juice of the grape is the greatest foe to cohesion. True, it
+tightens the girdle; but then it loosens the tongue, and opens the heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In sum, Borabolla loved Jarl; and Jarl, pleased with this sociable monarch, for
+all his garrulity, esteemed him the most sensible old gentleman and king he had
+as yet seen in Mardi. For this reason, perhaps; that his talkativeness favored
+that silence in listeners, which was my Viking&rsquo;s delight in himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Repeatedly during the banquet, our host besought Taji to allow his henchman to
+remain on the island, after the rest of our party should depart; and he
+faithfully promised to surrender Jarl, whenever we should return to claim him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though I harbored no distrust of Borabolla&rsquo;s friendly intentions, I
+could not so readily consent to his request; for with Jarl for my one only
+companion, had I not both famished and feasted? was he not my only link to
+things past?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Things past!&mdash;Ah Yillah! for all its mirth, and though we hunted wide, we
+found thee not in Mondoldo.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0096"></a>
+CHAPTER XCVI.<br/>
+Samoa A Surgeon</h2>
+
+<p>
+The second day of our stay in Mondoldo was signalized by a noteworthy
+exhibition of the surgical skill of Samoa; who had often boasted, that though
+well versed in the science of breaking men&rsquo;s heads, he was equally an
+adept in mending their crockery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Overnight, Borabolla had directed his corps of sea-divers to repair early on
+the morrow, to a noted section of the great Mardian reef, for the purpose of
+procuring for our regalement some of the fine Hawk&rsquo;s-bill turtle, whose
+secret retreats were among the cells and galleries of that submerged wall of
+coral, from whose foamy coping no plummet dropped ever yet touched bottom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These turtles were only to be obtained by diving far down under the surface;
+and then swimming along horizontally, and peering into the coral honeycomb;
+snatching at a flipper when seen, as at a pinion in a range of billing
+dove-cotes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the king&rsquo;s divers were thus employed, one of them, Karhownoo by name,
+perceived a Devil-shark, so called, swimming wistfully toward him from out his
+summer grotto in the reef. No way petrified by the sight, and pursuing the
+usual method adopted by these divers in such emergencies, Karhownoo, splashing
+the water, instantly swam toward the stranger. But the shark, undaunted,
+advanced: a thing so unusual, and fearful, that, in an agony of fright, the
+diver shot up for the surface. Heedless, he looked not up as he went; and when
+within a few inches of the open air, dashed his head against a projection of
+the reef. He would have sank into the live tomb beneath, were it not that three
+of his companions, standing on the brink, perceived his peril, and dragged him
+into safety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing the poor fellow was insensible, they endeavored, ineffectually, to
+revive him; and at last, placing him in their canoe, made all haste for the
+shore. Here a crowd soon gathered, and the diver was borne to a habitation,
+close adjoining Borabolla&rsquo;s; whence, hearing of the disaster, we sallied
+out to render assistance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon entering the hut, the benevolent old king commanded it to be cleared; and
+then proceeded to examine the sufferer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The skull proved to be very badly fractured; in one place, splintered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me mend it,&rdquo; said Samoa, with ardor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And being told of his experience in such matters, Borabolla surrendered the
+patient.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a gourd of water, and a tappa cloth, the one-armed Upoluan carefully
+washed the wound; and then calling for a sharp splinter of bamboo, and a thin,
+semi-transparent cup of cocoa-nut shell, he went about the operation: nothing
+less than the &ldquo;Tomoti&rdquo; (head-mending), in other words the trepan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The patient still continuing insensible, the fragments were disengaged by help
+of a bamboo scalpel; when a piece of the drinking cup&mdash;previously dipped
+in the milk of a cocoanut&mdash;was nicely fitted into the vacancy, the skin as
+nicely adjusted over it, and the operation was complete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now, while all present were crying out in admiration of Samoa&rsquo;s
+artistic skill, and Samoa himself stood complacently regarding his workmanship,
+Babbalanja suggested, that it might be well to ascertain whether the patient
+survived. When, upon sounding his heart, the diver was found to be dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bystanders loudly lamented; but declared the surgeon a man of marvelous
+science.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Returning to Borabolla&rsquo;s, much conversation ensued, concerning the sad
+scene we had witnessed, which presently branched into a learned discussion upon
+matters of surgery at large.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, Samoa regaled the company with a story; for the truth of which no
+one but him can vouch, for no one but him was by, at the time; though there is
+testimony to show that it involves nothing at variance with the customs of
+certain barbarous tribes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Read on.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0097"></a>
+CHAPTER XCVII.<br/>
+Faith And Knowledge</h2>
+
+<p>
+A thing incredible is about to be related; but a thing may be incredible and
+still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true. And many infidels
+but disbelieve the least incredible things; and many bigots reject the most
+obvious. But let us hold fast to all we have; and stop all leaks in our faith;
+lest an opening, but of a hand&rsquo;s breadth, should sink our seventy-fours.
+The wide Atlantic can rush in at one port-hole; and if we surrender a plank, we
+surrender the fleet. Panoplied in all the armor of St. Paul, morion, hauberk,
+and greaves, let us fight the Turks inch by inch, and yield them naught but our
+corpse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let us not turn round upon friends, confounding them with foes. For
+dissenters only assent to more than we. Though Milton was a heretic to the
+creed of Athanasius, his faith exceeded that of Athanasius himself; and the
+faith of Athanasius that of Thomas, the disciple, who with his own eyes beheld
+the mark of the nails. Whence it comes that though we be all Christians now,
+the best of us had perhaps been otherwise in the days of Thomas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity: Gabriel
+rejects more than we, but out-believes us all. The greatest marvels are first
+truths; and first truths the last unto which we attain. Things nearest are
+furthest off. Though your ear be next-door to your brain, it is forever removed
+from your sight. Man has a more comprehensive view of the moon, than the man in
+the moon himself. We know the moon is round; he only infers it. It is because
+we ourselves are in ourselves, that we know ourselves not. And it is only of
+our easy faith, that we are not infidels throughout; and only of our lack of
+faith, that we believe what we do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers. Do you believe that
+you lived three thousand years ago? That you were at the taking of Tyre, were
+overwhelmed in Gomorrah? No. But for me, I was at the subsiding of the Deluge,
+and helped swab the ground, and build the first house. With the Israelites, I
+fainted in the wilderness; was in court, when Solomon outdid all the judges
+before him. I, it was, who suppressed the lost work of Manetho, on the Egyptian
+theology, as containing mysteries not to be revealed to posterity, and things
+at war with the canonical scriptures; I, who originated the conspiracy against
+that purple murderer, Domitian; I, who in the senate moved, that great and good
+Aurelian be emperor. I instigated the abdication of Diocletian, and Charles the
+Fifth; I touched Isabella&rsquo;s heart, that she hearkened to Columbus. I am
+he, that from the king&rsquo;s minions hid the Charter in the old oak at
+Hartford; I harbored Goffe and Whalley: I am the leader of the Mohawk masks,
+who in the Old Commonwealth&rsquo;s harbor, overboard threw the East India
+Company&rsquo;s Souchong; I am the Vailed Persian Prophet; I, the man in the
+iron mask; I, Junius.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0098"></a>
+CHAPTER XCVIII.<br/>
+The Tale Of A Traveler</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a traveler. But
+stay-at-homes say travelers lie. Yet a voyage to Ethiopia would cure them of
+that; for few skeptics are travelers; fewer travelers liars, though the proverb
+respecting them lies. It is false, as some say, that Bruce was cousin-german to
+Baron Munchausen; but true, as Bruce said, that the Abysinnians cut live steaks
+from their cattle. It was, in good part, his villainous transcribers, who made
+monstrosities of Mandeville&rsquo;s travels. And though all liars go to
+Gehenna; yet, assuming that Mandeville died before Dante; still, though Dante
+took the census of Hell, we find not Sir John, under the likeness of a roasted
+neat&rsquo;s tongue, in that infernalest of infernos, The Inferno.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let not the truth be postponed. To the stand, Samoa, and through your
+interpreter, speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once upon a time, during his endless sea-rovings, the Upoluan was called upon
+to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a desperate fight of slings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as the cranium
+itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being over, part of its
+live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan accomplished with cocoanut
+shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This man died not, but lived. But from being a warrior of great sense and
+spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing many of the
+characteristics of his swinish grafting. He survived the operation more than a
+year; at the end of that period, however, going mad, and dying in his delirium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some present. But
+Babbalanja held out to the last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet, if this story be true,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and since it is well
+settled, that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why
+human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium the
+contents of a man&rsquo;s. I have long thought, that men, pigs, and plants, are
+but curious physiological experiments; and that science would at last enable
+philosophers to produce new species of beings, by somehow mixing, and
+concocting the essential ingredients of various creatures; and so forming new
+combinations. My friend Atahalpa, the astrologer and alchymist, has long had a
+jar, in which he has been endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being
+compounded according to a receipt of his own.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But little they heeded Babbalanja. It was the traveler&rsquo;s tale that most
+arrested attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tough the thews, and tough the tales of Samoa.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0099"></a>
+CHAPTER XCIX.<br/>
+&ldquo;Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+During the afternoon of the day of the diver&rsquo;s decease, preparations were
+making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying them by
+torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in Odo, so was the custom
+here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally arrayed,
+beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying&mdash;&ldquo;A man is dead;
+let no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh Oro!&mdash;Let no canoes put to sea
+till the burial. This night, oh Oro!&mdash;Let no food be cooked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire; with
+castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Be merry, oh men of Mondoldo,<br/>
+    A maiden this night is to wed:<br/>
+Be merry, oh damsels of Mardi,&mdash;<br/>
+    Flowers, flowers for the bridal bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we repaired to
+the arbor, whither the body had been removed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed, between
+its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so that blood
+flowed, and spotted their vesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the wife of the
+diver, she exclaimed, &ldquo;Yes; great is the pain, but greater my
+affliction.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another, the deaf sire of the dead, went staggering about, and groping; saying,
+that he was now quite blind; for some months previous he had lost one eye in
+the death of his eldest son and now the other was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am childless,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;henceforth call me Roi
+Mori,&rdquo; that is, Twice-Blind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the relatives were thus violently lamenting, the rest of the company
+occasionally scratched themselves with their shells; but very slightly, and
+mostly on the soles of their feet; from long exposure, quite callous. This was
+interrupted, however, when the real mourners averted their eyes; though at no
+time was there any deviation in the length of their faces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But on all sides, lamentations afresh broke forth, upon the appearance of a
+person who had been called in to assist in solemnizing the obsequies, and also
+to console the afflicted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In rotundity, he was another Borabolla. He puffed and panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he approached the corpse, a sobbing silence ensued; when holding the hand of
+the dead, between his, the stranger thus spoke:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mourn not, oh friends of Karhownoo, that this your brother lives not.
+His wounded head pains him no more; he would not feel it, did a javelin pierce
+him. Yea; Karhownoo is exempt from all the ills and evils of this miserable
+Mardi!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hereupon, the Twice-Blind, who being deaf, heard not what was said, tore his
+gray hair, and cried, &ldquo;Alas! alas! my boy; thou wert the merriest man in
+Mardi, and now thy pranks are over!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the other proceeded&mdash;&ldquo;Mourn not, I say, oh friends of Karhownoo;
+the dead whom ye deplore is happier than the living; is not his spirit in the
+aerial isles?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True! true!&rdquo; responded the raving wife, mingling her blood with
+her tears, &ldquo;my own poor hapless Karhownoo is thrice happy in
+Paradise!&rdquo; And anew she wailed, and lacerated her cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rave not, I say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she only raved the more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now the good stranger departed; saying, he must hie to a wedding, waiting
+his presence in an arbor adjoining.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Understanding that the removal of the body would not take place till midnight,
+we thought to behold the mode of marrying in Mondoldo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Drawing near the place, we were greeted by merry voices, and much singing,
+which greatly increased when the good stranger was perceived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gayly arrayed in fine robes, with plumes on their heads, the bride and groom
+stood in the middle of a joyous throng, in readiness for the nuptial bond to be
+tied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing before them, the stranger was given a cord, so bedecked with flowers,
+as to disguise its stout fibers; and taking: the bride&rsquo;s hands, he bound
+them together to a ritual chant; about her neck, in festoons, disposing the
+flowery ends of the cord. Then turning to the groom, he was given another, also
+beflowered; but attached thereto was a great stone, very much carved, and
+stained; indeed, so every way disguised, that a person not knowing what it was,
+and lifting it, would be greatly amazed at its weight. This cord being attached
+to the waist of the groom, he leaned over toward the bride, by reason of the
+burden of the drop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All present now united in a chant, and danced about the happy pair, who
+meanwhile looked ill at ease; the one being so bound by the hands, and the
+other solely weighed down by his stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pause ensuing, the good stranger, turning them back to back, thus
+spoke:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By thy flowery gyves, oh bride, I make thee a wife; and by thy
+burdensome stone, oh groom, I make thee a husband. Live and be happy, both; for
+the wise and good Oro hath placed us in Mardi to be glad. Doth not all nature
+rejoice in her green groves and her flowers? and woo and wed not the fowls of
+the air, trilling their bliss in their bowers? Live then, and be happy, oh
+bride and groom; for Oro is offended with the unhappy, since he meant them to
+be gay.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the ceremony ended with a joyful feast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not all nuptials in Mardi were like these. Others were wedded with
+different rites; without the stone and flowery gyves. These were they who
+plighted their troth with tears not smiles, and made responses in the heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Returning from the house of the merry to the house of the mournful, we lingered
+till midnight to witness the issuing forth of the body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By torch light, numerous canoes, with paddlers standing by, were drawn up on
+the beach, to accommodate those who purposed following the poor diver to his
+home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The remains embarked, some confusion ensued concerning the occupancy of the
+rest of the shallops. At last the procession glided off, our party included.
+Two by two, forming a long line of torches trailing round the isle, the canoes
+all headed toward the opening in the reef.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a time, a decorous silence was preserved; but presently, some whispering
+was heard; perhaps melancholy discoursing touching the close of the
+diver&rsquo;s career. But we were shocked to discover, that poor Karhownoo was
+not much in their thoughts; they were conversing about the next bread-fruit
+harvest, and the recent arrival of King Media and party at Mondoldo. From far
+in advance, however, were heard the lamentations of the true mourners, the
+relatives of the diver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Passing the reef, and sailing a little distance therefrom, the canoes were
+disposed in a circle; the one bearing the corpse in the center. Certain
+ceremonies over, the body was committed to the waves; the white foam lighting
+up the last, long plunge of the diver, to see sights more strange than ever he
+saw in the brooding cells of the Turtle Reef.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now, while in the still midnight, all present were gazing down into the
+ocean, watching the white wake of the corpse, ever and anon illuminated by
+sparkles, an unknown voice was heard, and all started and vacantly stared, as
+this wild song was sung:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+We drop our dead in the sea,<br/>
+    The bottomless, bottomless sea;<br/>
+Each bubble a hollow sigh,<br/>
+    As it sinks forever and aye.<br/>
+<br/>
+We drop our dead in the sea,&mdash;<br/>
+    The dead reek not of aught;<br/>
+We drop our dead in the sea,&mdash;<br/>
+    The sea ne&rsquo;er gives it a thought.<br/>
+<br/>
+Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink,<br/>
+    Far down in the bottomless sea,<br/>
+Where the unknown forms do prowl,<br/>
+    Down, down in the bottomless sea.<br/>
+<br/>
+&rsquo;Tis night above, and night all round,<br/>
+    And night will it be with thee;<br/>
+As thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye,<br/>
+    Deeper down in the bottomless sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mysterious voice died away; no sign of the corpse was now seen; and mute
+with amaze, the company long listed to the low moan of the billows and the sad
+sough of the breeze.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, without speaking, the obsequies were concluded by sliding into the
+ocean a carved tablet of Palmetto, to mark the place of the burial. But a
+wave-crest received it, and fast it floated away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Returning to the isle, long silence prevailed. But at length, as if the scene
+in which they had just taken part, afresh reminded them of the mournful event
+which had called them together, the company again recurred to it; some present,
+sadly and incidentally alluding to Borabolla&rsquo;s banquet of turtle, thereby
+postponed.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0100"></a>
+CHAPTER C.<br/>
+The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued</h2>
+
+<p>
+Next morning, when much to the chagrin of Borabolla we were preparing to quit
+his isle, came tidings to the palace, of a wonderful event, occurring in one of
+the &ldquo;Motoos,&rdquo; or little islets of the great reef; which
+&ldquo;Motoo&rdquo; was included in the dominions of the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men who brought these tidings were highly excited; and no sooner did they
+make known what they knew, than all Mondoldo was in a tumult of marveling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their story was this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Going at day break to the Motoo to fish, they perceived a strange proa beached
+on its seaward shore; and presently were hailed by voices; and saw among the
+palm trees, three specter-like men, who were not of Mardi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first amazement of the fishermen over, in reply to their eager questions,
+the strangers related, that they were the survivors of a company of men,
+natives of some unknown island to the northeast; whence they had embarked for
+another country, distant three days&rsquo; sail to the southward of theirs. But
+falling in with a terrible adventure, in which their sire had been slain, they
+altered their course to pursue the fugitive who murdered him; one and all
+vowing, never more to see home, until their father&rsquo;s fate was avenged.
+The murderer&rsquo;s proa outsailing theirs, soon ran out of sight; yet after
+him they blindly steered by day and by night: steering by the blood- red star
+in Bootes. Soon, a violent gale overtook them; driving them to and fro; leaving
+them they knew not where. But still struggling against strange currents, at
+times counteracting their sailing, they drifted on their way; nigh to famishing
+for water; and no shore in sight. In long calms, in vain they held up their dry
+gourds to heaven, and cried &ldquo;send us a breeze, sweet gods!&rdquo; The
+calm still brooded; and ere it was gone, all but three gasped; and dead from
+thirst, were plunged into the sea. The breeze which followed the calm, soon
+brought them in sight of a low, uninhabited isle; where tarrying many days,
+they laid in good store of cocoanuts and water, and again embarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next land they saw was Mardi; and they landed on the Motoo, still intent on
+revenge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This recital filled Taji with horror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Who could these avengers be, but the sons of him I had slain. I had thought
+them far hence, and myself forgotten; and now, like adders, they started up in
+my path, as I hunted for Yillah.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I dissembled my thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without waiting to hear more, Borabolla, all curiosity to behold the strangers,
+instantly dispatched to the Motoo one of his fleetest canoes, with orders to
+return with the voyagers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ere long they came in sight; and perceiving that strange pros in tow of the
+king&rsquo;s, Samoa cried out: &ldquo;Lo! Taji, the canoe that was going to
+Tedaidee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Too true; the same double-keeled craft, now sorely broken, the fatal dais in
+wild disarray: the canoe, the canoe of Aleema! And with it came the spearmen
+three, who, when the Chamois was fleeing from their bow, had poised their
+javelins. But so wan their aspect now, their faces looked like skulls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came over me the wild dream of Yillah; and, for a space, like a madman, I
+raved. It seemed as if the mysterious damsel must still be there; the rescue
+yet to be achieved. In my delirium I rushed upon the skeletons, as they
+landed&mdash;&ldquo;Hide not the maiden!&rdquo; But interposing, Media led me
+aside; when my transports abated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, instantly, the strangers knew who I was; and, brandishing their javelins,
+they rushed upon me, as I had on them, with a yell. But deeming us all mad, the
+crowd held us apart; when, writhing in the arms that restrained them, the pale
+specters foamed out their curses again and again: &ldquo;Oh murderer! white
+curses upon thee! Bleached be thy soul with our hate! Living, our brethren
+cursed thee; and dying, dry-lipped, they cursed thee again. They died not
+through famishing for water, but for revenge upon thee! Thy blood, their thirst
+would have slaked!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I lay fainting against the hard-throbbing heart of Samoa, while they showered
+their yells through the air. Once more, in my thoughts, the green corpse of the
+priest drifted by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among the people of Mondoldo, a violent commotion now raged. They were amazed
+at Taji&rsquo;s recognition by the strangers, and at the deadly ferocity they
+betrayed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rallying upon this, and perceiving that by divulging all they knew, these sons
+of Aleema might stir up the Islanders against me, I resolved to anticipate
+their story; and, turning to Borabolla, said&mdash; &ldquo;In these strangers,
+oh, king! you behold the survivors of a band we encountered on our voyage. From
+them I rescued a maiden, called Yillah, whom they were carrying captive. Little
+more of their history do I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their maledictions?&rdquo; exclaimed Borabolla.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are they not delirious with suffering?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;They know
+not what they say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So, moved by all this, he commanded them to be guarded, and conducted within
+his palisade; and having supplied them with cheer, entered into earnest
+discourse. Yet all the while, the pale strangers on me fixed their eyes; deep,
+dry, crater-like hollows, lurid with flames, reflected from the fear-frozen
+glacier, my soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though their hatred appalled, spite of that spell, again the sweet dream of
+Yillah stole over me, with all the mysterious things by her narrated, but left
+unexplained. And now, before me were those who might reveal the lost
+maiden&rsquo;s whole history, previous to the fatal affray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus impelled, I besought them to disclose what they knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, &ldquo;Where now is your Yillah?&rdquo; they cried. &ldquo;Is the murderer
+wedded and merry? Bring forth the maiden!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet, though they tore out my heart&rsquo;s core, I told them not of my loss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, anxious, to learn the history of Yillah, all present commanded them to
+divulge it; and breathlessly I heard what follows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of Yillah, we know only this:&mdash;that many moons ago, a mighty canoe,
+full of beings, white, like this murderer Taji, touched at our island of Amma.
+Received with wonder, they were worshiped as gods; were feasted all over the
+land. Their chief was a tower to behold; and with him, was a being, whose
+cheeks were of the color of the red coral; her eye, tender as the blue of the
+sky. Every day our people brought her offerings of fruit and flowers; which
+last she would not retain for herself; but hung them round the neck of her
+child, Yillah; then only an infant in her mother&rsquo;s arms; a bud, nestling
+close to a flower, full-blown. All went well between our people and the gods,
+till at last they slew three of our countrymen, charged with stealing from
+their great canoe. Our warriors retired to the hills, brooding over revenge.
+Three days went by; when by night, descending to the plain, in silence they
+embarked; gained the great vessel, and slaughtered every soul but Yillah. The
+bud was torn from the flower; and, by our father Aleema, was carried to the
+Valley of Ardair; there set apart as a sacred offering for Apo, our deity. Many
+moons passed; and there arose a tumult, hostile to our sire&rsquo;s longer
+holding custody of Yillah; when, foreseeing that the holy glen would ere long
+be burst open, he embarked the maiden in yonder canoe, to accelerate her
+sacrifice at the great shrine of Apo, in Tedaidee.&mdash;The rest thou knowest,
+murderer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yillah! Yillah!&rdquo; now hunted again that sound through my soul.
+&ldquo;Oh, Yillah! too late, too late have I learned what thou art!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Apprised of the disappearance of their former captive, the meager strangers
+exulted; declaring that Apo had taken her to himself. For me, ere long, my
+blood they would quaff from my skull.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though I shrunk from their horrible threats, I dissembled anew; and
+turning, again swore that they raved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay!&rdquo; they retorted, &ldquo;we rave and raven for you; and your
+white heart will we have!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perceiving the violence of their rage, and persuaded from what I said, that
+much suffering at sea must have maddened them; Borabolla thought fit to confine
+them for the present; so that they could not molest me.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0101"></a>
+CHAPTER CI.<br/>
+The Iris</h2>
+
+<p>
+That evening, in the groves, came to me three gliding
+forms:&mdash;Hautia&rsquo;s heralds: the Iris mixed with nettles. Said Yoomy,
+&ldquo;A cruel message!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the right hand, the second syren presented glossy, green wax- myrtle
+berries, those that burn like tapers; the third, a lily of the valley, crushed
+in its own broad leaf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This done, they earnestly eyed Yoomy; who, after much pondering,
+said&mdash;&ldquo;I speak for Hautia; who by these berries says, I will
+enlighten you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, give me then that light! say, where is Yillah?&rdquo; and I rushed
+upon the heralds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But eluding me, they looked reproachfully at Yoomy; and seemed offended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, I am wrong,&rdquo; said Yoomy. &ldquo;It is thus:&mdash;Taji, you
+have been enlightened, but the lily you seek is crushed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then fell my heart, and the phantoms nodded; flinging upon me bilberries, like
+rose pearls, which bruised against my skin, left stains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Waving oleanders, they retreated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Harm! treachery! beware!&rdquo; cried Yoomy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they glided through the wood: one showering dead leaves along the path I
+trod, the others gayly waving bunches of spring-crocuses, yellow, white, and
+purple; and thus they vanished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Yoomy, &ldquo;Sad your path, but merry Hautia&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then merry may she be, whoe&rsquo;er she is; and though woe be mine, I
+turn not from that to Hautia; nor ever will I woo her, though she woo me till I
+die;&mdash;though Yillah never bless my eyes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0102"></a>
+CHAPTER CII.<br/>
+They Depart From Mondoldo</h2>
+
+<p>
+Night passed; and next morning we made preparations for leaving Mondoldo that
+day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But fearing anew, lest after our departure, the men of Amma might stir up
+against me the people of the isle, I determined to yield to the earnest
+solicitations of Borabolla, and leave Jarl behind, for a remembrance of Taji;
+if necessary, to vindicate his name. Apprised hereof, my follower was loth to
+acquiesce. His guiltless spirit feared not the strangers: less selfish
+considerations prevailed. He was willing to remain on the island for a time,
+but not without me. Yet, setting forth my reasons; and assuring him, that our
+tour would not be long in completing, when we would not fail to return,
+previous to sailing for Odo, he at last, but reluctantly, assented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Mondoldo, we also parted with Samoa. Whether it was, that he feared the
+avengers, whom he may have thought would follow on my track; or whether the
+islands of Mardi answered not in attractiveness to the picture his fancy had
+painted; or whether the restraint put upon him by the domineering presence of
+King Media, was too irksome withal; or whether, indeed, he relished not those
+disquisitions with which Babbalanja regaled us: however it may have been,
+certain it was, that Samoa was impatient of the voyage. He besought permission
+to return to Odo, there to await my return; and a canoe of Mondoldo being about
+to proceed in that direction, permission was granted; and departing for the
+other side of the island, from thence he embarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long after, dark tidings came, that at early dawn he had been found dead in the
+canoe: three arrows in his side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yoomy was at a loss to account for the departure of Samoa; who, while ashore,
+had expressed much desire to roam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Media, however, declared that he must be returning to some inamorata.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Babbalanja averred, that the Upoluan was not the first man, who had turned
+back, after beginning a voyage like our own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this, after musing, Yoomy assented. Indeed, I had noticed, that already the
+Warbler had abated those sanguine assurances of success, with which he had
+departed from Odo. The futility of our search thus far, seemed ominous to him,
+of the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the eve of embarking, we were accompanied to the beach by Borabolla; who,
+with his own hand, suspended from the shark&rsquo;s mouth of Media&rsquo;s
+canoe, three red-ripe bunches of plantains, a farewell gift to his guests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though he spoke not a word, Jarl was long in taking leave. His eyes seemed to
+say, I will see you no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length we pushed from the strand; Borabolla waving his adieus with a green
+leaf of banana; our comrade ruefully eyeing the receding canoes; and the
+multitude loudly invoking for us a prosperous voyage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to my horror, there suddenly dashed through the crowd, the three specter
+sons of Aleema, escaped from their prison. With clenched hands, they stood in
+the water, and cursed me anew. And with that curse in our sails, we swept off.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0103"></a>
+CHAPTER CIII.<br/>
+As They Sail</h2>
+
+<p>
+As the canoes now glided across the lagoon, I gave myself up to reverie; and
+revolving over all that the men of Amma had rehearsed of the history of Yillah,
+I one by one unriddled the mysteries, before so baffling. Now, all was made
+plain: no secret remaining, but the subsequent event of her disappearance. Yes,
+Hautia! enlightened I had been but where was Yillah?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I recalled that last interview with Hautia&rsquo;s messengers, so full of
+enigmas; and wondered, whether Yoomy had interpreted aright. Unseen, and
+unsolicited; still pursuing me with omens, with taunts, and with wooings,
+mysterious Hautia appalled me. Vaguely I began to fear her. And the thought,
+that perhaps again and again, her heralds would haunt me, filled me with a
+nameless dread, which I almost shrank from acknowledging. Inwardly I prayed,
+that never more they might appear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While full of these thoughts, Media interrupted them by saying, that the
+minstrel was about to begin one of his chants, a thing of his own composing;
+and therefore, as he himself said, all critics must be lenient; for Yoomy, at
+times, not always, was a timid youth, distrustful of his own sweet genius for
+poesy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words were about a curious hereafter, believed in by some people in Mardi:
+a sort of nocturnal Paradise, where the sun and its heat are excluded: one
+long, lunar day, with twinkling stars to keep company.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+THE SONG<br/>
+Far off in the sea is Marlena,<br/>
+A land of shades and streams,<br/>
+A land of many delights.<br/>
+Dark and bold, thy shores,<br/>
+Marlena; But green, and timorous, thy soft knolls,<br/>
+Crouching behind the woodlands.<br/>
+All shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs,<br/>
+Like eyes in the earth looking at you.<br/>
+How charming thy haunts Marlena!&mdash;<br/>
+Oh, the waters that flow through Onimoo:<br/>
+Oh, the leaves that rustle through Ponoo:<br/>
+Oh, the roses that blossom in Tarma:<br/>
+Come, and see the valley of Vina:<br/>
+How sweet, how sweet, the Isles from Hind:<br/>
+&rsquo;Tis aye afternoon of the full, full moon,<br/>
+And ever the season of fruit,<br/>
+And ever the hour of flowers,<br/>
+And never the time of rains and gales,<br/>
+All in and about Marlena.<br/>
+Soft sigh the boughs in the stilly air,<br/>
+Soft lap the beach the billows there;<br/>
+And in the woods or by the streams,<br/>
+You needs must nod in the Land of Dreams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yoomy,&rdquo; said old Mohi with a yawn, &ldquo;you composed that song,
+then, did you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did,&rdquo; said Yoomy, placing his turban a little to one side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, minstrel, you shall sing me to sleep every night, especially with
+that song of Marlena; it is soporific as the airs of Nora-Bamma.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mean you, old man, that my lines, setting forth the luxurious repose to
+be enjoyed hereafter, are composed with such skill, that the description begets
+the reality; or would you ironically suggest, that the song is a sleepy thing
+itself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An important discrimination,&rdquo; said Media; &ldquo;which mean you,
+Mohi?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, are you not a silly boy,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;when from
+the ambiguity of his speech, you could so easily have derived something
+flattering, thus to seek to extract unpleasantness from it? Be wise, Yoomy; and
+hereafter, whenever a remark like that seems equivocal, be sure to wrest
+commendation from it, though you torture it to the quick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And most sure am I, that I would ever do so; but often I so incline to a
+distrust of my powers, that I am far more keenly alive to censure, than to
+praise; and always deem it the more sincere of the two; and no praise so much
+elates me, as censure depresses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="link2HCH0104"></a>
+CHAPTER CIV.<br/>
+Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And In His Own Person Proves It</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A truce!&rdquo; cried Media, &ldquo;here comes a gallant before the
+wind.&mdash;Look, Taji!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turning, we descried a sharp-prowed canoe, dashing on, under the pressure of an
+immense triangular sail, whose outer edges were streaming with long, crimson
+pennons. Flying before it, were several small craft, belonging to the poorer
+sort of Islanders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out of his way there, ye laggards,&rdquo; cried Media, &ldquo;or that
+mad prince, Tribonnora, will ride over ye with a rush!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who is Tribonnora,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;that he thus
+bravely diverts himself, running down innocent paddlers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A harum-scarum young chief,&rdquo; replied Media, &ldquo;heir to three
+islands; he likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He must be possessed by a devil,&rdquo; said Mohi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Babbalanja, &ldquo;Then he is only like all of us.&rdquo; &ldquo;What say
+you?&rdquo; cried Media.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, as old Bardianna in the Nine hundred and ninety ninth book of his
+immortal Ponderings saith, that all men&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I live, my lord, he has swamped three canoes,&rdquo; cried Mohi,
+pointing off the beam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But just then a fiery fin-back whale, having broken into the paddock of the
+lagoon, threw up a high fountain of foam, almost under Tribonnora&rsquo;s nose;
+who, quickly turning about his canoe, cur-like slunk off; his steering-paddle
+between his legs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Comments over; &ldquo;Babbalanja, you were going to quote,&rdquo; said Media.
+&ldquo;Proceed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, my lord. Says old Bardianna, &lsquo;All men are possessed by
+devils; but as these devils are sent into men, and kept in them, for an
+additional punishment; not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in a bridewell;
+so, it may be more just to say, that the devils themselves are possessed by
+men, not men by them.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith!&rdquo; cried Media, &ldquo;though sometimes a bore, your old
+Bardianna is a trump.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have long been of that mind, my lord. But let me go on. Says
+Bardianna, &lsquo;Devils are divers;&mdash;strong devils, and weak devils;
+knowing devils, and silly devils; mad devils, and mild devils; devils, merely
+devils; devils, themselves bedeviled; devils, doubly bedeviled.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And in the devil&rsquo;s name, what sort of a devil is yours?&rdquo;
+cried Mohi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of him anon; interrupt me not, old man. Thus, then, my lord, as devils
+are divers, divers are the devils in men. Whence, the wide difference we see.
+But after all, the main difference is this:&mdash;that one man&rsquo;s devil is
+only more of a devil than another&rsquo;s; and be bedeviled as much as you
+will; yet, may you perform the most bedeviled of actions with impunity, so long
+as you only bedevil yourself. For it is only when your deviltry injures
+another, that the other devils conspire to confine yours for a mad one. That is
+to say, if you be easily handled. For there are many bedeviled Bedlamites in
+Mardi, doing an infinity of mischief, who are too brawny in the arms to be
+tied.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very devilish doctrine that,&rdquo; cried Mohi. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+believe it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s collateral
+proof;&mdash;the sage lawgiver Yamjamma, who flourished long before Bardianna,
+roundly asserts, that all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good is
+happiness; happiness the object of living; and evil is not good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If the sage Yamjamma said that,&rdquo; said old Mohi, &ldquo;the sage
+Yamjamma might have bettered the saying; it&rsquo;s not quite so plain as it
+might be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended by
+mortals. Like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings. But old Bardianna was of
+another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to the point like a javelin;
+especially when he laid it down for a universal maxim, that minus exceptions,
+all men are bedeviled.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, then,&rdquo; said Media, &ldquo;you include yourself among
+the number.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Most assuredly; and so did old Bardianna; who somewhere says, that being
+thoroughly bedeviled himself, he was so much the better qualified to discourse
+upon the deviltries of his neighbors. But in another place he seems to
+contradict himself, by asserting, that he is not so sensible of his own
+deviltry as of other people&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold!&rdquo; cried Media, &ldquo;who have we here?&rdquo; and he pointed
+ahead of our prow to three men in the water, urging themselves along, each with
+a paddle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We made haste to overtake them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; said Media, &ldquo;where from, and where
+bound?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From Variora,&rdquo; they answered, &ldquo;and bound to Mondoldo.&rdquo;
+&ldquo;And did that devil Tribonnora swamp your canoe?&rdquo; asked Media,
+offering to help them into ours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We had no such useless incumbrance to lose,&rdquo; they replied, resting
+on their backs, and panting with their exertions. &ldquo;If we had had a canoe,
+we would have had to paddle it along with us; whereas we have only our bodies
+to paddle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a parcel of loons,&rdquo; exclaimed Media. &ldquo;But go your
+ways, if you are satisfied with your locomotion, well and good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, it is an extreme case, I grant,&rdquo; said Babbalanja, &ldquo;but
+those poor devils there, help to establish old Bardianna&rsquo;s position. They
+belong to that species of our bedeviled race, called simpletons; but their
+devils harming none but themselves, are permitted to be at large with the fish.
+Whereas, Tribonnora&rsquo;s devil, who daily runs down canoes, drowning their
+occupants, belongs to the species of out and out devils; but being high in
+station, and strongly backed by kith and kin, Tribonnora can not be mastered,
+and put in a strait jacket. For myself, I think my devil is some where between
+these two extremes; at any rate, he belongs to that class of devils who harm
+not other devils.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not so sure of that,&rdquo; retorted Media. &ldquo;Methinks this
+doctrine of yours, about all mankind being bedeviled, will work a deal of
+mischief; seeing that by implication it absolves you mortals from moral
+accountability. Further-more; as your doctrine is exceedingly evil, by
+Yamjamma&rsquo;s theory it follows, that you must be proportionably bedeviled;
+and since it harms others, your devil is of the number of those whom it is best
+to limbo; and since he is one of those that can be limboed, limboed he shall be
+in you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so saying, he humorously commanded his attendants to lay hands upon the
+bedeviled philosopher, and place a bandage upon his mouth, that he might no
+more disseminate his devilish doctrine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Against this, Babbalanja demurred, protesting that he was no orang-outang, to
+be so rudely handled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better and better,&rdquo; said Media, &ldquo;you but illustrate
+Bardianna&rsquo;s theory; that men are not sensible of their being
+bedeviled.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus tantalized, Babbalanja displayed few signs of philosophy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon, said Media, &ldquo;Assuredly his devil is foaming; behold his
+mouth!&rdquo; And he commanded him to be bound hand and foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, seeing all resistance ineffectual, Babbalanja submitted; but not
+without many objurgations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, however, they released him; when Media inquired, how he relished the
+application of his theory; and whether he was still&rsquo; of old
+Bardianna&rsquo;s mind?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To which, haughtily adjusting his robe, Babbalanja replied, &ldquo;The strong
+arm, my lord, is no argument, though it overcomes all logic.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<h3> END OF VOL. I. </h3>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER ***</div>
+<div style='text-align:left'>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Updated editions will replace the previous one&#8212;the old editions will
+be renamed.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
+States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG&#8482;
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br />
+<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br />
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+To protect the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
+or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.B. &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&#8220;the
+Foundation&#8221; or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg&#8482; work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work (any work
+on which the phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; appears, or with which the
+phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+    at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
+    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
+  </div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221; associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg&#8482; License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg&#8482;.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; License.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work in a format
+other than &#8220;Plain Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg&#8482; website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original &#8220;Plain
+Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg&#8482; works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+provided that:
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'>
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+        the use of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works calculated using the method
+        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, but he has
+        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+        Section 4, &#8220;Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+        Literary Archive Foundation.&#8221;
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+        works.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+        receipt of the work.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+        distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works.
+    </div>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain &#8220;Defects,&#8221; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &#8220;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&#8221; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &#8216;AS-IS&#8217;, WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg&#8482;&#8217;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg&#8482; collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg&#8482; and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation&#8217;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state&#8217;s laws.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Foundation&#8217;s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation&#8217;s website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
+visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg&#8482;,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/old/13720-h.htm.2020-12-18 b/old/old/13720-h.htm.2020-12-18
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c8e5d97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/13720-h.htm.2020-12-18
@@ -0,0 +1,14183 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" name="linkgenerator" />
+    <title>
+      Mardi V1: and a Voyage Thither, by Herman Melville
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;}
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .xx-small {font-size: 60%;}
+    .x-small {font-size: 75%;}
+    .small {font-size: 85%;}
+    .large {font-size: 115%;}
+    .x-large {font-size: 130%;}
+    .indent5   { margin-left: 5%;}
+    .indent10  { margin-left: 10%;}
+    .indent15  { margin-left: 15%;}
+    .indent20  { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .indent25  { margin-left: 25%;}
+    .indent30  { margin-left: 30%;}
+    .indent35  { margin-left: 35%;}
+    .indent40  { margin-left: 40%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em;
+                font-variant: normal; font-style: normal;
+                text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD;
+                border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;}
+    .side      { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em;
+               border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left;
+               text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border:        solid 1px;}
+    .head      { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em;
+               border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center;
+               text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border:        solid 1px;}
+    p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0}
+    span.dropcap         { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 }
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+  <pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2)
+by Herman Melville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2)
+
+Author: Herman Melville
+
+Release Date: October 12, 2004 [EBook #13720]
+Last updated: July 25, 2020
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI I.: AND A VOYAGE THITHER, ***
+
+
+
+
+Etext produced by Geoff Palmer
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Herman Melville
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      In Two Volumes
+    </h4>
+    <h3>
+      Vol. I
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      1864
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      DEDICATED TO My Brother, ALLAN MELVILLE.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> MARDI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I &mdash; Foot In Stirrup </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II &mdash; A Calm </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III &mdash; A King For A Comrade </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV &mdash; A Chat In The Clouds </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V &mdash; Seats Secured And Portmanteaus
+      Packed </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI &mdash; Eight Bells </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII &mdash; A Pause </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII &mdash; They Push Off, Velis Et
+      Remis </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX &mdash; The Watery World Is All Before
+      Them </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X &mdash; They Arrange Their Canopies And
+      Lounges, And Try To Make Things </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI &mdash; Jarl Afflicted With The
+      Lockjaw </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII &mdash; More About Being In An Open
+      Boat </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII &mdash; Of The Chondropterygii, And
+      Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV &mdash; Jarl's Misgivings </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV &mdash; A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI &mdash; They Are Becalmed </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII &mdash; In High Spirits, They Push
+      On For The Terra Incognita </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII &mdash; My Lord Shark And His Pages
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX &mdash; Who Goes There? </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX &mdash; Noises And Portents </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI &mdash; Man Ho! </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII &mdash; What Befel The Brigantine At
+      The Pearl Shell Islands </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII &mdash; Sailing From The Island
+      They Pillage The Cabin </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV &mdash; Dedicated To The College Of
+      Physicians And Surgeons </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV &mdash; Peril A Peace-Maker </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI &mdash; Containing A Pennyweight Of
+      Philosophy </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII &mdash; In Which The Past History
+      Op The Parki Is Concluded </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII &mdash; Suspicions Laid, And
+      Something About The Calmuc </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX &mdash; What They Lighted Upon In
+      Further Searching The Craft, And The </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX &mdash; Hints For A Full Length Of
+      Samoa </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI &mdash; Rovings Alow And Aloft </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII &mdash; Xiphius Platypterus </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII &mdash; Otard </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV &mdash; How They Steered On Their
+      Way </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV &mdash; Ah, Annatoo! </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI &mdash; The Parki Gives Up The
+      Ghost </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII &mdash; Once More They Take To The
+      Chamois </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII &mdash; The Sea On Fire </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX &mdash; They Fall In With Strangers
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL &mdash; Sire And Sons </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI &mdash; A Fray </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII &mdash; Remorse </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII &mdash; The Tent Entered </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV &mdash; Away </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0045"> CHAPTER XLV &mdash; Reminiscences </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0046"> CHAPTER XLVI &mdash; The Chamois With A Roving
+      Commission </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0047"> CHAPTER XLVII &mdash; Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0048"> CHAPTER XLVIII &mdash; Something Under The
+      Surface </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0049"> CHAPTER XLIX &mdash; Yillah </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0050"> CHAPTER L &mdash; Yillah In Ardair </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0051"> CHAPTER LI &mdash; The Dream Begins To Fade </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0052"> CHAPTER LII &mdash; World Ho! </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0053"> CHAPTER LIII &mdash; The Chamois Ashore </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0054"> CHAPTER LIV &mdash; A Gentleman From The Sun </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0055"> CHAPTER LV &mdash; Tiffin In A Temple </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0056"> CHAPTER LVI &mdash; King Media A Host </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0057"> CHAPTER LVII &mdash; Taji Takes Counsel With
+      Himself </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0058"> CHAPTER LVIII &mdash; Mardi By Night And Yillah
+      By Day </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0059"> CHAPTER LIX &mdash; Their Morning Meal </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0060"> CHAPTER LX &mdash; Belshazzar On The Bench </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0061"> CHAPTER LXI &mdash; An Incognito </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0062"> CHAPTER LXII &mdash; Taji Retires From The World
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0063"> CHAPTER LXIII &mdash; Odo And Its Lord </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0064"> CHAPTER LXIV &mdash; Yillah A Phantom </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0065"> CHAPTER LXV &mdash; Taji Makes Three
+      Acquaintances </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0066"> CHAPTER LXVI &mdash; With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise
+      They Sail </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0067"> CHAPTER LXVII &mdash; Little King Peepi </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0068"> CHAPTER LXVIII &mdash; How Teeth Were Regarded In
+      Valapee </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0069"> CHAPTER LXIX &mdash; The Company Discourse, And
+      Braid-Beard Rehearses A Legend </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0070"> CHAPTER LXX &mdash; The Minstrel Leads Off With A
+      Paddle-Song; And A Message Is Received </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0071"> CHAPTER LXXI &mdash; They Land Upon The Island Of
+      Juam </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0072"> CHAPTER LXXII &mdash; A Book From The Chronicles
+      Of Mohi </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0073"> CHAPTER LXXIII &mdash; Something More Of The
+      Prince </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0074"> CHAPTER LXXIV &mdash; Advancing Deeper Into The
+      Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0075"> CHAPTER LXXV &mdash; Time And Temples </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0076"> CHAPTER LXXVI &mdash; A Pleasant Place For A
+      Lounge </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0077"> CHAPTER LXXVII &mdash; The House Of The Afternoon
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0078"> CHAPTER LXXVIII &mdash; Babbalanja Solus </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0079"> CHAPTER LXXIX &mdash; The Center Of Many
+      Circumferences </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0080"> CHAPTER LXXX &mdash; Donjalolo In The Bosom Of
+      His Family </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0081"> CHAPTER LXXXI &mdash; Wherein Babbalanja Relates
+      The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The Land </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0082"> CHAPTER LXXXII &mdash; How Donjalolo, Sent Agents
+      To The Surrounding Isles; With The Result </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0083"> CHAPTER LXXXIII &mdash; They Visit The Tributary
+      Islets </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0084"> CHAPTER LXXXIV &mdash; Taji Sits Down To Dinner
+      With Five-And-Twenty Kings, And A Royal Time </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0085"> CHAPTER LXXXV &mdash; After Dinner </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0086"> CHAPTER LXXXVI &mdash; Of Those Scamps The Plujii
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0087"> CHAPTER LXXXVII &mdash; Nora-Bamma </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0088"> CHAPTER LXXXVIII &mdash; In A Calm, Hautia's
+      Heralds Approach </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0089"> CHAPTER LXXXIX &mdash; Braid-Beard Rehearses The
+      Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0090"> CHAPTER XC &mdash; Rare Sport At Ohonoo </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0091"> CHAPTER XCI &mdash; Of King Uhia And His Subjects
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0092"> CHAPTER XCII &mdash; The God Keevi And The
+      Precipice Op Mondo </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0093"> CHAPTER XCIII &mdash; Babbalanja Steps In Between
+      Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy Relates A </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0094"> CHAPTER XCIV &mdash; Of That Jolly Old Lord,
+      Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of His, </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0095"> CHAPTER XCV &mdash; That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla
+      Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0096"> CHAPTER XCVI &mdash; Samoa A Surgeon </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0097"> CHAPTER XCVII &mdash; Faith And Knowledge </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0098"> CHAPTER XCVIII &mdash; The Tale Of A Traveler
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0099"> CHAPTER XCIX &mdash; "Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee"
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0100"> CHAPTER C &mdash; The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0101"> CHAPTER CI &mdash; The Iris </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0102"> CHAPTER CII &mdash; They Depart From Mondoldo
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0103"> CHAPTER CIII &mdash; As They Sail </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0104"> CHAPTER CIV &mdash; Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A
+      Diabolical Theory, And, In His Own </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the Pacific,
+      which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought
+      occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian adventure, and
+      publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction might not, possibly, be
+      received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of my previous
+      experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in Mardi. New
+      York, January, 1849.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MARDI
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I &mdash; Foot In Stirrup
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings
+      from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that
+      follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out spreads the canvas&mdash;alow,
+      aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun' sail; till like a
+      hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and reelingly
+      cleave the brine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from the
+      tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn's island, where
+      the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped ashore some
+      few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for the whale, whose
+      brain enlightens the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the
+      Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there
+      met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish
+      bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm whale, at
+      certain seasons abounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the sea-gull,
+      straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of the trade winds,
+      ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai are fain to take
+      something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so. First, in pursuit of
+      the variable winds, they make all haste to the south; and there, at length
+      picking up a stray breeze, they stand for the main: then, making their
+      easting, up helm, and away down the coast, toward the Line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a weary
+      one it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous; thank fate,
+      never since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But bravo! in two weeks' time, an event. Out of the gray of the morning,
+      and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of the sea;
+      standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft, and creamy
+      breakers frothing round its base.&mdash;We turned aside, and, at length,
+      when day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass, we spied two or three
+      hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a
+      signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. Well knowing, however, that
+      there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway
+      convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to comply with their
+      invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred in not sending a boat
+      off with his card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days more and we "took the trades." Like favors snappishly
+      conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp squall;
+      the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat old cook
+      off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few leagues
+      west of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing across the Line,
+      to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey. For some of their hunters
+      believe, that whales, like the silver ore in Peru, run in veins through
+      the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and week after week, weekly, we
+      traversed the self-same longitudinal intersection of the self-same Line;
+      till we were almost ready to swear that we felt the ship strike every time
+      her keel crossed that imaginary locality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way straight
+      along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right, and peering
+      left, but seeing naught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of
+      that bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to
+      the adventures herein recounted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. The
+      sailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped at
+      the islands included. Nevertheless, they were not precisely to my mind.
+      There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle sympathies;
+      save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then overtaken; or
+      in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and livelier auspices the
+      tarry knaves might have developed qualities more attractive. Had we sprung
+      a leak, been "stove" by a whale, or been blessed with some despot of a
+      captain against whom to stir up some spirited revolt, these shipmates of
+      mine might have proved limber lads, and men of mettle. But as it was,
+      there was naught to strike fire from their steel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board very
+      hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood upon no
+      quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do him
+      justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular; was
+      sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand at the helm. But what
+      of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy? Not a bit. His library was
+      eight inches by four: Bowditch, and Hamilton Moore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation
+      from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of
+      long-drawn yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan sung by
+      our full forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly dull.
+      Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have borne; but in
+      every other respect. The days went slowly round and round, endless and
+      uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time- pieces; How many centuries
+      did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the ship's dull roll,
+      and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred forever be the Arcturion's
+      fore-hatch&mdash;alas! sea-moss is over it now&mdash;and rusty forever the
+      bolts that held together that old sea hearth-stone, about which we so
+      often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost and leaden hours, I will rail at ye
+      while life lasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel's stories were
+      told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed into each
+      other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad's songs were sung till the
+      echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the sails. My
+      poor patience was clean gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line in
+      high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of
+sun-strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far worse.
+      We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory concerning
+      the damned and the comets;&mdash;hurried from equinoctial heats to arctic
+      frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our skipper
+      had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he was bent
+      upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor'-West Coast and in the Bay of
+      Kamschatska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this
+      juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say: that
+      Right whaling on the Nor'-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the sullen
+      inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs on the
+      Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks to the
+      knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to a
+      spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern and more genial
+      seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank Greenland icebergs to
+      zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively quarry bounds before you
+      through leafy glades.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to
+      measure the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit
+      contravention of the agreement between us. That agreement needs not to be
+      detailed. And having shipped but for a single cruise, I had embarked
+      aboard his craft as one might put foot in stirrup for a day's following of
+      the hounds. And here, Heaven help me, he was going to carry me off to the
+      Pole! And on such a vile errand too! For there was something degrading in
+      it. Your true whaleman glories in keeping his harpoon unspotted by blood
+      of aught but Cachalot. By my halidome, it touched the knighthood of a tar.
+      Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain," said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the wheel one
+      day, "It's very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory. I shipped to
+      go elsewhere."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, and so did I," was his reply. "But it can't be helped. Sperm whales
+      are not to be had. We've been out now three years, and something or other
+      must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and her hold a gulf to look
+      into. But cheer up my boy; once in the Bay of Kamschatka, and we'll be all
+      afloat with what we want, though it be none of the best."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Worse and worse! The oleaginous prospect extended into an immensity of
+      Macassar. "Sir," said I, "I did not ship for it; put me ashore somewhere,
+      I beseech." He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a moment I
+      thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain, to the
+      prejudice of the more kindly nature of the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not so. Taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand on the
+      wheel, and said, "Right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must. Putting you
+      ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till this ship is full
+      to the combings of her hatchways. However, you may leave her if you can."
+      And so saying he entered his cabin, like Julius Caesar into his tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear like
+      a bravado. It savored of the turnkey's compliments to the prisoner in
+      Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Leave the ship if I can!" Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore was
+      in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For on
+      board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows, whom two
+      years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open boat, far from
+      the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a long yarn about being the only
+      survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to the water's edge. But who credited
+      their tale? Like many others, they were keepers of a secret: had doubtless
+      contracted a disgust for some ugly craft still afloat and hearty, and
+      stolen away from her, off soundings. Among seamen in the Pacific such
+      adventures not seldom occur. Nor are they accounted great wonders. They
+      are but incidents, not events, in the career of the brethren of the order
+      of South Sea rovers. For what matters it, though hundreds of miles from
+      land, if a good whale-boat be under foot, the Trades behind, and mild,
+      warm seas before? And herein lies the difference between the Atlantic and
+      Pacific:&mdash;that once within the Tropics, the bold sailor who has a
+      mind to quit his ship round Cape Horn, waits not for port. He regards that
+      ocean as one mighty harbor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I &mdash;
+      resolved to weigh well the chances. It's worth noticing, this way we all
+      have of pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold
+      a bagatelle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or wrong
+      of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to split no hairs on this
+      point, let me say, that were I placed in the same situation again, I would
+      repeat the thing I did then. The captain well knew that he was going to
+      detain me unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was he himself who
+      threw out the very hint, which I merely adopted, with many thanks to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my
+      allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day,
+      serene and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and away, away,
+      illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were was perhaps the
+      most unfrequented and least known portion of these seas. Westward,
+      however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid down upon the
+      charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land. But soon these
+      regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged for cold,
+      fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship,
+      silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon high
+      piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and minarets; as
+      if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast Alhambra. Vistas
+      seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all over the towers of
+      this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds. Watching them long, one
+      crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and was lost to view. My spirit
+      must have sailed in with it; for directly, as in a trance, came upon me
+      the cadence of mild billows laving a beach of shells, the waving of
+      boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the lulled beatings of my own
+      dissolved heart, all blended together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up
+      aloft. But coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so, that
+      thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a
+      frenzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II &mdash; A Calm
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of
+      the ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in me
+      my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this phenomenon of
+      the sea. Those impressions may merit a page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his abdomen,
+      but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal
+      fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of
+      existence where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself in his
+      coat, to see whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to test the
+      reality of the glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by way of
+      experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. If a reader of
+      books, Priestley on Necessity occurs to him; and he believes in that old
+      Sir Anthony Absolute to the very last chapter. His faith in Malte Brun,
+      however, begins to fail; for the geography, which from boyhood he had
+      implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating all
+      over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. That over against
+      America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm, and he grows madly
+      skeptical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what
+      they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the
+      earth's surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar; for
+      no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be lighted
+      upon in the watery waste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain's competency to
+      navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into
+      the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull,
+      introductory to a positive vacuity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning his
+      soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and
+      portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the
+      esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like
+      a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows
+      of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud,
+      lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But more than all else is the consciousness of his utter helplessness.
+      Succor or sympathy there is none. Penitence for embarking avails not. The
+      final satisfaction of despairing may not be his with a relish. Vain the
+      idea of idling out the calm. He may sleep if he can, or purposely delude
+      himself into a crazy fancy, that he is merely at leisure. All this he may
+      compass; but he may not lounge; for to lounge is to be idle; to be idle
+      implies an absence of any thing to do; whereas there is a calm to be
+      endured: enough to attend to, Heaven knows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes a
+      fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. Even his
+      undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of volition,
+      become as naught. For of what use? He wills to go: to get away from the
+      calm: as ashore he would avoid the plague. But he can not; and how foolish
+      to revolve expedients. It is more hopeless than a bad marriage in a land
+      where there is no Doctors' Commons. He has taken the ship to wife, for
+      better or for worse, for calm or for gale; and she is not to be shuffled
+      off. With yards akimbo, she says unto him scornfully, as the old beldam
+      said to the little dwarf:&mdash;"Help yourself"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And all this, and more than this, is a calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III &mdash; A King For A Comrade
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than sixty
+      degrees to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a desirable
+      longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic destination: around
+      us one wide sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and south
+      an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but little known;
+      and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go almost every where.
+      Beginning at the southerly termination of this great chain, it comprises
+      the islands loosely known as Ellice's group; then, the Kingsmill isles;
+      then, the Radack and Mulgrave clusters. These islands had been represented
+      to me as mostly of coral formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a
+      variety of fruits. The language of the people was said to be very similar
+      to that or the Navigator's islands, from which, their ancestors are
+      supposed to have emigrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of the
+      islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all; and that
+      our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a reliable
+      Trade-wind. The distance, though great, was merely an extension of water;
+      so much blankness to be sailed over; and in a craft, too, that properly
+      managed has been known to outlive great ships in a gale. For this much is
+      true of a whale-boat, the cunningest thing in its way ever fabricated by
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon one of the Kingsmill islands, then, I determined to plant my foot,
+      come what come would. And I was equally determined that one of the ship's
+      boats should float me thither. But I had no idea of being without a
+      companion. It would be a weary watch to keep all by myself, with naught
+      but the horizon in sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one could
+      tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and defective.
+      "Man and boy," said honest Jarl, "I have lived ever since I can remember."
+      And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To ourselves, we all seem
+      coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it is so hard to die, ere the
+      world itself is departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jarl hailed from the isle of Skye, one of the constellated Hebrides.
+      Hence, they often called him the Skyeman. And though he was far from being
+      piratical of soul, he was yet an old Norseman to behold. His hands were
+      brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm roaring round
+      the old peak of Mull; and his long yellow hair waved round his head like a
+      sunset. My life for it, Jarl, thy ancestors were Vikings, who many a time
+      sailed over the salt German sea and the Baltic; who wedded their
+      Brynhildas in Jutland; and are now quaffing mead in the halls of Valhalla,
+      and beating time with their cans to the hymns of the Scalds. Ah! how the
+      old Sagas run through me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet Jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless
+      mariner on the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he led.
+      But so it has been, and forever will be. What yeoman shall swear that he
+      is not descended from Alfred? what dunce, that he is not sprung of old
+      Homer? King Noah, God bless him! fathered us all. Then hold up your heads,
+      oh ye Helots, blood potential flows through your veins. All of us have
+      monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels for cousins;
+      since in antediluvian days, the sons of God did verily wed with our
+      mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve. Thus all generations are
+      blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the hierarchies of seraphs in
+      the uttermost skies; the thrones and principalities in the zodiac; the
+      shades that roam throughout space; the nations and families, flocks and
+      folds of the earth; one and all, brothers in essence&mdash;oh, be we then
+      brothers indeed! All things form but one whole; the universe a Judea, and
+      God Jehovah its head. Then no more let us start with affright. In a
+      theocracy, what is to fear? Let us compose ourselves to death as fagged
+      horsemen sleep in the saddle. Let us welcome even ghosts when they rise.
+      Away with our stares and grimaces. The New Zealander's tattooing is not a
+      prodigy; nor the Chinaman's ways an enigma. No custom is strange; no creed
+      is absurd; no foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. In heaven, at
+      last, our good, old, white-haired father Adam will greet all alike, and
+      sociality forever prevail. Christian shall join hands between Gentile and
+      Jew; grim Dante forget his Infernos, and shake sides with fat Rabelais;
+      and monk Luther, over a flagon of old nectar, talk over old times with
+      Pope Leo. Then, shall we sit by the sages, who of yore gave laws to the
+      Medes and Persians in the sun; by the cavalry captains in Perseus, who
+      cried, "To horse!" when waked by their Last Trump sounding to the charge;
+      by the old hunters, who eternities ago, hunted the moose in Orion; by the
+      minstrels, who sang in the Milky Way when Jesus our Saviour was born. Then
+      shall we list to no shallow gossip of Magellans and Drakes; but give ear
+      to the voyagers who have circumnavigated the Ecliptic; who rounded the
+      Polar Star as Cape Horn. Then shall the Stagirite and Kant be forgotten,
+      and another folio than theirs be turned over for wisdom; even the folio
+      now spread with horoscopes as yet undeciphered, the heaven of heavens on
+      high.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in old Jarl's lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal tar is
+      too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with seamen of all
+      tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo-Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and Danes, wear away
+      in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink your clan; down goes
+      your nation; you speak a world's language, jovially jabbering in the
+      Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True to his calling, the Skyeman was very illiterate; witless of
+      Salamanca, Heidelberg, or Brazen-Nose; in Delhi, had never turned over the
+      books of the Brahmins. For geography, in which sailors should be adepts,
+      since they are forever turning over and over the great globe of globes,
+      poor Jarl was deplorably lacking. According to his view of the matter,
+      this terraqueous world had been formed in the manner of a tart; the land
+      being a mere marginal crust, within which rolled the watery world proper.
+      Such seemed my good Viking's theory of cosmography. As for other worlds,
+      he weened not of them; yet full as much as Chrysostom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the secret
+      operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings of
+      Spinoza's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and but
+      seldom will speak for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for he
+      loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive a
+      very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an attachment
+      so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless originating in that
+      heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as they grow aged; impelling
+      them to fasten upon some chance object of regard. But however it was, my
+      Viking, thy unbidden affection was the noblest homage ever paid me. And
+      frankly, I am more inclined to think well of myself, as in some way
+      deserving thy devotion, than from the rounded compliments of more
+      cultivated minds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they are.
+      No school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of one man
+      with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You wear your
+      character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain all endeavors to
+      assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you possess. Incognitos,
+      however desirable, are out of the question. And thus aboard of all ships
+      in which I have sailed, I have invariably been known by a sort of
+      thawing-room title. Not,&mdash;let me hurry to say,&mdash;that I put hand
+      in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a
+      Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better than my vocation; and
+      mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a hand, as the
+      tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine upbraid me with a
+      genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of
+      main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that ever howled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly
+      was. It was because of something in me that could not be hidden; stealing
+      out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise incomprehensible
+      deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions to Belles-Lettres
+      affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Arcturion's crew,
+      that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a "nob." But Jarl
+      seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one of the House of
+      Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles Edward the Pretender,
+      who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a vagrant. At any rate, his
+      loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my laundress and tailor; a most
+      expert one, too; and when at meal-times my turn came round to look out at
+      the mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered for me among the "kids"
+      in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity. Many's the good lump of "duff"
+      for which I was indebted to my good Viking's good care of me. And like
+      Sesostris I &mdash; was served by a monarch. Yet in some degree the
+      obligation was mutual. For be it known that, in sea-parlance, we were <i>chummies.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this <i>chummying</i> among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting
+      between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a
+      Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership of
+      chests and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual
+      championship of the absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses remind me
+      of sundry lazy, ne'er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable chummies;
+      chummies, who at meal times were last at the "kids," when their
+      unfortunate partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who affected
+      awkwardness at the needle, and conscientious scruples about dabbling in
+      the suds; so that chummy the simple was made to do all the work of the
+      firm, while chummy the cunning played the sleeping partner in his hammock.
+      Out upon such chummies!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning. Never
+      mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan charity
+      bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the frightful gashes
+      that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which thou calledst "ducks;"&mdash;Didst
+      thou not expressly declare, that all these things, and more, thou wouldst
+      do for me, despite my own quaint thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of
+      a whale? Nay; could I even wrest from thy willful hands my very shirt,
+      when once thou hadst it steaming in an unsavory pickle in thy capacious
+      vat, a decapitated cask? Full well thou knowest, Jarl, that these things
+      are true; and I &mdash; am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking desire
+      to reap advantage from thy great good nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and my
+      Viking alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV &mdash; A Chat In The Clouds
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Skyeman seemed so earnest and upright a seaman, that to tell the plain
+      truth, in spite of his love for me, I had many misgivings as to his
+      readiness to unite in an undertaking which apparently savored of a moral
+      dereliction. But all things considered, I deemed my own resolution quite
+      venial; and as for inducing another to join me, it seemed a precaution so
+      indispensable, as to outweigh all other considerations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore I resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special
+      purpose paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air, he
+      happened to be perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on the
+      lookout for whales never seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a time,
+      swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the Channel in a
+      balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have a fellow feeling
+      for the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up there, smoking our
+      dwarfish "dudeens," any sea-gull passing by might have taken us for
+      Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing their after-dinner
+      Bagdads, bound to Calais, via Heaven, from Dover. Honest Jarl, I
+      acquainted with all: my conversation with the captain, the hint implied in
+      his last words, my firm resolve to quit the ship in one of her boats, and
+      the facility with which I thought the thing could be done. Then I threw
+      out many inducements, in the shape of pleasant anticipations of bearing
+      right down before the wind upon the sunny isles under our lee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He listened attentively; but so long remained silent that I almost fancied
+      there was something in Jarl which would prove too much for me and my
+      eloquence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he had
+      never known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case the
+      runaways had never afterwards been heard of. He entreated me to renounce
+      my determination, not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to the ship, and
+      go home in her like a man. Verily, my Viking talked to me like my uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to all this I turned a deaf ear; affirming that my mind was made up;
+      and that as he refused to accompany me, and I fancied no one else for a
+      comrade, I would go stark alone rather than not at all. Upon this, seeing
+      my resolution immovable, he bluntly swore that he would follow me through
+      thick and thin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks, Jarl! thou wert one of those devoted fellows who will wrestle hard
+      to convince one loved of error; but failing, forthwith change their
+      wrestling to a sympathetic hug.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now his elderly prudence came into play. Casting his eye over the
+      boundless expanse below, he inquired how far off were the islands in
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A thousand miles and no less."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With a fair trade breeze, then, and a boat sail, that is a good twelve
+      days' passage, but calms and currents may make it a month, perhaps more."
+      So saying, he shook his old head, and his yellow hair streamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But trying my best to chase away these misgivings, he at last gave them
+      over. He assured me I might count upon him to his uttermost keel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Viking secured, I felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered how
+      the enterprise might best be accomplished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no time to be lost. Every hour was carrying us farther and
+      farther from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our route to
+      the westward. So, with all possible dispatch, I &mdash; matured my plans,
+      and communicated them to Jarl, who gave several old hints&mdash;having
+      ulterior probabilities in view&mdash;which were not neglected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strange to relate, it was not till my Viking, with a rueful face, reminded
+      me of the fact, that I bethought me of a circumstance somewhat alarming at
+      the first blush. We must push off without chart or quadrant; though, as
+      will shortly be seen, a compass was by no means out of the question. The
+      chart, to be sure, I did not so much lay to heart; but a quadrant was more
+      than desirable. Still, it was by no means indispensable. For this reason.
+      When we started, our latitude would be exactly known; and whether, on our
+      voyage westward, we drifted north or south therefrom, we could not, by any
+      possibility, get so far out of our reckoning, as to fail in striking some
+      one of a long chain of islands, which, for many degrees, on both sides of
+      the equator, stretched right across our track.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage we
+      daily knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the place
+      we desired to reach. So what could be plainer than this: that if westward
+      we patiently held on our way, we must eventually achieve our destination?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they intimidated us
+      not. In a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an indifferent
+      look-out would preclude all danger on that score. At all events, the thing
+      seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old Jarl's superstitious reverence
+      for nautical instruments, and the philosophical objections which might
+      have been urged by a pedantic disciple of Mercator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most
+      startling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no
+      alarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun&mdash;"Be thou, old pilot,
+      our guide!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V &mdash; Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      But thoughts of sextants and quadrants were the least of our cares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Right from under the very arches of the eyebrows of thirty men&mdash;
+      captain, mates, and crew&mdash;a boat was to be abstracted; they knowing
+      nothing of the event, until all knowledge would prove unavailing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hark ye:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At sea, the boats of a South Sea-man (generally four in number, spare ones
+      omitted,) are suspended by tackles, hooked above, to curved timbers called
+      "davits," vertically fixed to the ship's sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, no fair one with golden locks is more assiduously waited upon, or
+      more delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale- boat by
+      her crew. And out of its element, it seems fragile enough to justify the
+      utmost solicitude. For truly, like a fine lady, the fine whale-boat is
+      most delicate when idle, though little coy at a pinch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides the "davits," the following supports are provided Two small cranes
+      are swung under the keel, on which the latter rests, preventing the
+      settling of the boat's middle, while hanging suspended by the bow and
+      stern. A broad, braided, hempen band, usually worked in a tasteful
+      pattern, is also passed round both gunwales; and secured to the ship's
+      bulwarks, firmly lashes the craft to its place. Being elevated above the
+      ship's rail, the boats are in plain sight from all parts of the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, one of these boats was to be made way with. No facile matter, truly.
+      Harder than for any dashing young Janizary to run off with a sultana from
+      the Grand Turk's seraglio. Still, the thing could be done, for, by Jove,
+      it had been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What say you to slyly loosing every thing by day; and when night comes,
+      cast off the band and swing in the cranes? But how lower the tackles, even
+      in the darkest night, without a creaking more fearful than the death
+      rattle? Easily avoided. Anoint the ropes, and they will travel deftly
+      through the subtle windings of the blocks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though I had heard of this plan being pursued, there was a degree of
+      risk in it, after all, which I was far from fancying. Another plan was hit
+      upon; still bolder; and hence more safe. What it was, in the right place
+      will be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In selecting my craft for this good voyage, I would fain have traversed
+      the deck, and eyed the boats like a cornet choosing his steed from out a
+      goodly stud. But this was denied me. And the "bow boat" was, perforce,
+      singled out, as the most remote from the quarter-deck, that region of
+      sharp eyes and relentless purposes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, our larder was to be thought of; also, an abundant supply of water;
+      concerning which last I determined to take good heed. There were but two
+      to be taken care of; but I resolved to lay in sufficient store of both
+      meat and drink for four; at the same time that the supplemental twain thus
+      provided for were but imaginary. And if it came to the last dead pinch, of
+      which we had no fear, however, I was food for no man but Jarl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little time was lost in catering for our mess. Biscuit and salt beef were
+      our sole resource; and, thanks to the generosity of the Arcturion's
+      owners, our ship's company had a plentiful supply. Casks of both, with
+      heads knocked out, were at the service of all. In bags which we made for
+      the purpose, a sufficiency of the biscuit was readily stored away, and
+      secreted in a corner of easy access. The salt beef was more difficult to
+      obtain; but, little by little, we managed to smuggle out of the cask
+      enough to answer our purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for water, most luckily a day or two previous several "breakers" of it
+      had been hoisted from below for the present use of the ship's company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These "breakers" are casks, long and slender, but very strong. Of various
+      diameters, they are made on purpose to stow into spaces intervening
+      between the immense butts in a ship's hold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The largest we could find was selected, first carefully examining it to
+      detect any leak. On some pretense or other, we then rolled them all over
+      to that side of the vessel where our boat was suspended, the selected
+      breaker being placed in their middle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our compendious wardrobes were snugly packed into bundles and laid aside
+      for the present. And at last, by due caution, we had every thing arranged
+      preliminary to the final start. Let me say, though, perhaps to the credit
+      of Jarl, that whenever the most strategy was necessary, he seemed ill at
+      ease, and for the most part left the matter to me. It was well that he
+      did; for as it was, by his untimely straight-forwardness, he once or twice
+      came near spoiling every thing. Indeed, on one occasion he was so
+      unseasonably blunt, that curiously enough, I had almost suspected him of
+      taking that odd sort of interest in one's welfare, which leads a
+      philanthropist, all other methods failing, to frustrate a project deemed
+      bad; by pretending clumsily to favor it. But no inuendoes; Jarl was a
+      Viking, frank as his fathers; though not so much of a bucanier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI &mdash; Eight Bells
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The moon must be monstrous coy, or some things fall out opportunely, or
+      else almanacs are consulted by nocturnal adventurers; but so it is, that
+      when Cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds are done.
+      Though true it may be, that of moonlight nights, jewelers' caskets and
+      maidens' hearts have been burglariously broken into&mdash;and rifled, for
+      aught Copernicus can tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentle planet was in her final quarter, and upon her slender horn I
+      hung my hopes of withdrawing from the ship undetected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, making a tranquil passage across the ocean, we kept at this time what
+      are called among whalemen "boatscrew-watches." That is, instead of the
+      sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck every
+      four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat's crew, the
+      "headsman" (always one of the mates) excepted. To the officers, this plan
+      gives uninterrupted repose&mdash;"all-night-in," as they call it, and of
+      course greatly lightens the duties of the crew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The harpooneers head the boats' crews, and are responsible for the ship
+      during the continuance of their watches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, my Viking being a stalwart seaman, pulled the midship oar of the boat
+      of which I was bowsman. Hence, we were in the same watch; to which, also,
+      three others belonged, including Mark, the harpooner. One of these seamen,
+      however, being an invalid, there were only two left for us to manage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Voyaging in these seas, you may glide along for weeks without starting
+      tack or sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and constant are
+      the Trades. At night, the watch seldom trouble themselves with keeping
+      much of a look-out; especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy in
+      these lonely waters. In some ships, for weeks in and weeks out, you are
+      puzzled to tell when your nightly turn on deck really comes round; so
+      little heed is given to the standing of watches, where in the license of
+      presumed safety, nearly every one nods without fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But remiss as you may be in the boats-crew-watch of a heedless whaleman,
+      the man who heads it is bound to maintain his post on the quarter-deck
+      until regularly relieved. Yet drowsiness being incidental to all natures,
+      even to Napoleon, beside his own sentry napping in the snowy bivouac; so,
+      often, in snowy moonlight, or ebon eclipse, dozed Mark, our harpooneer.
+      Lethe be his portion this blessed night, thought I, as during the morning
+      which preceded our enterprise, I eyed the man who might possibly cross my
+      plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me come closer to this part of my story. During what are called at
+      sea the "dog-watches" (between four o'clock and eight in the evening),
+      sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits even flow far into
+      the first of the long "night-watches;" but upon its expiration at "eight
+      bells" (midnight), silence begins to reign; if you hear a voice it is no
+      cherub's: all exclamations are oaths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eight bells, the mariners on deck, now relieved from their cares, crawl
+      out from their sleepy retreats in old monkey jackets, or coils of rigging,
+      and hie to their hammocks, almost without interrupting their dreams: while
+      the sluggards below lazily drag themselves up the ladder to resume their
+      slumbers in the open air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For these reasons then, the moonless sea midnight was just the time to
+      escape. Hence, we suffered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting for the
+      night, when the star board-quarter-boats'-watch, to which we belonged,
+      would be summoned on deck at the eventful eight of the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But twenty-four hours soon glide away; and "Starboleens ahoy; eight bells
+      there below;" at last started me from a troubled doze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sprang from my hammock, and would have lighted my pipe. But the
+      forecastle lamp had gone out. An old sea-dog was talking about sharks in
+      his sleep. Jarl and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way into
+      their trowsers. And little was heard but the humming of the still sails
+      aloft; the dash of the waves against the bow; and the deep breathing of
+      the dreaming sailors around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII &mdash; A Pause
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Good old Arcturion! Maternal craft; that rocked me so often in thy heart
+      of oak, I grieve to tell how I deserted thee on the broad deep. So far
+      from home, with such a motley crew, so many islanders, whose heathen
+      babble echoing through thy Christian hull, must have grated harshly on
+      every carline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old ship! where sails thy lone ghost now? For of the stout Arcturion no
+      word was ever heard, from the dark hour we pushed from her fated planks.
+      In what time of tempest, to what seagull's scream, the drowning eddies did
+      their work, knows no mortal man. Sunk she silently, helplessly, into the
+      calm depths of that summer sea, assassinated by the ruthless blade of the
+      swordfish? Such things have been. Or was hers a better fate? Stricken down
+      while gallantly battling with the blast; her storm-sails set; helm manned;
+      and every sailor at his post; as sunk the Hornet, her men at quarters, in
+      some distant gale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But surmises are idle. A very old craft, she may have foundered; or laid
+      her bones upon some treacherous reef; but as with many a far rover, her
+      fate is a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pray Heaven, the spirit of that lost vessel roaming abroad through the
+      troubled mists of midnight gales&mdash;as old mariners believe of missing
+      ships&mdash;may never haunt my future path upon the waves. Peacefully may
+      she rest at the bottom of the sea; and sweetly sleep my shipmates in the
+      lowest watery zone, where prowling sharks come not, nor billows roll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By quitting the Arcturion when we did, Jarl and I unconsciously eluded a
+      sailor's grave. We hear of providential deliverances. Was this one? But
+      life is sweet to all, death comes as hard. And for myself I am almost
+      tempted to hang my head, that I escaped the fate of my shipmates;
+      something like him who blushed to have escaped the fell carnage at
+      Thermopylae.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though I can not repress a shudder when I think of that old ship's end, it
+      is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our deserting her could
+      have been in any way instrumental in her loss. Nevertheless, I would to
+      heaven the Arcturion still floated; that it was given me once more to
+      tread her familiar decks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII &mdash; They Push Off, Velis Et Remis
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      And now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand miles
+      from land, we embarked upon this western voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the helm
+      now coming on was of course to be avoided. On some plausible pretense, I
+      induced our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving myself
+      untrammeled, and at the same time satisfactorily disposing of him. For
+      being a rather fat fellow, an enormous consumer of "duff," and with good
+      reason supposed to be the son of a farmer, I made no doubt, he would
+      pursue his old course and fall to nodding over the wheel. As for the
+      leader of the watch&mdash;our harpooner&mdash;he fell heir to the nest of
+      old jackets, under the lee of the mizzen-mast, left nice and warm by his
+      predecessor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no trace of
+      a moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at night near the
+      Line, half shrouded the stars from view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch had
+      gone below, I motioned to Jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our feet. He
+      then descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft toward the
+      quarter-deck. All was still. Thrice did I pass my hand full before the
+      face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right between him and the
+      light of the binnacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. I feared to approach him.
+      He lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more delay. Risks must be
+      run, when time presses. And our ears were a pointer's to catch a sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To work we went, without hurry, but swiftly and silently. Our various
+      stores were dragged from their lurking-places, and placed in the boat,
+      which hung from the ship's lee side, the side depressed in the water, an
+      indispensable requisite to an attempt at escape. And though at sundown the
+      boat was to windward, yet, as we had foreseen, the vessel having been
+      tacked during the first watch, brought it to leeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Endeavoring to manhandle our clumsy breaker, and lift it into the boat, we
+      found, that by reason of the intervention of the shrouds, it could not be
+      done without, risking a jar; besides straining the craft in lowering. An
+      expedient, however, though at the eleventh hour, was hit upon. Fastening a
+      long rope to the breaker, which was perfectly tight, we cautiously dropped
+      it overboard; paying out enough line, to insure its towing astern of the
+      ship, so as not to strike against the copper. The other end of the line we
+      then secured to the boat's stern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately, this was the last thing to be done; for the breaker, acting
+      as a clog to the vessel's way in the water, so affected her steering as to
+      fling her perceptibly into the wind. And by causing the helm to work, this
+      must soon rouse the lubber there stationed, if not already awake. But our
+      dropping overboard the breaker greatly aided us in this respect: it
+      diminished the ship's headway; which owing to the light breeze had not
+      been very great at any time during the night. Had it been so, all hope of
+      escaping without first arresting the vessel's progress, would have been
+      little short of madness. As it was, the sole daring of the deed that night
+      achieved, consisted in our lowering away while the ship yet clove the
+      brine, though but moderately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All was now ready: the cranes swung in, the lashings adrift, and the boat
+      fairly suspended; when, seizing the ends of the tackle ropes, we silently
+      stepped into it, one at each end. The dead weight of the breaker astern
+      now dragged the craft horizontally through the air, so that her tackle
+      ropes strained hard. She quivered like a dolphin. Nevertheless, had we not
+      feared her loud splash upon striking the wave, we might have quitted the
+      ship almost as silently as the breath the body. But this was out of the
+      question, and our plans were laid accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All ready, Jarl?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ready."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A man overboard!" I shouted at the top of my compass; and like lightning
+      the cords slid through our blistering hands, and with a tremendous shock
+      the boat bounded on the sea's back. One mad sheer and plunge, one terrible
+      strain on the tackles as we sunk in the trough of the waves, tugged upon
+      by the towing breaker, and our knives severed the tackle ropes&mdash;we
+      hazarded not unhooking the blocks&mdash;our oars were out, and the good
+      boat headed round, with prow to leeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Man overboard!" was now shouted from stem to stern. And directly we heard
+      the confused tramping and shouting of the sailors, as they rushed from
+      their dreams into the almost inscrutable darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Man overboard! Man overboard!" My heart smote me as the human cry of
+      horror came out of the black vaulted night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Down helm!" was soon heard from the chief mate. "Back the main-yard!
+      Quick to the boats! How's this? One down already? Well done! Hold on,
+      then, those other boats!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile several seamen were shouting as they strained at the braces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Cut! cut all! Lower away! lower away!" impatiently cried the sailors, who
+      already had leaped into the boats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Heave the ship to, and hold fast every thing," cried the captain,
+      apparently just springing to the deck. "One boat's enough. Steward; show a
+      light there from the mizzen-top. Boat ahoy!&mdash;Have you got that man?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No reply. The voice came out of a cloud; the ship dimly showing like a
+      ghost. We had desisted from rowing, and hand over hand were now hauling in
+      upon the rope attached to the breaker, which we soon lifted into the boat,
+      instantly resuming our oars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pull! pull, men! and save him!" again shouted the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ay, ay, sir," answered Jarl instinctively, "pulling as hard as ever we
+      can, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And pull we did, till nothing could be heard from the ship but a confused
+      tumult; and, ever and anon, the hoarse shout of the captain, too distant
+      to be understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We now set our sail to a light air; and right into the darkness, and dead
+      to leeward, we rowed and sailed till morning dawned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX &mdash; The Watery World Is All Before Them
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a speck to
+      windward broke the even line of the horizon. It was the ship wending her
+      way north-eastward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters as
+      that which the Arcturion's crew must have imputed to the night past (did
+      not the skipper suspect the truth) I would have regarded that little speck
+      with many compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it was, did I feel in any
+      very serene humor. For the consciousness of being deemed dead, is next to
+      the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality. One feels like his
+      own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass. Even Jarl's glance
+      seemed so queer, that I begged him to look another way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he most
+      probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of returning to
+      the ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution that had thus far
+      nerved me, began to succumb in a measure to the awful loneliness of the
+      scene. Ere this, I had regarded the ocean as a slave, the steed that bore
+      me whither I listed, and whose vicious propensities, mighty though they
+      were, often proved harmless, when opposed to the genius of man. But now,
+      how changed! In our frail boat, I would fain have built an altar to
+      Neptune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly shouldered us from
+      crest to crest, as from hand to hand lost souls may be tossed along by the
+      chain of shades which enfilade the route to Tartarus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But drown or swim, here's overboard with care! Cheer up, Jarl! Ha! Ha! how
+      merrily, yet terribly, we sail! Up, up&mdash;slowly up&mdash;toiling up
+      the long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on
+      a rail; and down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till
+      arrested, we glide upward again. And thus did we go. Now buried in watery
+      hollows&mdash;our sail idly flapping; then lifted aloft&mdash; canvas
+      bellying; and beholding the furthest horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had not our familiarity with the business of whaling divested our craft's
+      wild motions of its first novel horrors, we had been but a rueful pair.
+      But day-long pulls after whales, the ship left miles astern; and entire
+      dark nights passed moored to the monsters, killed too late to be towed to
+      the ship far to leeward:&mdash;all this, and much more, accustoms one to
+      strange things. Death, to be sure, has a mouth as black as a wolf's, and
+      to be thrust into his jaws is a serious thing. But true it most certainly
+      is&mdash;and I speak from no hearsay&mdash; that to sailors, as a class,
+      the grisly king seems not half so hideous as he appears to those who have
+      only regarded him on shore, and at a deferential distance. Like many ugly
+      mortals, his features grow less frightful upon acquaintance; and met over
+      often and sociably, the old adage holds true, about familiarity breeding
+      contempt. Thus too with soldiers. Of the quaking recruit, three pitched
+      battles make a grim grenadier; and he who shrank from the muzzle of a
+      cannon, is now ready to yield his mustache for a sponge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant souls will taunt
+      him while they may. Yet rather, should the wise regard him as the
+      inflexible friend, who, even against our own wills, from life's evils
+      triumphantly relieves us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there is but little difference in the manner of dying. To die, is all.
+      And death has been gallantly encountered by those who never beheld blood
+      that was red, only its light azure seen through the veins. And to yield
+      the ghost proudly, and march out of your fortress with all the honors of
+      war, is not a thing of sinew and bone. Though in prison, Geoffry Hudson,
+      the dwarf, died more bravely than Goliah, the giant; and the last end of a
+      butterfly shames us all. Some women have lived nobler lives, and died
+      nobler deaths, than men. Threatened with the stake, mitred Cranmer
+      recanted; but through her fortitude, the lorn widow of Edessa stayed the
+      tide of Valens' persecutions. 'Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand,
+      and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator
+      dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire,
+      mild-eyed, in one's bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X &mdash; They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make
+      Things
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Comfortable
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our little craft was soon in good order. From the spare rigging brought
+      along, we made shrouds to the mast, and converted the boat- hook into a
+      handy boom for the jib. Going large before the wind, we set this sail
+      wing-and-wing with the main-sail. The latter, in accordance with the
+      customary rig of whale-boats, was worked with a sprit and sheet. It could
+      be furled or set in an instant. The bags of bread we stowed away in the
+      covered space about the loggerhead, a useless appurtenance now, and
+      therefore removed. At night, Jarl used it for a pillow; saying, that when
+      the boat rolled it gave easy play to his head. The precious breaker we
+      lashed firmly amidships; thereby much improving our sailing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, previous to leaving the ship, we had seen to it well, that our craft
+      was supplied with all those equipments, with which, by the regulations of
+      the fishery, a whale-boat is constantly provided: night and day, afloat or
+      suspended. Hanging along our gunwales inside, were six harpoons, three
+      lances, and a blubber-spade; all keen as razors, and sheathed with
+      leather. Besides these, we had three waifs, a couple of two-gallon
+      water-kegs, several bailers, the boat-hatchet for cutting the whale-line,
+      two auxiliary knives for the like purpose, and several minor articles,
+      also employed in hunting the leviathan. The line and line-tub, however,
+      were on ship-board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here it may be mentioned, that to prevent the strain upon the boat
+      when suspended to the ship's side, the heavy whale-line, over two hundred
+      fathoms in length, and something more than an inch in diameter, when not
+      in use is kept on ship-board, coiled away like an endless snake in its
+      tub. But this tub is always in readiness to be launched into the boat.
+      Now, having no use for the line belonging to our craft, we had purposely
+      left it behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But well had we marked that by far the most important item of a
+      whale-boat's furniture was snugly secured in its place. This was the
+      water-tight keg, at both ends firmly headed, containing a small compass,
+      tinder-box and flint, candles, and a score or two of biscuit. This keg is
+      an invariable precaution against what so frequently occurs in pursuing the
+      sperm whale&mdash;prolonged absence from the ship, losing sight of her, or
+      never seeing her more, till years after you reach home again. In this same
+      keg of ours seemed coopered up life and death, at least so seemed it to
+      honest Jarl. No sooner had we got clear from the Arcturion, than dropping
+      his oar for an instant, he clutched at it in the dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when day at last came, we knocked out the head of the keg with the
+      little hammer and chisel, always attached to it for that purpose, and
+      removed the compass, that glistened to us like a human eye. Then filling
+      up the vacancy with biscuit, we again made all tight, driving down the
+      hoops till they would budge no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first we were puzzled to fix our compass. But at last the Skyeman out
+      knife, and cutting a round hole in the after-most thwart, or seat of the
+      boat, there inserted the little brass case containing the needle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over the stern of the boat, with some old canvas which my Viking's
+      forethought had provided, we spread a rude sort of awning, or rather
+      counterpane. This, however, proved but little or no protection from the
+      glare of the sun; for the management of the main-sail forbade any
+      considerable elevation of the shelter. And when the breeze was fresh, we
+      were fain to strike it altogether; for the wind being from aft, and
+      getting underneath the canvas, almost lifted the light boat's stem into
+      the air, vexing the counterpane as if it were a petticoat turning a gusty
+      corner. But when a mere breath rippled the sea, and the sun was fiery hot,
+      it was most pleasant to lounge in this shady asylum. It was like being
+      transferred from the roast to cool in the cupboard. And Jarl, much the
+      toughest fowl of the two, out of an abundant kindness for his comrade,
+      during the day voluntarily remained exposed at the helm, almost two hours
+      to my one. No lady-like scruples had he, the old Viking, about marring his
+      complexion, which already was more than bronzed. Over the ordinary tanning
+      of the sailor, he seemed masked by a visor of japanning, dotted all over
+      with freckles, so intensely yellow, and symmetrically circular, that they
+      seemed scorched there by a burning glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the tragico-comico moods which at times overtook me, I used to look
+      upon the brown Skyeman with humorous complacency. If we fall in with
+      cannibals, thought I, then, ready-roasted Norseman that thou art, shall I
+      survive to mourn thee; at least, during the period I &mdash; revolve upon
+      the spit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of such a fate, it needs hardly be said, we had no apprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI &mdash; Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If ever again I launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, I
+      &mdash; shall take good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with
+      a rattle-box head. Be he never so silly, his very silliness, so long as he
+      be lively at it, shall be its own excuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon occasion, who likes not a lively loon, one of your giggling, gamesome
+      oafs, whose mouth is a grin? Are not such, well-ordered dispensations of
+      Providence? filling up vacuums, in intervals of social stagnation
+      relieving the tedium of existing? besides keeping up, here and there, in
+      very many quarters indeed, sundry people's good opinion of themselves?
+      What, if at times their speech is insipid as water after wine? What, if to
+      ungenial and irascible souls, their very "mug" is an exasperation to
+      behold, their clack an inducement to suicide? Let us not be hard upon them
+      for this; but let them live on for the good they may do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jarl, dear, dumb Jarl, thou wert none of these. Thou didst carry a
+      phiz like an excommunicated deacon's. And no matter what happened, it was
+      ever the same. Quietly, in thyself, thou didst revolve upon thine own
+      sober axis, like a wheel in a machine which forever goes round, whether
+      you look at it or no. Ay, Jarl! wast thou not forever intent upon minding
+      that which so many neglect&mdash;thine own especial business? Wast thou
+      not forever at it, too, with no likelihood of ever winding up thy moody
+      affairs, and striking a balance sheet?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at times how wearisome to me these everlasting reveries in my one
+      solitary companion. I longed for something enlivening; a burst of words;
+      human vivacity of one kind or other. After in vain essaying to get
+      something of this sort out of Jarl, I tried it all by myself; playing upon
+      my body as upon an instrument; singing, halloing, and making empty
+      gestures, till my Viking stared hard; and I myself paused to consider
+      whether I had run crazy or no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how account for the Skyeman's gravity? Surely, it was based upon no
+      philosophic taciturnity; he was nothing of an idealist; an aerial
+      architect; a constructor of flying buttresses. It was inconceivable, that
+      his reveries were Manfred-like and exalted, reminiscent of unutterable
+      deeds, too mysterious even to be indicated by the remotest of hints.
+      Suppositions all out of the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His ruminations were a riddle. I asked him anxiously, whether, in any part
+      of the world, Savannah, Surat, or Archangel, he had ever a wife to think
+      of; or children, that he carried so lengthy a phiz. Nowhere neither.
+      Therefore, as by his own confession he had nothing to think of but
+      himself, and there was little but honesty in him (having which, by the
+      way, he may be thought full to the brim), what could I &mdash; fall back
+      upon but my original theory: namely, that in repose, his intellects
+      stepped out, and left his body to itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII &mdash; More About Being In An Open Boat
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the third morning, at break of day, I sat at the steering oar, an hour
+      or two previous having relieved Jarl, now fast asleep. Somehow, and
+      suddenly, a sense of peril so intense, came over me, that it could hardly
+      have been aggravated by the completest solitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a ship's deck, the mere feeling of elevation above the water, and the
+      reach of prospect you command, impart a degree of confidence which
+      disposes you to exult in your fancied security. But in an open boat,
+      brought down to the very plane of the sea, this feeling almost wholly
+      deserts you. Unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip
+      upon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is little larger
+      than it would be at the bottom of a well. At best, your most extended view
+      in any one direction, at least, is in a high, slow-rolling sea; when you
+      descend into the dark, misty spaces, between long and uniform swells.
+      Then, for the moment, it is like looking up and down in a twilight glade,
+      interminable; where two dawns, one on each hand, seem struggling through
+      the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, lingering not long in those silent vales, from watery cliff to cliff,
+      a sea-chamois, sprang our solitary craft,&mdash;a goat among the Alps!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How undulated the horizon; like a vast serpent with ten thousand folds
+      coiled all round the globe; yet so nigh, apparently, that it seemed as if
+      one's hand might touch it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What loneliness; when the sun rose, and spurred up the heavens, we hailed
+      him as a wayfarer in Sahara the sight of a distant horseman. Save
+      ourselves, the sun and the Chamois seemed all that was left of life in the
+      universe. We yearned toward its jocund disk, as in strange lands the
+      traveler joyfully greets a face from home, which there had passed
+      unheeded. And was not the sun a fellow-voyager? were we not both wending
+      westward? But how soon he daily overtook and passed us; hurrying to his
+      journey's end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a week had gone by, sailing steadily on, by day and by night, and
+      nothing in sight but this self-same sea, what wonder if disquieting
+      thoughts at last entered our hearts? If unknowingly we should pass the
+      spot where, according to our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what
+      shoreless sea would we launch? At times, these forebodings bewildered my
+      idea of the positions of the groups beyond. All became vague and confused;
+      so that westward of the Kingsmil isles and the Radack chain, I fancied
+      there could be naught but an endless sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII &mdash; Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes
+      Infesting The South Seas
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which diversified the
+      scene; especially when the constellation Pisces was in the ascendant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It's famous botanizing, they say, in Arkansas' boundless prairies; I
+      &mdash; commend the student of Ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean
+      moors of the Pacific. As your craft glides along, what strange monsters
+      float by. Elsewhere, was never seen their like. And nowhere are they found
+      in the books of the naturalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown. And
+      whoso crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The
+      sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a garden
+      worm. There are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and more sights
+      unrevealed than you or I ever ever dreamt of. Moles and bats alone should
+      be skeptics; and the only true infidelity is for a live man to vote
+      himself dead. Be Sir Thomas Brown our ensample; who, while exploding
+      "Vulgar Errors," heartily hugged all the mysteries in the Pentateuch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But look! fathoms down in the sea; where ever saw you a phantom like that?
+      An enormous crescent with antlers like a reindeer, and a Delta of mouths.
+      Slowly it sinks, and is seen no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Faust saw the devil; but you have seen the "Devil Fish."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look again! Here comes another. Jarl calls it a Bone Shark. Full as large
+      as a whale, it is spotted like a leopard; and tusk-like teeth overlap its
+      jaws like those of the walrus. To seamen, nothing strikes more terror than
+      the near vicinity of a creature like this. Great ships steer out of its
+      path. And well they may; since the good craft Essex, and others, have been
+      sunk by sea-monsters, as the alligator thrusts his horny snout through a
+      Carribean canoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from the
+      extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by hundreds;
+      but by thousands and by myriads. Trust me, there are more sharks in the
+      sea than mortals on land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs. But
+      by the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening the
+      sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are
+      classed under one family; which family, according to Muller, king-at-arms,
+      is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous tribe of the
+      Chondropterygii.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To begin. There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so called by
+      sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard knocks
+      received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar. At times,
+      these gentry swim in herds; especially about the remains of a slaughtered
+      whale. They are the vultures of the deep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then we often encountered the dandy Blue Shark, a long, taper and mighty
+      genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a Bond- street beau,
+      and the whitest tiers of teeth imaginable. This dainty spark invariably
+      lounged by with a careless fin and an indolent tail. But he looked
+      infernally heartless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude, savage
+      swagger of the Tiger Shark; a round, portly gourmand; with distended mouth
+      and collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom he might devour.
+      These gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in the South
+      Seas, picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a tit-bit, a
+      stray sailor. No wonder, then, that sailors denounce them. In substance,
+      Jarl once assured me, that under any temporary misfortune, it was one of
+      his sweetest consolations to remember, that in his day, he had murdered,
+      not killed, shoals of Tiger Sharks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet this is all wrong. As well hate a seraph, as a shark. Both were made
+      by the same hand. And that sharks are lovable, witness their domestic
+      endearments. No Fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable side. In
+      the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her cub, as Hagar did
+      Ishmael; or a queen of France the dauphin. We know not what we do when we
+      hate. And I have the word of my gentlemanly friend Stanhope, for it; that
+      he who declared he loved a good hater was but a respectable sort of
+      Hottentot, at best. No very genteel epithet this, though coming from the
+      genteelest of men. But when the digger of dictionaries said that saying of
+      his, he was assuredly not much of a Christian. However, it is hard for one
+      given up to constitutional hypos like him; to be filled with the milk and
+      meekness of the gospels. Yet, with deference, I deny that my old uncle
+      Johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him. Love a hater,
+      indeed! Who smacks his lips over gall? Now hate is a thankless thing. So,
+      let us only hate hatred; and once give love play, we will fall in love
+      with a unicorn. Ah! the easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must
+      work hard. Love is a delight; but hate a torment. And haters are
+      thumbscrews, Scotch boots, and Spanish inquisitions to themselves. In five
+      words&mdash;would they were a Siamese diphthong&mdash;he who hates is a
+      fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For several days our Chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid Tiger
+      Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our wake,
+      side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till you come
+      to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a bootless errand, they
+      dropped farther and farther astern, until completely out of sight. Much to
+      the Skyeman's chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance poised for a
+      dart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of all sharks, save me from the ghastly White Shark. For though we
+      should hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and disliking is
+      not hating. And never yet could I bring myself to be loving, or even
+      sociable, with a White Shark. He is not the sort of creature to enlist
+      young affections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by night
+      than by day. Timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding along just
+      under the surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a milky hue; with
+      glimpses now and then of his bottomless white pit of teeth. No need of a
+      dentist hath he. Seen at night, stealing along like a spirit in the water,
+      with horrific serenity of aspect, the White Shark sent many a thrill to us
+      twain in the Chamois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the
+      ponderous sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he fetched
+      a long breath after napping below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the
+      chain-plate armor and golden scales; the Nimrod of the seas, to whom so
+      many flying fish fall a prey. Flying from their pursuers, many of them
+      flew into our boat. But invariably they died from the shock. No nursing
+      could restore them. One of their wings I removed, spreading it out to dry
+      under a weight. In two days' time the thin membrane, all over tracings
+      like those of a leaf, was transparent as isinglass, and tinted with
+      brilliant hues, like those of a changing silk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost every day, we spied Black Fish; coal-black and glossy. They seemed
+      to swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel; their
+      dorsal fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of a somewhat similar species, but smaller, and clipper-built about the
+      nose, were the Algerines; so called, probably, from their corsair
+      propensities; waylaying peaceful fish on the high seas, and plundering
+      them of body and soul at a gulp. Atrocious Turks! a crusade should be
+      preached against them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides all these, we encountered Killers and Thrashers, by far the most
+      spirited and "spunky" of the finny tribes. Though little larger than a
+      porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan himself.
+      They bait the monster, as dogs a bull. The Killers seizing the Right whale
+      by his immense, sulky lower lip, and the Thrashers fastening on to his
+      back, and beating him with their sinewy tails. Often they come off
+      conquerors, worrying the enemy to death. Though, sooth to say, if
+      leviathan gets but one sweep al them with his terrible tail, they go
+      flying into the air, as if tossed from Taurus' horn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This sight we beheld. Had old Wouvermans, who once painted a bull bait,
+      been along with us, a rare chance, that, for his pencil. And Gudin or
+      Isabey might have thrown the blue rolling sea into the picture. Lastly,
+      one of Claude's setting summer suns would have glorified the whole. Oh,
+      believe me, God's creatures fighting, fin for fin, a thousand miles from
+      land, and with the round horizon for an arena; is no ignoble subject for a
+      masterpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such are a few of the sights of the great South Sea. But there is no
+      telling all. The Pacific is populous as China.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV &mdash; Jarl's Misgivings
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      About this time an event took place. My good Viking opened his mouth, and
+      spoke. The prodigy occurred, as, jacknife in hand, he was bending over the
+      midship oar; on the loom, or handle, of which he kept our almanac; making
+      a notch for every set sun. For some forty-eight hours past, the wind had
+      been light and variable. It was more than suspected that a current was
+      sweeping us northward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, marking these things, Jarl threw out the thought, that the more wind,
+      and the less current, the better; and if a long calm came on, of which
+      there was some prospect, we had better take to our oars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Take to our oars! as if we were crossing a ferry, and no ocean leagues to
+      traverse. The idea indirectly suggested all possible horrors. To be rid of
+      them forthwith, I proceeded to dole out our morning meal. For to make away
+      with such things, there is nothing better than bolting something down on
+      top of them; albeit, oft repeated, the plan is very apt to beget
+      dyspepsia; and the dyspepsia the blues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what of our store of provisions? So far as enough to eat was
+      concerned, we felt not the slightest apprehension; our supplies proving
+      more abundant than we had anticipated. But, curious to tell, we felt but
+      little inclination for food. It was water, bright water, cool, sparkling
+      water, alone, that we craved. And of this, also, our store at first seemed
+      ample. But as our voyage lengthened, and breezes blew faint, and calms
+      fell fast, the idea of being deprived of the precious fluid grew into
+      something little short of a mono- mania; especially with Jarl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every hour or two with the hammer and chisel belonging to the tinder box
+      keg, he tinkered away at the invaluable breaker; driving down the hoops,
+      till in his over solicitude, I thought he would burst them outright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the breaker lay on its bilge, in the middle of the boat, where more or
+      less sea-water always collected. And ever and anon, dipping his finger
+      therein, my Viking was troubled with the thought, that this sea-water
+      tasted less brackish than that alongside. Of course the breaker must be
+      leaking. So, he would turn it over, till its wet side came uppermost; when
+      it would quickly become dry as a bone. But now, with his knife, he would
+      gently probe the joints of the staves; shake his head; look up; look down;
+      taste of the water in the bottom of the boat; then that of the sea; then
+      lift one end of the breaker; going through with every test of leakage he
+      could dream of. Nor was he ever fully satisfied, that the breaker was in
+      all respects sound. But in reality it was tight as the drum-heads that
+      beat at Cerro- Gordo. Oh! Jarl, Jarl: to me in the boat's quiet stern,
+      steering and philosophizing at one time and the same, thou and thy breaker
+      were a study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides the breaker, we had, full of water, the two boat-kegs, previously
+      alluded to. These were first used. We drank from them by their leaden
+      spouts; so many swallows three times in the day; having no other means of
+      measuring an allowance. But when we came to the breaker, which had only a
+      bung-hole, though a very large one, dog- like, it was so many laps apiece;
+      jealously counted by the observer. This plan, however, was only good for a
+      single day; the water then getting beyond the reach of the tongue. We
+      therefore daily poured from the breaker into one of the kegs; and drank
+      from its spout. But to obviate the absorption inseparable from decanting,
+      we at last hit upon something better,&mdash;my comrade's shoe, which,
+      deprived of its quarters, narrowed at the heel, and diligently rinsed out
+      in the sea, was converted into a handy but rather limber ladle. This we
+      kept suspended in the bung-hole of the breaker, that it might never twice
+      absorb the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now pewter imparts flavor to ale; a Meerschaum bowl, the same to the
+      tobacco of Smyrna; and goggle green glasses are deemed indispensable to
+      the bibbing of Hock. What then shall be said of a leathern goblet for
+      water? Try it, ye mariners who list.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning, taking his wonted draught, Jarl fished up in his ladle a
+      deceased insect; something like a Daddy-long-legs, only more corpulent.
+      Its fate? A sea-toss? Believe it not; with all those precious drops
+      clinging to its lengthy legs. It was held over the ladle till the last
+      globule dribbled; and even then, being moist, honest Jarl was but loth to
+      drop it overboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For our larder, we could not endure the salt beef; it was raw as a live
+      Abyssinian steak, and salt as Cracow. Besides, the Feegee simile would not
+      have held good with respect to it. It was far from being "tender as a dead
+      man." The biscuit only could we eat; not to be wondered at; for even on
+      shipboard, seamen in the tropics are but sparing feeders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here let not, a suggestion be omitted, most valuable to any future
+      castaway or sailaway as the case may be. Eat not your biscuit dry; but dip
+      it in the sea: which makes it more bulky and palatable. During meal times
+      it was soak and sip with Jarl and me: one on each side of the Chamois
+      dipping our biscuit in the brine. This plan obviated finger-glasses at the
+      conclusion of our repast. Upon the whole, dwelling upon the water is not
+      so bad after all. The Chinese are no fools. In the operation of making
+      your toilet, how handy to float in your ewer!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV &mdash; A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Like most silent earnest sort of people, my good Viking was a pattern of
+      industry. When in the boats after whales, I have known him carry along a
+      roll of sinnate to stitch into a hat. And the boats lying motionless for
+      half an hour or so, waiting the rising of the chase, his fingers would be
+      plying at their task, like an old lady knitting. Like an experienced
+      old-wife too, his digits had become so expert and conscientious, that his
+      eyes left them alone; deeming optic supervision unnecessary. And on this
+      trip of ours, when not otherwise engaged, he was quite as busy with his
+      fingers as ever: unraveling old Cape Horn hose, for yarn wherewith to darn
+      our woolen frocks; with great patches from the skirts of a condemned
+      reefing jacket, panneling the seats of our "ducks;" in short, veneering
+      our broken garments with all manner of choice old broadcloths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the true forethought of an old tar, he had brought along with him
+      nearly the whole contents of his chest. His precious "Ditty Bag,"
+      containing his sewing utensils, had been carefully packed away in the
+      bottom of one of his bundles; of which he had as many as an old maid on
+      her travels. In truth, an old salt is very much of an old maid, though,
+      strictly speaking, far from deserving that misdeemed appellative. Better
+      be an old maid, a woman with herself for a husband, than the wife of a
+      fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise
+      man knows himself to be one. When playing the sempstress, Jarl's favorite
+      perch was the triangular little platform in the bow; which being the
+      driest and most elevated part of the boat, was best adapted to his
+      purpose. Here for hours and hours together the honest old tailor would sit
+      darning and sewing away, heedless of the wide ocean around; while forever,
+      his slouched Guayaquil hat kept bobbing up and down against the horizon
+      before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a most solemn avocation with him. Silently he nodded like the still
+      statue in the opera of Don Juan. Indeed he never spoke, unless to give
+      pithy utterance to the wisdom of keeping one's wardrobe in repair. But
+      herein my Viking at times waxed oracular. And many's the hour we glided
+      along, myself deeply pondering in the stem, hand upon helm; while
+      crosslegged at the other end of the boat Jarl laid down patch upon patch,
+      and at long intervals precept upon precept; here several saws, and there
+      innumerable stitches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI &mdash; They Are Becalmed
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the eighth day there was a calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came on by night: so that waking at daybreak, and folding my arms over
+      the gunwale, I looked out upon a scene very hard to describe. The sun was
+      still beneath the horizon; perhaps not yet out of sight from the plains of
+      Paraguay. But the dawn was too strong for the stars; which, one by one,
+      had gone out, like waning lamps after a ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character from
+      what it reflects; so in a calm in the Tropics, a colorless sky overhead,
+      the ocean, upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of existence. The deep
+      blue is gone; and the glassy element lies tranced; almost viewless as the
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed
+      collapsed into a vague ellipsis. And alike, the Chamois seemed drifting in
+      the atmosphere as in the sea. Every thing was fused into the calm: sky,
+      air, water, and all. Not a fish was to be seen. The silence was that of a
+      vacuum. No vitality lurked in the air. And this inert blending and
+      brooding of all things seemed gray chaos in conception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few
+      cat's-paws of wind varied the scene. They were faint as the breath of one
+      dying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At times the heat was intense. The heavens, at midday, glowing like an
+      ignited coal mine. Our skin curled up like lint; our vision became dim;
+      the brain dizzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To our consternation, the water in the breaker became lukewarm, brackish,
+      and slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept our spare clothing piled
+      upon the breaker, to shield it from the sun. At last, Jarl enlarged the
+      vent, carefully keeping it exposed. To this precaution, doubtless, we owed
+      more than we then thought. It was now deemed wise to reduce our allowance
+      of water to the smallest modicum consistent with the present preservation
+      of life; strangling all desire for more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor was this all. The upper planking of the boat began to warp; here and
+      there, cracking and splintering. But though we kept it moistened with
+      brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the sharp, sudden
+      sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both to spring to our
+      feet. Instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift to secure the
+      rebellious plank with a cord, not having a nail; we then bailed out the
+      boat, nearly half full of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its being
+      pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells now
+      overtaking us. Leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging, some
+      tempest must have been sending to us its last dying waves. For as a pebble
+      dropped into a pond ruffles it to its marge; so, on all sides, a sea-gale
+      operates as if an asteroid had fallen into the brine; making ringed
+      mountain billows, interminably expanding, instead of ripples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great September waves breaking at the base of the Neversink Highlands,
+      far in advance of the swiftest pilot-boat, carry tidings. And full often,
+      they know the last secret of many a stout ship, never heard of from the
+      day she left port. Every wave in my eyes seems a soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As there was no steering to be done, Jarl and I sheltered ourselves as
+      well as we could under the awning. And for the first two days, one at a
+      time, and every three or four hours, we dropped overboard for a bath,
+      clinging to the gun-wale; a sharp look-out being kept for prowling sharks.
+      A foot or two below the surface, the water felt cool and refreshing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the third day a change came over us. We relinquished bathing, the
+      exertion taxing us too much. Sullenly we laid ourselves down; turned our
+      backs to each other; and were impatient of the slightest casual touch of
+      our persons. What sort of expression my own countenance wore, I know not;
+      but I hated to look at Jarl's. When I did it was a glare, not a glance. I
+      became more taciturn than he. I can not tell what it was that came over
+      me, but I wished I was alone. I felt that so long as the calm lasted, we
+      were without help; that neither could assist the other; and above all,
+      that for one, the water would hold out longer than for two. I felt no
+      remorse, not the slightest, for these thoughts. It was instinct. Like a
+      desperado giving up the ghost, I desired to gasp by myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From being cast away with a brother, good God deliver me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The four days passed. And on the morning of the fifth, thanks be to
+      Heaven, there came a breeze. Dancingly, mincingly it came, just rippling
+      the sea, until it struck our sails, previously set at the very first token
+      of its advance. At length it slightly freshened; and our poor Chamois
+      seemed raised from the dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond expression delightful! Once more we heard the low humming of the
+      sea under our bow, as our boat, like a bird, went singing on its way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How changed the scene! Overhead, a sweet blue haze, distilling sunlight in
+      drops. And flung abroad over the visible creation was the sun-spangled,
+      azure, rustling robe of the ocean, ermined with wave crests; all else,
+      infinitely blue. Such a cadence of musical sounds! Waves chasing each
+      other, and sporting and frothing in frolicsome foam: painted fish rippling
+      past; and anon the noise of wings as sea- fowls flew by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, Ocean, when thou choosest to smile, more beautiful thou art than
+      flowery mead or plain!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII &mdash; In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There were now fourteen notches on the loom of the Skyeman's oar:&mdash;So
+      many days since we had pushed from the fore-chains of the Arcturion. But
+      as yet, no floating bough, no tern, noddy, nor reef-bird, to denote our
+      proximity to land. In that long calm, whither might not the currents have
+      swept us?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where we were precisely, we knew not; but according to our reckoning, the
+      loose estimation of the knots run every hour, we must have sailed due west
+      but little more than one hundred and fifty leagues; for the most part
+      having encountered but light winds, and frequent intermitting calms,
+      besides that prolonged one described. But spite of past calms and
+      currents, land there must be to the westward. Sun, compass, stout hearts,
+      and steady breezes, pointed our prow thereto. So courage! my Viking, and
+      never say drown!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time, our hearts were much lightened by discovering that our water
+      was improving in taste. It seemed to have been undergoing anew that sort
+      of fermentation, or working, occasionally incident to ship water shortly
+      after being taken on board. Sometimes, for a period, it is more or less
+      offensive to taste and smell; again, however, becoming comparatively
+      limpid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as our water improved, we grew more and more miserly of so priceless a
+      treasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here it may be well to make mention of another little circumstance,
+      however unsentimental. Thorough-paced tar that he was, my Viking was an
+      inordinate consumer of the Indian weed. From the Arcturion, he had brought
+      along with him a small half-keg, at bottom impacted with a solitary layer
+      of sable Negrohead, fossil- marked, like the primary stratum of the
+      geologists. It was the last tier of his abundant supply for the long
+      whaling voyage upon which he had embarked upwards of three years previous.
+      Now during the calm, and for some days after, poor Jarl's accustomed quid
+      was no longer agreeable company. To pun: he eschewed his chew. I asked him
+      wherefore. He replied that it puckered up his mouth, above all provoked
+      thirst, and had somehow grown every way distasteful. I was sorry; for the
+      absence of his before ever present wad impaired what little fullness there
+      was left in his cheek; though, sooth to say, I &mdash; no longer called
+      upon him as of yore to shift over the enormous morsel to starboard or
+      larboard, and so trim our craft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The calm gone by, once again my sea-tailor plied needle and thread; or
+      turning laundress, hung our raiment to dry on oars peaked obliquely in the
+      thole-pins. All of which tattered pennons, the wind being astern, helped
+      us gayly on our way; as jolly poor devils, with rags flying in the breeze,
+      sail blithely through life; and are merry although they are poor!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII &mdash; My Lord Shark And His Pages
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There is a fish in the sea that evermore, like a surly lord, only goes
+      abroad attended by his suite. It is the Shovel-nosed Shark. A clumsy
+      lethargic monster, unshapely as his name, and the last species of his
+      kind, one would think, to be so bravely waited upon, as he is. His suite
+      is composed of those dainty little creatures called Pilot fish by sailors.
+      But by night his retinue is frequently increased by the presence of
+      several small luminous fish, running in advance, and flourishing their
+      flambeaux like link-boys lighting the monster's way. Pity there were no
+      ray-fish in rear, page-like, to carry his caudal train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the relation subsisting between the Pilot fish above mentioned and
+      their huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable things in
+      nature. At any rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. That a monster so
+      ferocious, should suffer five or six little sparks, hardly fourteen inches
+      long, to gambol about his grim hull with the utmost impunity, is of itself
+      something strange. But when it is considered, that by a reciprocal
+      understanding, the Pilot fish seem to act as scouts to the shark, warning
+      him of danger, and apprising him of the vicinity of prey; and moreover, in
+      case of his being killed, evincing their anguish by certain agitations,
+      otherwise inexplicable; the whole thing becomes a mystery unfathomable.
+      Truly marvels abound. It needs no dead man to be raised, to convince us of
+      some things. Even my Viking marveled full as much at those Pilot fish as
+      he would have marveled at the Pentecost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But perhaps a little incident, occurring about this period, will best
+      illustrate the matter in hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were gliding along, hardly three knots an hour, when my comrade, who
+      had been dozing over the gunwale, suddenly started to his feet, and
+      pointed out an immense Shovel-nosed Shark, less than a boat's length
+      distant, and about half a fathom beneath the surface. A lance was at once
+      snatched from its place; and true to his calling, Jarl was about to dart
+      it at the fish, when, interested by the sight of its radiant little
+      scouts, I begged him to desist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of them was right under the shark, nibbling at his ventral fin;
+      another above, hovering about his dorsal appurtenance; one on each flank;
+      and a frisking fifth pranking about his nose, seemingly having something
+      to say of a confidential nature. They were of a bright, steel-blue color,
+      alternated with jet black stripes; with glistening bellies of a
+      silver-white. Clinging to the back of the shark, were four or five
+      Remoras, or sucking-fish; snaky parasites, impossible to remove from
+      whatever they adhere to, without destroying their lives. The Remora has
+      little power in swimming; hence its sole locomotion is on the backs of
+      larger fish. Leech-like, it sticketh closer than a false brother in
+      prosperity; closer than a beggar to the benevolent; closer than Webster to
+      the Constitution. But it feeds upon what it clings to; its feelers having
+      a direct communication with the esophagus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shark swam sluggishly; creating no sign of a ripple, but ever and,
+      anon shaking his Medusa locks, writhing and curling with horrible life.
+      Now and then, the nimble Pilot fish darted from his side&mdash;this way
+      and that&mdash;mostly toward our boat; but previous to taking a fresh
+      start ever returning to their liege lord to report progress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thought struck me. Baiting a rope's end with a morsel of our almost
+      useless salt beef, I suffered it to trail in the sea. Instantly the
+      foremost scout swam toward it; hesitated; paused; but at last advancing,
+      briskly snuffed at the line, and taking one finical little nibble,
+      retreated toward the shark. Another moment, and the great Tamerlane
+      himself turned heavily about; pointing his black, cannon-like nose
+      directly toward our broadside. Meanwhile, the little Pilot fish darted
+      hither and thither; keeping up a mighty fidgeting, like men of small minds
+      in a state of nervous agitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, Tamerlane swam nearer and nearer, all the while lazily eyeing
+      the Chamois, as a wild boar a kid. Suddenly making a rush for it, in the
+      foam he made away with the bait. But the next instant, the uplifted lance
+      sped at his skull; and thrashing his requiem with his sinewy tail, he sunk
+      slowly, through his own blood, out of sight. Down with him swam the
+      terrified Pilot fish; but soon after, three of them were observed close to
+      the boat, gliding along at a uniform pace; one an each side, and one in
+      advance; even as they had attended their lord. Doubtless, one was under
+      our keel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A good omen," said Jarl; "no harm will befall us so long as they stay."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But however that might be, follow us they did, for many days after: until
+      an event occurred, which necessitated their withdrawal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX &mdash; Who Goes There?
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Jarl's oar showed sixteen notches on the loom, when one evening, as the
+      expanded sun touched the horizon's rim, a ship's uppermost spars were
+      observed, traced like a spider's web against its crimson disk. It looked
+      like a far-off craft on fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In bright weather at sea, a sail, invisible in the full flood of noon,
+      becomes perceptible toward sunset. It is the reverse in the morning. In
+      sight at gray dawn, the distant vessel, though in reality approaching,
+      recedes from view, as the sun rises higher and higher. This holds true,
+      till its vicinity makes it readily fall within the ordinary scope of
+      vision. And thus, too, here and there, with other distant things: the more
+      light you throw on them, the more you obscure. Some revelations show best
+      in a twilight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of the stranger not a little surprised us. But brightening up,
+      as if the encounter were welcome, Jarl looked happy and expectant. He
+      quickly changed his demeanor, however, upon perceiving that I was bent
+      upon shunning a meeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly our sails were struck; and calling upon Jarl, who was somewhat
+      backward to obey, I shipped the oars; and, both rowing, we stood away
+      obliquely from our former course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I divined that the vessel was a whaler; and hence, that by help of the
+      glass, with which her look-outs must be momentarily sweeping the horizon,
+      they might possibly have descried us; especially, as we were due east from
+      the ship; a direction, which at sunset is the one most favorable for
+      perceiving a far-off object at sea. Furthermore, our canvas was snow-white
+      and conspicuous. To be sure, we could not be certain what kind of a vessel
+      it was; but whatever it might be, I, for one, had no mind to risk an
+      encounter; for it was quite plain, that if the stranger came within
+      hailing distance, there would be no resource but to link our fortunes with
+      hers; whereas I &mdash; desired to pursue none but the Chamois'. As for
+      the Skyeman, he kept looking wistfully over his shoulder; doubtless,
+      praying Heaven, that we might not escape what I sought to avoid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, upon a closer scrutiny, being pretty well convinced that the
+      stranger, after all, was steering a nearly westerly course&mdash;right
+      away from us&mdash;we reset our sail; and as night fell, my Viking's
+      entreaties, seconded by my own curiosity, induced me to resume our
+      original course; and so follow after the vessel, with a view of obtaining
+      a nearer glimpse, without danger of detection. So, boldly we steered for
+      the sail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not gaining much upon her, spite of the lightness of the breeze (a
+      circumstance in our favor: the chase being a ship, and we but a boat), at
+      my comrade's instigation, we added oars to sails, readily guiding our way
+      by the former, though the helm was left to itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we came nearer, it was plain that the vessel was no whaler; but a
+      small, two-masted craft; in short, a brigantine. Her sails were in a state
+      of unaccountable disarray, only the foresail, mainsail, and jib being set.
+      The first was much tattered; and the jib was hoisted but half way up the
+      stay, where it idly flapped, the breeze coming from over the taffrail. She
+      continually yawed in her course; now almost presenting her broadside, then
+      showing her stern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Striking our sails once more, we lay on our oars, and watched her in the
+      starlight. Still she swung from side to side, and still sailed on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a little terrified at the sight, superstitious Jarl more than
+      insinuated that the craft must be a gold-huntress, haunted. But I &mdash;
+      told him, that if such were the case, we must board her, come gold or
+      goblins. In reality, however, I began to think that she must have been
+      abandoned by her crew; or else, that from sickness, those on board were
+      incapable of managing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a long and anxious reconnoiter, we came still nearer, using our
+      oars, but very reluctantly on Jarl's part; who, while rowing, kept his
+      eyes over his shoulder, as if about to beach the little Chamois on the
+      back of a whale as of yore. Indeed, he seemed full as impatient to quit
+      the vicinity of the vessel, as before he had been anxiously courting it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as the silent brigantine again swung round her broadside, I &mdash;
+      hailed her loudly. No return. Again. But all was silent. With a few
+      vigorous strokes, we closed with her, giving yet another unanswered hail;
+      when, laying the Chamois right alongside, I clutched at the main-chains.
+      Instantly we felt her dragging us along. Securing our craft by its
+      painter, I sprang over the rail, followed by Jarl, who had snatched his
+      harpoon, his favorite arms. Long used with that weapon to overcome the
+      monsters of the deep, he doubted not it would prove equally serviceable in
+      any other encounter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deck was a complete litter. Tossed about were pearl oyster shells,
+      husks of cocoa-nuts, empty casks, and cases. The deserted tiller was
+      lashed; which accounted for the vessel's yawing. But we could not
+      conceive, how going large before the wind; the craft could, for any
+      considerable time, at least, have guided herself without the help of a
+      hand. Still, the breeze was light and steady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, seeing the helm thus lashed, I could not but distrust the silence
+      that prevailed. It conjured up the idea of miscreants concealed below, and
+      meditating treachery; unscrupulous mutineers&mdash; Lascars, or
+      Manilla-men; who, having murdered the Europeans of the crew, might not be
+      willing to let strangers depart unmolested. Or yet worse, the entire
+      ship's company might have been swept away by a fever, its infection still
+      lurking in the poisoned hull. And though the first conceit, as the last,
+      was a mere surmise, it was nevertheless deemed prudent to secure the
+      hatches, which for the present we accordingly barred down with the oars of
+      our boat. This done, we went about the deck in search of water. And
+      finding some in a clumsy cask, drank long and freely, and to our thirsty
+      souls' content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wind now freshening, and the rent sails like to blow from the yards,
+      we brought the brigantine to the wind, and brailed up the canvas. This
+      left us at liberty to examine the craft, though, unfortunately, the night
+      was growing hazy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this while our boat was still towing alongside; and I was about to
+      drop it astern, when Jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where it was;
+      since, if there were people on board, they would most likely be down in
+      the cabin, from the dead-lights of which, mischief might be done to the
+      Chamois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then, that my comrade observed, that the brigantine had no boats, a
+      circumstance most unusual in any sort of a vessel at sea. But marking
+      this, I was exceedingly gratified. It seemed to indicate, as I had opined,
+      that from some cause or other, she must have been abandoned of her crew.
+      And in a good measure this dispelled my fears of foul play, and the
+      apprehension of contagion. Encouraged by these reflections, I now resolved
+      to descend, and explore the cabin, though sorely against Jarl's counsel.
+      To be sure, as he earnestly said, this step might have been deferred till
+      daylight; but it seemed too wearisome to wait. So bethinking me of our
+      tinder-box and candles, I &mdash; sent him into the boat for them.
+      Presently, two candles were lit; one of which the Skyeman tied up and down
+      the barbed end of his harpoon; so that upon going below, the keen steel
+      might not be far off, should the light be blown out by a dastard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfastening the cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest and
+      murkiest den in the world. The altar-like transom, surmounted by the
+      closed dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky- light
+      overhead, and the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the place the
+      air of some subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of Peter the Hermit.
+      But coils of rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of clothing, and
+      disorderly heaps of rubbish, harmonized not with this impression. Two
+      doors, one on each side, led into wee little state- rooms, the berths of
+      which also were littered. Among other things, was a large box, sheathed
+      with iron and stoutly clamped, containing a keg partly filled with powder,
+      the half of an old cutlass, a pouch of bullets, and a case for a sextant&mdash;a
+      brass plate on the lid, with the maker's name. London. The broken blade of
+      the cutlass was very rusty and stained; and the iron hilt bent in. It
+      looked so tragical that I &mdash; thrust it out of sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Removing a small trap-door, opening into the space beneath, called the
+      "run," we lighted upon sundry cutlasses and muskets, lying together at
+      sixes and sevens, as if pitched down in a hurry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Casting round a hasty glance, and satisfying ourselves, that through the
+      bulkhead of the cabin, there was no passage to the forward part of the
+      hold, we caught up the muskets and cutlasses, the powder keg and the pouch
+      of bullets, and bundling them on deck, prepared to visit the other end of
+      the vessel. Previous to so doing, however, I &mdash; loaded a musket, and
+      belted a cutlass to my side. But my Viking preferred his harpoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the forecastle reigned similar confusion. But there was a snug little
+      lair, cleared away in one corner, and furnished with a grass mat and
+      bolster, like those used among the Islanders of these seas. This little
+      lair looked to us as if some leopard had crouched there. And as it turned
+      out, we were not far from right. Forming one side of this retreat, was a
+      sailor's chest, stoutly secured by a lock, and monstrous heavy withal.
+      Regardless of Jarl's entreaties, I &mdash; managed to burst the lid;
+      thereby revealing a motley assemblage of millinery, and outlandish
+      knick-knacks of all sorts; together with sundry rude Calico contrivances,
+      which though of unaccountable cut, nevertheless possessed a certain
+      petticoatish air, and latitude of skirt, betokening them the habiliments
+      of some feminine creature; most probably of the human species.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this strong box, also, was a canvas bag, jingling with rusty old
+      bell-buttons, gangrened copper bolts, and sheathing nails; damp, greenish
+      Carolus dollars (true coin all), besides divers iron screws, and battered,
+      chisels, and belaying-pins. Sounded on the chest lid, the dollars rang
+      clear as convent bells. These were put aside by Jarl the sight of
+      substantial dollars doing away, for the nonce, with his superstitious
+      Misgivings. True to his kingship, he loved true coin; though abroad on the
+      sea, and no land but dollarless dominions ground, all this silver was
+      worthless as charcoal or diamonds. Nearly one and the same thing, say the
+      chemists; but tell that to the marines, say the illiterate Jews and the
+      jewelers. Go, buy a house, or a ship, if you can, with your charcoal! Yea,
+      all the woods in Canada charred down to cinders would not be worth the one
+      famed Brazilian diamond, though no bigger than the egg of a carrier
+      pigeon. Ah! but these chemists are liars, and Sir Humphrey Davy a cheat.
+      Many's the poor devil they've deluded into the charcoal business, who
+      otherwise might have made his fortune with a mattock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Groping again into the chest, we brought to light a queer little hair
+      trunk, very bald and rickety. At every corner was a mighty clamp, the
+      weight of which had no doubt debilitated the box. It was jealously secured
+      with a padlock, almost as big as itself; so that it was almost a question,
+      which was meant to be security to the other. Prying at it hard, we at
+      length effected an entrance; but saw no golden moidores, no ruddy
+      doubloons; nothing under heaven but three pewter mugs, such as are used in
+      a ship's cabin, several brass screws, and brass plates, which must have
+      belonged to a quadrant; together with a famous lot of glass beads, and
+      brass rings; while, pasted on the inside of the cover, was a little
+      colored print, representing the harlots, the shameless hussies, having a
+      fine time with the Prodigal Son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It should have been mentioned ere now, that while we were busy in the
+      forecastle, we were several times startled by strange sounds aloft. And
+      just after, crashing into the little hair trunk, down came a great
+      top-block, right through the scuttle, narrowly missing my Viking's crown;
+      a much stronger article, by the way, than your goldsmiths turn out in
+      these days. This startled us much; particularly Jarl, as one might
+      suppose; but accustomed to the strange creakings and wheezings of the
+      masts and yards of old vessels at sea, and having many a time dodged stray
+      blocks accidentally falling from aloft, I thought little more of the
+      matter; though my comrade seemed to think the noises somewhat different
+      from any thing of that kind he had even heard before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a little more turning over of the rubbish in the forecastle, and
+      much marveling thereat, we ascended to the deck; where we found every
+      thing so silent, that, as we moved toward the taffrail, the Skyeman
+      unconsciously addressed me in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX &mdash; Noises And Portents
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I longed for day. For however now inclined to believe that the brigantine
+      was untenanted, I desired the light of the sun to place that fact beyond a
+      misgiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel, that she lay rather
+      low in the water, I thought proper to sound the well. But there being no
+      line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up in the arm-chest on
+      the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept. Meanwhile I searched
+      for the "breaks," or pump-handles, which, as it turned out, could not have
+      been very recently used; for they were found lashed up and down to the
+      main-mast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Jarl came running toward me, whispering that all doubt was
+      dispelled;&mdash;there were spirits on board, to a dead certainty. He had
+      overheard a supernatural sneeze. But by this time I was all but convinced,
+      that we were alone in the brigantine. Since, if otherwise, I could assign
+      no earthly reason for the crew's hiding away from a couple of sailors,
+      whom, were they so minded, they might easily have mastered. And
+      furthermore, this alleged disturbance of the atmosphere aloft by a sneeze,
+      Jarl averred to have taken place in the main-top; directly underneath
+      which I was all this time standing, and had heard nothing. So
+      complimenting my good Viking upon the exceeding delicacy of his
+      auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his piratical ghosts
+      and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his own imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a bowline we rigged
+      a substitute; and sounding the well, found nothing to excite our alarm.
+      Under certain circumstances, however, this sounding a ship's well is a
+      nervous sort of business enough. 'Tis like feeling your own pulse in the
+      last stage of a fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Skyeman's suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the
+      brigantine's head on the other tack. For until daylight we desired to
+      alter the vessel's position as little as possible, fearful of coming
+      unawares upon reefs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about the
+      brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely
+      phantom-like nature, honest Jarl was nevertheless exceedingly downright
+      and practical in all hints and proceedings concerning her. Wherein, he
+      resembled my Right Reverend friend, Bishop Berkeley&mdash; truly, one of
+      your lords spiritual&mdash;who, metaphysically speaking, holding all
+      objects to be mere optical delusions, was, notwith- standing, extremely
+      matter-of-fact in all matters touching matter itself. Besides being
+      pervious to the points of pins, and possessing a palate capable of
+      appreciating plum-puddings:&mdash;which sentence reads off like a
+      pattering of hailstones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl must
+      needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins on board.
+      He swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round, he had
+      heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one of his bugbears
+      had been getting its aerial legs jammed. I laughed:&mdash; hinting that
+      goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon he besought me to ascend the
+      fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But here my mature judgment
+      got the better of my first crude opinion. I civilly declined. For
+      assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the fore-top might be
+      tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a pretty hap would be
+      mine, if, with hands full of rigging, and legs dangling in air, while
+      surmounting the oblique futtock- shrouds, some unseen arm should all at
+      once tumble me overboard. Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on to
+      declare, that with regard to the character of the brigantine, his mind was
+      now pretty fully made up;&mdash;she was an arrant impostor, a shade of a
+      ship, full of sailors' ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would
+      dissolve in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the water. In
+      short, Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old Norsemen, was full of
+      old Norse conceits, and all manner of Valhalla marvels concerning the land
+      of goblins and goblets. No wonder then, that with this catastrophe in
+      prospect, he again entreated me to quit the ill-starred craft, carrying
+      off nothing from her ghostly hull. But I refused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One can not relate every thing at once. While in the cabin, we came across
+      a "barge" of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality much superior
+      to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally regaled ourselves
+      in the intervals of rummaging. Now this sea cake- basket we had brought on
+      deck. And for the first time since bidding adieu to the Arcturion having
+      fully quenched our thirst, our appetite returned with a rush; and having
+      nothing better to do till day dawned, we planted the bread-barge in the
+      middle of the quarter-deck; and crossing our legs before it, laid close
+      seige thereto, like the Grand Turk and his Vizier Mustapha sitting down
+      before Vienna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our castle, the Bread-Barge was of the common sort; an oblong oaken box,
+      much battered and bruised, and like the Elgin Marbles, all over
+      inscriptions and carving:&mdash;foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs,
+      Burton-blocks, love verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; and divers
+      mystic diagrams in chalk, drawn by old Finnish mariners; in casting
+      horoscopes and prophecies. Your old tars are all Daniels. There was a
+      round hole in one side, through which, in getting at the bread, invited
+      guests thrust their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also, many and earnest
+      the glances of Mustapha at every sudden creaking of the spars or rigging.
+      Like Belshazzar, my royal Viking ate with great fear and trembling; ever
+      and anon pausing to watch the wild shadows flitting along the bulwarks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI &mdash; Man Ho!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Slowly, fitfully, broke the morning in the East, showing the desolate brig
+      forging heavily through the water, which sluggishly thumped under her
+      bows. While leaping from sea to sea, our faithful Chamois, like a faithful
+      dog, still gamboled alongside, confined to the main- chains by its
+      painter. At times, it would long lag behind; then, pushed by a wave like
+      lightning dash forward; till bridled by its leash, it again fell in rear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the gray light came on, anxiously we scrutinized the features of the
+      craft, as one by one they became more plainly revealed. Every thing seemed
+      stranger now, than when partially visible in the dingy night. The
+      stanchions, or posts of the bulwarks, were of rough stakes, still incased
+      in the bark. The unpainted sides were of a dark-colored, heathenish
+      looking wood. The tiller was a wry-necked, elbowed bough, thrusting itself
+      through the deck, as if the tree itself was fast rooted in the hold. The
+      binnacle, containing the compass, was defended at the sides by yellow
+      matting. The rigging&mdash; shrouds, halyards and all&mdash;was of
+      "Kaiar," or cocoa-nut fibres; and here and there the sails were patched
+      with plaited rushes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was not all. Whoso will pry, must needs light upon matters for
+      suspicion. Glancing over the side, in the wake of every scupper- hole, we
+      beheld a faded, crimson stain, which Jarl averred to be blood. Though now
+      he betrayed not the slightest trepidation; for what he saw pertained not
+      to ghosts; and all his fears hitherto had been of the super-natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, plucking up a heart, with the dawn of the day my Viking looked
+      bold as a lion; and soon, with the instinct of an old seaman cast his eyes
+      up aloft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Directly, he touched my arm,&mdash;"Look: what stirs in the main-top?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sure enough, something alive was there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fingering our arms, we watched it; till as the day came on, a crouching
+      stranger was beheld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presenting my piece, I hailed him to descend or be shot. There was silence
+      for a space, when the black barrel of a musket was thrust forth, leveled
+      at my head. Instantly, Jarl's harpoon was presented at a dart;&mdash;two
+      to one;&mdash;and my hail was repeated. But no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who are you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Samoa," at length said a clear, firm voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come down from the rigging. We are friends."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another pause; when, rising to his feet, the stranger slowly descended,
+      holding on by one hand to the rigging, for but one did he have; his musket
+      partly slung from his back, and partly griped under the stump of his
+      mutilated arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He alighted about six paces from where we stood; and balancing his weapon,
+      eyed us bravely as the Cid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a tall, dark Islander, a very devil to behold, theatrically arrayed
+      in kilt and turban; the kilt of a gay calico print, the turban of a red
+      China silk. His neck was jingling with strings of beads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who else is on board?" I asked; while Jarl, thus far covering the
+      stranger with his weapon, now dropped it to the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look there:&mdash;Annatoo!" was his reply in broken English, pointing
+      aloft to the fore-top. And lo! a woman, also an Islander; and barring her
+      skirts, dressed very much like Samoa, was beheld descending.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any more?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who are <i>you</i> then; and what craft is this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, ah&mdash;you are no ghost;&mdash;but are you my friend?" he cried,
+      advancing nearer as he spoke; while the woman having gained the deck, also
+      approached, eagerly glancing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We said we were friends; that we meant no harm; but desired to know what
+      craft this was; and what disaster had befallen her; for that something
+      untoward had occurred, we were certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereto, Samoa made answer, that it was true that something dreadful had
+      happened; and that he would gladly tell us all, and tell us the truth. And
+      about it he went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, this story of his was related in the mixed phraseology of a
+      Polynesian sailor. With a few random reflections, in substance, it will be
+      found in the six following chapters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII &mdash; What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the coast of
+      Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been miserably cobbled
+      together with planks of native wood, and fragments of a wreck, there
+      drifted ashore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the tallest
+      and goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands. With a mixed
+      European and native crew, about thirty in number (but only four whites in
+      all, captain included), the Parki, some four months previous, had sailed
+      from her port on a voyage southward, in quest of pearls, and pearl oyster
+      shells, sea-slugs, and other matters of that sort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samoa, a native of the Navigator Islands, had long followed the sea, and
+      was well versed in the business of oyster diving and its submarine
+      mysteries. The native Lahineese on board were immediately subordinate to
+      him; the captain having bargained with Samoa for their services as divers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman, Annatoo, was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to the
+      westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the commander
+      of a ship, touching there on a passage from Macao to Valparaiso. At
+      Valparaiso her protector put her ashore; most probably, as I afterward had
+      reason to think, for a nuisance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By chance it came to pass that when Annatoo's first virgin bloom had
+      departed, leaving nothing but a lusty frame and a lustier soul, Samoa, the
+      Navigator, had fallen desperately in love with her. And thinking the lady
+      to his mind, being brave like himself, and doubtless well adapted to the
+      vicissitudes of matrimony at sea, he meditated suicide&mdash;I would have
+      said, wedlock&mdash;and the twain became one. And some time after, in
+      capacity of wife, Annatoo the dame, accompanied in the brigantine, Samoa
+      her lord. Now, as Antony flew to the refuse embraces of Caesar, so Samoa
+      solaced himself in the arms of this discarded fair one. And the sequel was
+      the same. For not harder the life Cleopatra led my fine frank friend, poor
+      Mark, than Queen Annatoo did lead this captive of her bow and her spear.
+      But all in good time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They left their port; and crossing the Tropic and the Line, fell in with a
+      cluster of islands, where the shells they sought were found in round
+      numbers. And here&mdash;not at all strange to tell besides the natives,
+      they encountered a couple of Cholos, or half-breed Spaniards, from the
+      Main; one half Spanish, the other half quartered between the wild Indian
+      and the devil; a race, that from Baldivia to Panama are notorious for
+      their unscrupulous villainy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the half-breeds having long since deserted a ship at these islands,
+      had risen to high authority among the natives. This hearing, the Parki's
+      captain was much gratified; he, poor ignorant, never before having fallen
+      in with any of their treacherous race. And, no doubt, he imagined that
+      their influence over the Islanders would tend to his advantage. At all
+      events, he made presents to the Cholos; who, in turn, provided him with
+      additional divers from among the natives. Very kindly, also, they pointed
+      out the best places for seeking the oysters. In a word, they were
+      exceedingly friendly; often coming off to the brigantine, and sociably
+      dining with the captain in the cabin; placing the salt between them and
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All things went on very pleasantly until, one morning, the half- breeds
+      prevailed upon the captain to go with them, in his whale-boat, to a shoal
+      on the thither side of the island, some distance from the spot where lay
+      the brigantine. They so managed it, moreover, that none but the Lahineese
+      under Samoa, in whom the captain much confided, were left in custody of
+      the Parki; the three white men going along to row; for there happened to
+      be little or no wind for a sail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the fated brig lay anchored within a deep, smooth, circular lagoon,
+      margined on all sides but one by the most beautiful groves. On that side,
+      was the outlet to the sea; perhaps a cable's length or more from where the
+      brigantine had been moored. An hour or two after the party were gone, and
+      when the boat was completely out of sight, the natives in shoals were
+      perceived coming off from the shore; some in canoes, and some swimming.
+      The former brought bread fruit and bananas, ostentatiously piled up in
+      their proas; the latter dragged after them long strings of cocoanuts; for
+      all of which, on nearing the vessel, they clamorously demanded knives and
+      hatchets in barter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From their actions, suspecting some treachery, Samoa stood in the gangway,
+      and warned them off; saying that no barter could take place until the
+      captain's return. But presently one of the savages stealthily climbed up
+      from the water, and nimbly springing from the bob-stays to the bow-sprit,
+      darted a javelin full at the foremast, where it vibrated. The signal of
+      blood! With terrible outcries, the rest, pulling forth their weapons,
+      hitherto concealed in the canoes, or under the floating cocoanuts, leaped
+      into the low chains of the brigantine; sprang over the bulwarks; and, with
+      clubs and spears, attacked the aghast crew with the utmost ferocity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After one faint rally, the Lahineese scrambled for the rigging; but to a
+      man were overtaken and slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first alarm, Annatoo, however, had escaped to the
+fore-top-gallant-yard, higher than which she could not climb, and whither the
+      savages durst not venture. For though after their nuts these Polynesians
+      will climb palm trees like squirrels; yet, at the first blush, they
+      decline a ship's mast like Kennebec farmers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the first token of an onslaught, Samoa, having rushed toward the
+      cabin scuttle for arms, was there fallen upon by two young savages. But
+      after a desperate momentary fray, in which his arm was mangled, he made
+      shift to spring below, instantly securing overhead the slide of the
+      scuttle. In the cabin, while yet the uproar of butchery prevailed, he
+      quietly bound up his arm; then laying on the transom the captain's three
+      loaded muskets, undauntedly awaited an assault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The object of the natives, it seems, was to wreck the brigantine upon the
+      sharp coral beach of the lagoon. And with this intent, one of their number
+      had plunged into the water, and cut the cable, which was of hemp. But the
+      tide ebbing, cast the Parki's head seaward&mdash;toward the outlet; and
+      the savages, perceiving this, clumsily boarded the fore-tack, and hauled
+      aft the sheet; thus setting, after a fashion, the fore-sail, previously
+      loosed to dry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, a gray-headed old chief stood calmly at the tiller, endeavoring
+      to steer the vessel shoreward. But not managing the helm aright, the
+      brigantine, now gliding apace through the water, only made more way toward
+      the outlet. Seeing which, the ringleaders, six or eight in number, ran to
+      help the old graybeard at the helm. But it was a black hour for them. Of a
+      sudden, while they were handling the tiller, three muskets were rapidly
+      discharged upon them from the cabin skylight. Two of the savages dropped
+      dead. The old steersman, clutching wildly at the helm, fell over it,
+      mortally wounded; and in a wild panic at seeing their leaders thus
+      unaccountably slain, the rest of the natives leaped overboard and made for
+      the shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hearing the slashing, Samoa flew on deck; and beholding the foresail set,
+      and the brigantine heading right out to sea, he cried out to Annatoo,
+      still aloft, to descend to the topsail-yard, and loose the canvas there.
+      His command was obeyed. Annatoo deserved a gold medal for what she did
+      that day. Hastening down the rigging, after loosing the topsail, she
+      strained away at the sheets; in which operation she was assisted by Samoa,
+      who snatched an instant from the helm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foresail and fore-topsail were now tolerably well set; and as the
+      craft drew seaward, the breeze freshened. And well that it did; for,
+      recovered from their alarm, the savages were now in hot pursuit; some in
+      canoes, and some swimming as before. But soon the main-topsail was given
+      to the breeze, which still freshening, came from over the quarter. And
+      with this brave show of canvas, the Parki made gallantly for the outlet;
+      and loud shouted Samoa as she shot by the reef, and parted the long swells
+      without. Against these, the savages could not swim. And at that turn of
+      the tide, paddling a canoe therein was almost equally difficult. But the
+      fugitives were not yet safe. In full chase now came in sight the
+      whale-boat manned by the Cholos, and four or five Islanders. Whereat,
+      making no doubt, that all the whites who left the vessel that morning had
+      been massacred through the treachery of the half-breeds; and that the
+      capture of the brigantine had been premeditated; Samoa now saw no other
+      resource than to point his craft dead away from the land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now on came the devils buckling to their oars. Meantime Annatoo was still
+      busy aloft, loosing the smaller sails&mdash;t'gallants and royals, which
+      she managed partially to set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strong breeze from astern now filling the ill-set sails, they bellied,
+      and rocked in the air, like balloons, while, from the novel strain upon
+      it, every spar quivered and sprung. And thus, like a frightened gull
+      fleeing from sea-hawks, the little Parki swooped along, and bravely
+      breasted the brine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His shattered arm in a hempen sling, Samoa stood at the helm, the muskets
+      reloaded, and planted full before him on the binnacle. For a time, so
+      badly did the brigantine steer, by reason of her ill- adjusted sails, made
+      still more unmanageable by the strength of the breeze,&mdash;that it was
+      doubtful, after all, notwithstanding her start, whether the fugitives
+      would not yet fall a prey to their hunters. The craft wildly yawed, and
+      the boat drew nearer and nearer. Maddened by the sight, and perhaps
+      thinking more of revenge for the past, than of security for the future,
+      Samoa, yielding the helm to Annatoo, rested his muskets on the bulwarks,
+      and taking long, sure aim, discharged them, one by one at the advancing
+      foe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three reports were answered by loud jeers from the savages, who
+      brandished their spears, and made gestures of derision; while with might
+      and main the Cholos tugged at their oars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat still gaining on the brigantine, the muskets were again reloaded.
+      And as the next shot sped, there was a pause; when, like lightning, the
+      headmost Cholo bounded upwards from his seat, and oar in hand, fell into
+      the sea. A fierce yell; and one of the natives springing into the water,
+      caught the sinking body by its long hair; and the dead and the living were
+      dragged into the boat. Taking heart from this fatal shot, Samoa fired yet
+      again; but not with the like sure result; merely grazing the remaining
+      half-breed, who, crouching behind his comrades, besought them to turn the
+      boat round, and make for the shore. Alarmed at the fate of his brother,
+      and seemingly distrustful of the impartiality of Samoa's fire, the
+      pusillanimous villain refused to expose a limb above the gunwale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fain now would the pursuers have made good their escape; but an accident
+      forbade. In the careening of the boat, when the stricken Cholo sprung
+      overboard, two of their oars had slid into the water; and together with
+      that death-griped by the half-breed, were now floating off; occasionally
+      lost to view, as they sunk in the trough of the sea. Two of the Islanders
+      swam to recover them; but frightened by the whirring of a shot over their
+      heads, as they unavoidably struck out towards the Parki, they turned
+      quickly about; just in time to see one of their comrades smite his body
+      with his hand, as he received a bullet from Samoa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enough: darting past the ill-fated boat, they swam rapidly for land,
+      followed by the rest; who plunged overboard, leaving in the boat the
+      surviving Cholo&mdash;who it seems could not swim&mdash;the wounded
+      savage, and the dead man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Load away now, and take thy revenge, my fine fellow," said Samoa to
+      himself. But not yet. Seeing all at his mercy, and having none, he quickly
+      laid his fore-topsail to the mast; "hove to" the brigantine; and opened
+      fire anew upon the boat; every swell of the sea heaving it nearer and
+      nearer. Vain all efforts to escape. The wounded man paddled wildly with
+      his hands the dead one rolled from side to side; and the Cholo, seizing
+      the solitary oar, in his frenzied heedlessness, spun the boat round and
+      round; while all the while shot followed shot, Samoa firing as fast as
+      Annatoo could load. At length both Cholo and savage fell dead upon their
+      comrades, canting the boat over sideways, till well nigh awash; in which
+      manner she drifted off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII &mdash; Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was a small carronade on the forecastle, unshipped from its
+      carriage, and lashed down to ringbolts on the deck. This Samoa now loaded;
+      and with an ax knocking off the round knob upon the breech, rammed it home
+      in the tube. When, running the cannon out at one of the ports, and
+      studying well his aim, he let fly, sunk the boat, and buried his dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now late in the afternoon; and for the present bent upon avoiding
+      land, and gaining the shoreless sea, never mind where, Samoa again forced
+      round his craft before the wind, leaving the island astern. The decks were
+      still cumbered with the bodies of the Lahineese, which heel to point and
+      crosswise, had, log-like, been piled up on the main-hatch. These, one by
+      one, were committed to the sea; after which, the decks were washed down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At sunrise next morning, finding themselves out of sight of land, with
+      little or no wind, they stopped their headway, and lashed the tiller alee,
+      the better to enable them to overhaul the brigantine; especially the
+      recesses of the cabin. For there, were stores of goods adapted for barter
+      among the Islanders; also several bags of dollars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, nothing can exceed the cupidity of the Polynesian, when, through
+      partial commerce with the whites, his eyes are opened to his nakedness,
+      and he perceives that in some things they are richer than himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor skipper's wardrobe was first explored; his chests of clothes
+      being capsized, and their contents strown about the cabin floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then took place the costuming. Samoa and Annatoo trying on coats and
+      pantaloons, shirts and drawers, and admiring themselves in the little
+      mirror panneled in the bulk-head. Then, were broken open boxes and bales;
+      rolls of printed cotton were inspected, and vastly admired; insomuch, that
+      the trumpery found in the captain's chests was disdainfully doffed: and
+      donned were loose folds of calico, more congénial to their tastes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As case after case was opened and overturned, slippery grew the cabin deck
+      with torrents of glass beads; and heavy the necks of Samoa and Annatoo
+      with goodly bunches thereof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among other things, came to light brass jewelry,&mdash;Rag Fair gewgaws
+      and baubles a plenty, more admired than all; Annatoo, bedecking herself
+      like, a tragedy queen: one blaze of brass. Much mourned the married dame,
+      that thus arrayed, there was none to admire but Samoa her husband; but he
+      was all the while admiring himself, and not her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here must needs be related, what has hitherto remained unsaid. Very
+      often this husband and wife were no Darby and Joan. Their married life was
+      one long campaign, whereof the truces were only by night. They billed and
+      they cooed on their arms, rising fresh in the morning to battle, and often
+      Samoa got more than a hen-pecking. To be short, Annatoo was a Tartar, a
+      regular Calmuc, and Samoa&mdash;Heaven help him&mdash;her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet awhile, joined together by a sense of common danger, and long
+      engrossed in turning over their tinsel acquisitions without present
+      thought of proprietorship, the pair refrained from all squabbles. But soon
+      burst the storm. Having given every bale and every case a good shaking,
+      Annatoo, making an estimate of the whole, very coolly proceeded to set
+      apart for herself whatever she fancied. To this, Samoa objected; to which
+      objection Annatoo objected; and then they went at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady vowed that the things were no more Samoa's than hers; nay, not so
+      much; and that whatever she wanted, that same would she have. And
+      furthermore, by way of codicil, she declared that she was slave to nobody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Samoa, sad to tell, stood in no little awe of his bellicose spouse.
+      What, though a hero in other respects; what, though he had slain his
+      savages, and gallantly carried his craft from their clutches:&mdash;Like
+      the valiant captains Marlborough and Belisarius, he was a poltroon to his
+      wife. And Annatoo was worse than either Sarah or Antonina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, like every thing partaking of the nature of a scratch, most
+      conjugal squabbles are quickly healed; for if they healed not, they would
+      never anew break out: which is the beauty of the thing. So at length they
+      made up but the treaty stipulations of Annatoo told much against the
+      interests of Samoa. Nevertheless, ostensibly, it was agreed upon, that
+      they should strictly go halves; the lady, however, laying special claim to
+      certain valuables, more particularly fancied. But as a set-off to this,
+      she generously renounced all claims upon the spare rigging; all claims
+      upon the fore-mast and mainmast; and all claims upon the captain's arms
+      and ammunition. Of the latter, by the way, Dame Antonina stood in no need.
+      Her voice was a park of artillery; her talons a charge of bayonets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV &mdash; Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      By this time Samoa's wounded arm was in such a state, that amputation
+      became necessary. Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the
+      most part, accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking to his
+      couch in despair, the savage would disdain to recline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon, cutting
+      off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. No unusual thing, for the
+      warriors of Varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately wounded in
+      battle. But owing to the clumsiness of the instrument employed&mdash;a
+      flinty, serrated shell&mdash;the operation has been known to last several
+      days. Nor will they suffer any friend to help them; maintaining, that a
+      matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far better attended to by
+      himself. Hence it may be said, that they amputate themselves at their
+      leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. But, though thus beholden to
+      no one for aught connected with the practice of surgery, they never cut
+      off their own heads, that ever I heard; a species of amputation to which,
+      metaphorically speaking, many would-be independent sort of people in
+      civilized lands are addicted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samoa's operation was very summary. A fire was kindled in the little
+      caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then
+      placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber,
+      breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook's ax would have struck the blow;
+      but for some reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo was
+      assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just above the
+      elbow, was no longer Samoa's; and he saw his own bones; which many a
+      centenarian can not say. The very clumsiness of the operation was safety
+      to the subject. The weight and bluntness of the instrument both deadened
+      the pain and lessened the hemorrhage. The wound was then scorched, and
+      held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood vanished. From
+      that day forward it healed, and troubled Samoa but little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously averse to burying
+      in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that case Samoa
+      held, that he must very soon drown and follow it; and how, that equally
+      dreading to keep the thing near him, he at last hung it aloft from the
+      topmast-stay; where yet it was suspended, bandaged over and over in
+      cerements. The hand that must have locked many others in friendly clasp,
+      or smote a foe, was no food, thought Samoa, for fowls of the air nor
+      fishes of the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as Haman? Or the living
+      trunk below? Was the arm severed from the body, or the body from the arm?
+      The residual part of Samoa was alive, and therefore we say it was he. But
+      which of the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm, is the worm
+      proper?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For myself, I ever regarded Samoa as but a large fragment of a man, not a
+      man complete. For was he not an entire limb out of pocket? And the action
+      at Teneriffe over, great Nelson himself&mdash;physiologically speaking&mdash;was
+      but three-quarters of a man. And the smoke of Waterloo blown by, what was
+      Anglesea but the like? After Saratoga, what Arnold? To say nothing of
+      Mutius Scaevola minus a hand, General Knox a thumb, and Hannibal an eye;
+      and that old Roman grenadier, Dentatus, nothing more than a bruised and
+      battered trunk, a knotty sort of hemlock of a warrior, hard to hack and
+      hew into chips, though much marred in symmetry by battle-ax blows. Ah! but
+      these warriors, like anvils, will stand a deal of hard hammering.
+      Especially in the old knight-errant times. For at the battle of Brevieux
+      in Flanders, my glorious old gossiping ancestor, Froissart, informs me,
+      that ten good knights, being suddenly unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless
+      to the plain, fatally encumbered by their armor. Whereupon, the rascally
+      burglarious peasants, their foes, fell to picking their visors; as
+      burglars, locks; or oystermen, oysters; to get at their lives. But all to
+      no purpose. And at last they were fain to ask aid of a blacksmith; and not
+      till then, were the inmates of the armor dispatched. Now it was deemed
+      very hard, that the mysterious state- prisoner of France should be riveted
+      in an iron mask; but these knight-errants did voluntarily prison
+      themselves in their own iron Bastiles; and thus helpless were murdered
+      there-in. Days of chivalry these, when gallant chevaliers died chivalric
+      deaths!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this was the epic age, over whose departure my late eloquent and
+      prophetic friend and correspondent, Edmund Burke, so movingly mourned.
+      Yes, they were glorious times. But no sensible man, given to quiet
+      domestic delights, would exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a
+      heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty morning in
+      Normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved fingers, and vainly
+      striving to cook his cold coffee in his helmet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV &mdash; Peril A Peace-Maker
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A few days passed: the brigantine drifting hither and thither, and nothing
+      in sight but the sea, when forth again on its stillness rung Annatoo's
+      domestic alarum. The truce was up. Most egregiously had the lady infringed
+      it; appropriating to herself various objects previously disclaimed in
+      favor of Samoa. Besides, forever on the prowl, she was perpetually going
+      up and down; with untiring energy, exploring every nook and cranny;
+      carrying off her spoils and diligently secreting them. Having little idea
+      of feminine adaptations, she pilfered whatever came handy:&mdash;iron
+      hooks, dollars, bolts, hatchets, and stopping not at balls of marline and
+      sheets of copper. All this, poor Samoa would have borne with what patience
+      he might, rather than again renew the war, were it not, that the audacious
+      dame charged him with peculations upon her own private stores; though of
+      any such thing he was innocent as the bowsprit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This insulting impeachment got the better of the poor islander's
+      philosophy. He keenly resented it. And the consequence was, that seeing
+      all domineering useless, Annatoo flew off at a tangent; declaring that,
+      for the future, Samoa might stay by himself; she would have nothing more
+      to do with him. Save when unavoidable in managing the brigantine, she
+      would not even speak to him, that she wouldn't, the monster! She then
+      boldly demanded the forecastle&mdash;in the brig's case, by far the
+      pleasantest end of the ship&mdash;for her own independent suite of
+      apartments. As for hapless Belisarius, he might do what he pleased in his
+      dark little den of a cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Concerning the division of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in carrying
+      the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods, together with
+      numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover, she laid in a fine
+      stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to live independent of
+      her spouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unlovely Annatoo! Unfortunate Samoa! Thus did the pair make a divorce of
+      it; the lady going upon a separate maintenance,&mdash;and Belisarius
+      resuming his bachelor loneliness. In the captain's state room, all cold
+      and comfortless, he slept; his lady whilome retiring to her forecastle
+      boudoir; beguiling the hours in saying her pater-nosters, and tossing over
+      and assorting her ill-gotten trinkets and finery; like Madame De Maintenon
+      dedicating her last days and nights to continence and calicoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But think you this was the quiet end of their conjugal quarrels? Ah, no!
+      No end to those feuds, till one or t'other gives up the ghost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, exiled from the nuptial couch, Belisarius bore the hardship without a
+      murmur. And hero that he was, who knows that he felt not like a soldier on
+      a furlough? But as for Antonina, she could neither get along with
+      Belisarius, nor without him. She made advances. But of what sort? Why,
+      breaking into the cabin and purloining sundry goods therefrom; in artful
+      hopes of breeding a final reconciliation out of the temporary outburst
+      that might ensue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then followed a sad scene of altercation; interrupted at last by a sudden
+      loud roaring of the sea. Rushing to the deck, they beheld themselves
+      sweeping head-foremost toward a shoal making out from a cluster of low
+      islands, hitherto, by banks of clouds, shrouded from view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The helm was instantly shifted; and the yards braced about. But for
+      several hours, owing to the freshness of the breeze, the set of the
+      currents, and the irregularity and extent of the shoal, it seemed doubtful
+      whether they would escape a catastrophe. But Samoa's seamanship, united to
+      Annatoo's industry, at last prevailed; and the brigantine was saved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the land where they came so near being wrecked, they knew nothing; and
+      for that reason, they at once steered away. For after the fatal events
+      which had overtaken the Parki at the Pearl Shell islands, so fearful were
+      they of encountering any Islanders, that from the first they had resolved
+      to keep open sea, shunning every appearance of land; relying upon being
+      eventually picked up by some passing sail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless this resolution proved their salvation. For to the navigator in
+      these seas, no risk so great, as in approaching the isles; which mostly
+      are so guarded by outpost reefs, and far out from their margins environed
+      by perils, that the green flowery field within, lies like a rose among
+      thorns; and hard to be reached as the heart of proud maiden. Though once
+      attained, all three&mdash;red rose, bright shore, and soft heart&mdash;are
+      full of love, bloom, and all manner of delights. The Pearl Shell islands
+      excepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, in those generally tranquil waters, Samoa's little craft, though
+      hundreds of miles from land, was very readily managed by himself and
+      Annatoo. So small was the Parki, that one hand could brace the main-yard;
+      and a very easy thing it was, even to hoist the small top-sails; for after
+      their first clumsy attempt to perform that operation by hand, they
+      invariably led the halyards to the windlass, and so managed it, with the
+      utmost facility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI &mdash; Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Still many days passed and the Parki yet floated. The little flying- fish
+      got used to her familiar, loitering hull; and like swallows building their
+      nests in quiet old trees, they spawned in the great green barnacles that
+      clung to her sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The calmer the sea, the more the barnacles grow. In the tropical Pacific,
+      but a few weeks suffice thus to encase your craft in shell armor. Vast
+      bunches adhere to the very cutwater, and if not stricken off, much impede
+      the ship's sailing. And, at intervals, this clearing away of barnacles was
+      one of Annatoo's occupations. For be it known, that, like most termagants,
+      the dame was tidy at times, though capriciously; loving cleanliness by
+      fits and starts. Wherefore, these barnacles oftentimes troubled her; and
+      with a long pole she would go about, brushing them aside. It beguiled the
+      weary hours, if nothing more; and then she would return to her beads and
+      her trinkets; telling them all over again; murmuring forth her devotions,
+      and marking whether Samoa had been pilfering from her store.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the escape from the shoal did much once again to heal the differences
+      of the good lady and her spouse. And keeping house, as they did, all alone
+      by themselves, in that lonely craft, a marvel it is, that they should ever
+      have quarreled. And then to divorce, and yet dwell in the same tenement,
+      was only aggravating the evil. So Belisarius and Antonina again came
+      together. But now, grown wise by experience, they neither loved
+      over-keenly, nor hated; but took things as they were; found themselves
+      joined, without hope of a sundering, and did what they could to make a
+      match of the mate. Annatoo concluded that Samoa was not wholly to be
+      enslaved; and Samoa thought best to wink at Annatoo's foibles, and let her
+      purloin when she pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as in many cases, all this philosophy about wedlock is not proof
+      against the perpetual contact of the parties concerned; and as it is far
+      better to revive the old days of courtship, when men's mouths are
+      honey-combs: and, to make them still sweeter, the ladies the bees which
+      there store their sweets; when fathomless raptures glimmer far down in the
+      lover's fond eye; and best of all, when visits are alternated by absence:
+      so, like my dignified lord duke and his duchess, Samoa and Annatoo, man
+      and wife, dwelling in the same house, still kept up their separate
+      quarters. Marlborough visiting Sarah; and Sarah, Marlborough, whenever the
+      humor suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII &mdash; In Which The Past History Op The Parki Is Concluded
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Still days, days, days sped by; and steering now this way, now that, to
+      avoid the green treacherous shores, which frequently rose into view, the
+      Parki went to and fro in the sea; till at last, it seemed hard to tell, in
+      what watery world she floated. Well knowing the risks they ran, Samoa
+      desponded. But blessed be ignorance. For in the day of his despondency,
+      the lively old lass his wife bade him be of stout heart, cheer up, and
+      steer away manfully for the setting sun; following which, they must
+      inevitably arrive at her own dear native island, where all their cares
+      would be over. So squaring their yards, away they glided; far sloping down
+      the liquid sphere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the afternoon of the day we caught sight of them in our boat, they
+      had sighted a cluster of low islands, which put them in no small panic,
+      because of their resemblance to those where the massacre had taken place.
+      Whereas, they must have been full five hundred leagues from that fearful
+      vicinity. However, they altered their course to avoid it; and a little
+      before sunset, dropping the islands astern, resumed their previous track.
+      But very soon after, they espied our little sea-goat, bounding over the
+      billows from afar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This they took for a canoe giving chase to them. It renewed and augmented
+      their alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when at last they perceived that the strange object was a boat, their
+      fears, instead of being allayed, only so much the more increased. For
+      their wild superstitions led them to conclude, that a white man's craft
+      coming upon them so suddenly, upon the open sea, and by night, could be
+      naught but a phantom. Furthermore, marking two of us in the Chamois, they
+      fancied us the ghosts of the Cholos. A conceit which effectually damped
+      Samoa's courage, like my Viking's, only proof against things tangible. So
+      seeing us bent upon boarding the brigantine; after a hurried over-turning
+      of their chattels, with a view of carrying the most valuable aloft for
+      safe keeping, they secreted what they could; and together made for the
+      fore-top; the man with a musket, the woman with a bag of beads. Their
+      endeavoring to secure these treasures against ghostly appropriation
+      originated in no real fear, that otherwise they would be stolen: it was
+      simply incidental to the vacant panic into which they were thrown. No
+      reproach this, to Belisarius' heart of game; for the most intrepid Feegee
+      warrior, he who has slain his hecatombs, will not go ten yards in the dark
+      alone, for fear of ghosts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their purpose was to remain in the top until daylight; by which time, they
+      counted upon the withdrawal of their visitants; who, sure enough, at last
+      sprang on board, thus verifying their worst apprehensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They watched us long and earnestly. But curious to tell, in that very
+      strait of theirs, perched together in that airy top, their domestic
+      differences again broke forth; most probably, from their being suddenly
+      forced into such very close contact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However that might be, taking advantage of our descent into the cabin,
+      Samoa, in desperation fled from his wife, and one-armed as he was,
+      sailor-like, shifted himself over by the fore and aft-stays to the
+      main-top, his musket being slung to his back. And thus divided, though but
+      a few yards intervened, the pair were as much asunder as if at the
+      opposite Poles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the live-long night they were both in great perplexity as to the
+      extraordinary goblins on board. Such inquisitive, meddlesome spirits, had
+      never before been encountered. So cool and systematic; sagaciously
+      stopping the vessel's headway the better to rummage;&mdash;the very plan
+      they themselves had adopted. But what most surprised them, was our
+      striking a light, a thing of which no true ghost would be guilty. Then,
+      our eating and drinking on the quarter- deck including the deliberate
+      investment of Vienna; and many other actions equally strange, almost led
+      Samoa to fancy that we were no shades, after all, but a couple of men from
+      the moon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet they had dimly caught sight of the frocks and trowsers we wore,
+      similar to those which the captain of the Parki had bestowed upon the two
+      Cholos, and in which those villains had been killed. This, with the
+      presence of the whale boat, united to chase away the conceit of our lunar
+      origin. But these considerations renewed their first superstitious
+      impressions of our being the ghosts of the murderous half-breeds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, while during the latter part of the night we were reclining
+      beneath him, munching our biscuit, Samoa eyeing us intently, was half a
+      mind to open fire upon us by way of testing our corporeality. But most
+      luckily, he concluded to defer so doing till sunlight; if by that time we
+      should not have evaporated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For dame Annatoo, almost from our first boarding the brigantine, something
+      in our manner had bred in her a lurking doubt as to the genuineness of our
+      atmospheric organization; and abandoned to her speculations when Samoa
+      fled from her side, her incredulity waxed stronger and stronger. Whence we
+      came she knew not; enough, that we seemed bent upon pillaging her own
+      precious purloinings. Alas! thought she, my buttons, my nails, my tappa,
+      my dollars, my beads, and my boxes!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrought up to desperation by these dismal forebodings, she at length shook
+      the ropes leading from her own perch to Samoa's; adopting this method of
+      arousing his attention to the heinousness of what was in all probability
+      going on in the cabin, a prelude most probably to the invasion of her own
+      end of the vessel. Had she dared raise her voice, no doubt she would have
+      suggested the expediency of shooting us so soon as we emerged from the
+      cabin. But failing to shake Samoa into an understanding of her views on
+      the subject, her malice proved futile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When her worst fears were confirmed, however, and we actually descended
+      into the forecastle; there ensued such a reckless shaking of the ropes,
+      that Samoa was fain to hold on hard, for fear of being tossed out of the
+      rigging. And it was this violent rocking that caused the loud creaking of
+      the yards, so often heard by us while below in Annatoo's apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the fore-top being just over the open forecastle scuttle, the dame
+      could look right down upon us; hence our proceedings were plainly revealed
+      by the lights that we carried. Upon our breaking open her strong-box, her
+      indignation almost completely overmastered her fears. Unhooking a
+      top-block, down it came into the forecastle, charitably commissioned with
+      the demolition of Jarl's cocoa-nut, then more exposed to the view of an
+      aerial observer than my own. But of it turned out, no harm was done to our
+      porcelain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, morning dawned; when ensued Jarl's discovery as the occupant of
+      the main-top; which event, with what followed, has been duly recounted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And such, in substance, was the first, second, third and fourth acts of
+      the Parki drama. The fifth and last, including several scenes, now
+      follows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII &mdash; Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Though abounding in details full of the savor of reality, Samoa's
+      narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory. Not that it was
+      so strange; for stranger recitals I had heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one reason, perhaps, was that I had anticipated a narrative quite
+      different; something agreeing with my previous surmises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen islands the
+      day preceding; though, upon reflection, that might have been the case, and
+      yet, from his immediately altering the Parki's course, the Chamois,
+      unknowingly might have sailed by their vicinity. Still, those islands
+      could form no part of the chain we were seeking. They must have been some
+      region hitherto undiscovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But seems it likely, thought I, that one, who, according to his own
+      account, has conducted himself so heroically in rescuing the brigantine,
+      should be the victim of such childish terror at the mere glimpse of a
+      couple of sailors in an open boat, so well supplied, too, with arms, as he
+      was, to resist their capturing his craft, if such proved their intention?
+      On the contrary, would it not have been more natural, in his dreary
+      situation, to have hailed our approach with the utmost delight? But then
+      again, we were taken for phantoms, not flesh and blood. Upon the whole, I
+      regarded the narrator of these things somewhat distrustfully. But he met
+      my gaze like a man. While Annatoo, standing by, looked so expressively the
+      Amazonian character imputed to her, that my doubts began to waver. And
+      recalling all the little incidents of their story, so hard to be conjured
+      up on the spur of a presumed necessity to lie; nay, so hard to be conjured
+      up at all; my suspicions at last gave way. And I could no longer harbor
+      any misgivings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, to be downright, what object could Samoa have, in fabricating such a
+      narrative of horrors&mdash;those of the massacre, I mean&mdash;unless to
+      conceal some tragedy, still more atrocious, in which he himself had been
+      criminally concerned? A supposition, which, for obvious reasons, seemed
+      out of the question. True, instances were known to me of half- civilized
+      beings, like Samoa, forming part of the crews of ships in these seas,
+      rising suddenly upon their white ship-mates, and murdering them, for the
+      sake of wrecking the ship on the shore of some island near by, and
+      plundering her hull, when stranded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But had this been purposed with regard to the Parki, where the rest of the
+      mutineers? There was no end to my conjectures; the more I &mdash; indulged
+      in them, the more they multiplied. So, unwilling to torment myself, when
+      nothing could be learned, but what Samoa related, and stuck to like a
+      hero; I gave over conjecturing at all; striving hard to repose full faith
+      in the Islander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could be brought
+      completely to credit the tale. He stoutly maintained that the hobgoblins
+      must have had something or other to do with the Parki.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine, Samoa himself
+      turned inquisitor. He desired to know who we were; and whence we came in
+      our marvelous boat. But on these heads I thought best to withhold from him
+      the truth; among other things, fancying that if disclosed, it would lessen
+      his deference for us, as men superior to himself. I therefore spoke
+      vaguely of our adventures, and assumed the decided air of a master; which
+      I perceived was not lost upon the rude Islander. As for Jarl, and what he
+      might reveal, I embraced the first opportunity to impress upon him the
+      importance of never divulging our flight from the Arcturion; nor in any
+      way to commit himself on that head: injunctions which he faithfully
+      promised to observe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If not wholly displeased with the fine form of Samoa, despite his savage
+      lineaments, and mutilated member, I was much less conciliated by the
+      person of Annatoo; who, being sinewy of limb, and neither young, comely,
+      nor amiable, was exceedingly distasteful in my eyes. Besides, she was a
+      tigress. Yet how avoid admiring those Penthesilian qualities which so
+      signally had aided Samoa, in wresting the Parki from its treacherous
+      captors. Nevertheless, it was indispensable that she should at once be
+      brought under prudent subjection; and made to know, once for all, that
+      though conjugally a rebel, she must be nautically submissive. For to keep
+      the sea with a Calmuc on board, seemed next to impossible. In most
+      military marines, they are prohibited by law; no officer may take his
+      Pandora and her bandbox off soundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the way, this self-same appellative, Pandora, has been bestowed upon
+      vessels. There was a British ship by that name, dispatched in quest of the
+      mutineers of the Bounty. But any old tar might have prophesied her fate.
+      Bound home she was wrecked on a reef off New South Wales. Pandora, indeed!
+      A pretty name for a ship: fairly smiting Fate in the face. But in this
+      matter of christening ships of war, Christian nations are but too apt to
+      be dare-devils. Witness the following: British names all&mdash;The
+      Conqueror, the Defiance, the Revenge, the Spitfire, the Dreadnaught, the
+      Thunderer, and the Tremendous; not omitting the Etna, which, in the Roads
+      of Corfu, was struck by lightning, coming nigh being consumed by fire from
+      above. But almost potent as Moses' rod, Franklin's proved her salvation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the above catalogue, compare we the Frenchman's; quite characteristic
+      of the aspirations of Monsieur:&mdash;The Destiny, the Glorious, the
+      Magnanimous, the Magnificent, the Conqueror, the Triumphant, the
+      Indomitable, the Intrepid, the Mont-Blanc. Lastly, the Dons; who have
+      ransacked the theology of the religion of peace for fine names for their
+      fighting ships; stopping not at designating one of their three-deckers,
+      The Most Holy Trinity. But though, at Trafalgar, the Santissima Trinidada
+      thundered like Sinai, her thunders were silenced by the victorious
+      cannonade of the Victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And without being blown into splinters by artillery, how many of these
+      Redoubtables and Invincibles have succumbed to the waves, and like
+      braggarts gone down before hurricanes, with their bravadoes broad on their
+      bows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much better the American names (barring Scorpions, Hornets, and Wasps;)
+      Ohio, Virginia, Carolina, Vermont. And if ever these Yankees fight great
+      sea engagements&mdash;which Heaven forefend!&mdash;how glorious,
+      poetically speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth
+      a broadside from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious indeed! yet in
+      that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the shade of peace-loving Penn be
+      astounded, to see the mightiest murderer of them all, the great
+      Pennsylvania, a very namesake of his. Truly, the Pennsylvania's guns
+      should be the wooden ones, called by men-of- war's-men, Quakers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all this is an episode, made up of digressions. Time to tack ship, and
+      return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in its proper place, I omitted to mention, that shortly after
+      descending from the rigging, and while Samoa was rehearsing his
+      adventures, dame Annatoo had stolen below into the forecastle, intent upon
+      her chattels. And finding them all in mighty disarray, she returned to the
+      deck prodigiously, excited, and glancing angrily toward Jarl and me,
+      showered a whole torrent of objurgations into both ears of Samoa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This contempt of my presence surprised me at first; but perhaps women are
+      less apt to be impressed by a pretentious demeanor, than men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, to use a fighting phrase, there is nothing like boarding an enemy in
+      the smoke. And therefore, upon this first token of Annatoo's termagant
+      qualities, I gave her to understand&mdash;craving her pardon&mdash; that
+      neither the vessel nor aught therein was hers; but that every thing
+      belonged to the owners in Lahina. I added, that at all hazards, a stop
+      must be put to her pilferings. Rude language for feminine ears; but how to
+      be avoided? Here was an infatuated woman, who, according to Samoa's
+      account, had been repeatedly detected in the act of essaying to draw out
+      the screw-bolts which held together the planks. Tell me; was she not worse
+      than the Load-Stone Rock, sailing by which a stout ship fell to pieces?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this scene, Samoa said little. Perhaps he was secretly pleased that
+      his matrimonial authority was reinforced by myself and my Viking, whose
+      views of the proper position of wives at sea, so fully corresponded with
+      his own; however difficult to practice, those purely theoretical ideas of
+      his had hitherto proved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more turning to Annatoo, now looking any thing but amiable, I &mdash;
+      observed, that all her clamors would be useless; and that if it came to
+      the worst, the Parki had a hull that would hold her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end she went off in a fit of the sulks; sitting down on the
+      windlass and glaring; her arms akimbo, and swaying from side to side;
+      while ever and anon she gave utterance to a dismal chant. It sounded like
+      an invocation to the Cholos to rise and dispatch us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX &mdash; What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The
+      Craft, And The
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Resolution They Came To
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Descending into the cabin with Samoa, I bade him hunt up the brigantine's
+      log, the captain's writing-desk, and nautical instruments; in a word,
+      aught that could throw light on the previous history of the craft, or aid
+      in navigating her homeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But nearly every thing of the kind had disappeared: log, quadrant, and
+      ship's papers. Nothing was left but the sextant-case, which Jarl and I had
+      lighted upon in the state-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this, vague though they were, my suspicions returned; and I &mdash;
+      closely questioned the Islander concerning the disappearance of these
+      important articles. In reply, he gave me to understand, that the nautical
+      instruments had been clandestinely carried down into the forecastle by
+      Annatoo; and by that indefatigable and inquisitive dame they had been
+      summarily taken apart for scientific inspection. It was impossible to
+      restore them; for many of the fixtures were lost, including the colored
+      glasses, sights, and little mirrors; and many parts still recoverable,
+      were so battered and broken as to be entirely useless. For several days
+      afterward, we now and then came across bits of the quadrant or sextant;
+      but it was only to mourn over their fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, though sextant and quadrant were both unattainable, I did not so
+      quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which, if in good
+      order, though at present not ticking, might still be made in some degree
+      serviceable. But no such instrument was to be seen. No: nor to be heard
+      of; Samoa himself professing utter ignorance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Annatoo, I threatened and coaxed; describing the chronometer&mdash;a live,
+      round creature like a toad, that made a strange noise, which I &mdash;
+      imitated; but she knew nothing about it. Whether she had lighted upon it
+      unbeknown to Samoa, and dissected it as usual, there was now no way to
+      determine. Indeed, upon this one point, she maintained an air of such
+      inflexible stupidity, that if she were really fibbing, her dead-wall
+      countenance superseded the necessity for verbal deceit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be, however, that in this particular she was wronged; for, as with
+      many small vessels, the Parki might never have possessed the instrument in
+      question. All thought, therefore, of feeling our way, as we should
+      penetrate farther and farther into the watery wilderness, was necessarily
+      abandoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The log book had also formed a portion of Annatoo's pilferings. It seems
+      she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. But after amusing herself
+      by again and again counting over the leaves, and wondering how so many
+      distinct surfaces could be compacted together in so small a compass, she
+      had very suddenly conceived an aversion to literature, and dropped the
+      book overboard as worthless. Doubtless, it met the fate of many other
+      ponderous tomes; sinking quickly and profoundly. What Camden or Stowe
+      hereafter will dive for it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening Samoa brought me a quarto half-sheet of yellowish, ribbed
+      paper, much soiled and tarry, which he had discovered in a dark hole of
+      the forecastle. It had plainly formed part of the lost log; but all the
+      writing thereon, at present decipherable, conveyed no information upon the
+      subject then nearest my heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one could not but be struck by a tragical occurrence, which the page
+      very briefly recounted; as well, as by a noteworthy pictorial illustration
+      of the event in the margin of the text. Save the cut, there was no further
+      allusion to the matter than the following:&mdash; "This day, being calm,
+      Tooboi, one of the Lahina men, went overboard for a bath, and was eaten up
+      by a shark. Immediately sent forward for his bag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, this last sentence was susceptible of two meanings. It is truth, that
+      immediately upon the decease of a friendless sailor at sea, his shipmates
+      oftentimes seize upon his effects, and divide them; though the dead man's
+      clothes are seldom worn till a subsequent voyage. This proceeding seems
+      heartless. But sailors reason thus: Better we, than the captain. For by
+      law, either scribbled or unscribbled, the effects of a mariner, dying on
+      shipboard, should be held in trust by that officer. But as sailors are
+      mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry all their kith and kin in their
+      arms and their legs, there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim
+      their estate; seldom worth inheriting, like Esterhazy's. Wherefore, the
+      withdrawal of a dead man's "kit" from the forecastle to the cabin, is
+      often held tantamount to its virtual appropriation by the captain. At any
+      rate, in small ships on long voyages, such things have been done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much being said, then, the sentence above quoted from the Parki's
+      log, may be deemed somewhat ambiguous. At the time it struck me as
+      singular; for the poor diver's grass bag could not have contained much of
+      any thing valuable unless, peradventure, he had concealed therein some
+      Cleopatra pearls, feloniously abstracted from the shells brought up from
+      the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aside of the paragraph, copied above, was a pen-and-ink sketch of the
+      casualty, most cruelly executed; the poor fellow's legs being represented
+      half way in the process of deglutition; his arms firmly grasping the
+      monster's teeth, as if heroically bent upon making as tough a morsel of
+      himself as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no doubt the honest captain sketched this cenotaph to the departed in
+      all sincerity of heart; perhaps, during the melancholy leisure which
+      followed the catastrophe. Half obliterated were several stains upon the
+      page; seemingly, lingering traces of a salt tear or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this unwonted embellishment of the text, I was led to infer, that the
+      designer, at one time or other, must have been engaged in the vocation of
+      whaling. For, in India ink, the logs of certain whalemen are decorated by
+      somewhat similar illustrations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When whales are seen, but not captured, the fact is denoted by an outline
+      figure representing the creature's flukes, the broad, curving lobes of his
+      tail. But in those cases where the monster is both chased and killed, this
+      outline is filled up jet black; one for every whale slain; presenting
+      striking objects in turning over the log; and so facilitating reference.
+      Hence, it is quite imposing to behold, all in a row, three or four,
+      sometime five or six, of these drawings; showing that so many monsters
+      that day jetted their last spout. And the chief mate, whose duty it is to
+      keep the ship's record, generally prides himself upon the beauty, and
+      flushy likeness to life, of his flukes; though, sooth to say, many of
+      these artists are no Landseers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After vainly searching the cabin for those articles we most needed, we
+      proceeded to explore the hold, into which as yet we had not penetrated.
+      Here, we found a considerable quantity of pearl shells; cocoanuts; an
+      abundance of fresh water in casks; spare sails and rigging; and some fifty
+      barrels or more of salt beef and biscuit. Unromantic as these last
+      mentioned objects were, I lingered over them long, and in a revery.
+      Branded upon each barrel head was the name of a place in America, with
+      which I was very familiar. It is from America chiefly, that ship's stores
+      are originally procured for the few vessels sailing out of the Hawaiian
+      Islands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having now acquainted myself with all things respecting the Parki, which
+      could in any way be learned, I repaired to the quarter-deck, and summoning
+      round me Samoa, Annatoo, and Jarl, gravely addressed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said, that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than forthwith to
+      return to the scene of the massacre, and chastise its surviving authors.
+      But as there were only four of us in all; and the place of those islands
+      was wholly unknown to me; and even if known, would be altogether out of
+      our reach, since we possessed no instruments of navigation; it was quite
+      plain that all thought of returning thither was entirely useless. The last
+      mentioned reason, also, prevented our voyaging to the Hawaiian group,
+      where the vessel belonged; though that would have been the most advisable
+      step, resulting, as it would, if successful, in restoring the ill-fated
+      craft to her owners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all things considered, it seemed best, I added, cautiously to hold on
+      our way to the westward. It was our easiest course; for we would ever have
+      the wind from astern; and though we could not so much as hope to arrive at
+      any one spot previously designated, there was still a positive certainty,
+      if we floated long enough, of falling in with islands whereat to refresh
+      ourselves; and whence, if we thought fit, we might afterward embark for
+      more agreeable climes. I then reminded them of the fact, that so long as
+      we kept the sea, there was always some prospect of encountering a friendly
+      sail; in which event, our solicitude would be over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this I said in the mild, firm tone of a superior; being anxious, at
+      once to assume the unquestioned supremacy. For, otherwise, Jarl and I
+      might better quit the vessel forthwith, than remain on board subject to
+      the outlandish caprices of Annatoo, who through Samoa would then have the
+      sway. But I was sure of my Viking; and if Samoa proved docile, had no fear
+      of his dame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And therefore during my address, I steadfastly eyed him; thereby learning
+      enough to persuade me, that though he deferred to me at present, he was,
+      notwithstanding, a man who, without precisely meditating mischief, could
+      upon occasion act an ugly part. But of his courage, and savage honor, such
+      as it was, I had little doubt. Then, wild buffalo that he was, tamed down
+      in the yoke matrimonial, I &mdash; could not but fancy, that if upon no
+      other account, our society must please him, as rendering less afflictive
+      the tyranny of his spouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a hen-pecked husband, by the way, Samoa was a most terrible fellow to
+      behold. And though, after all, I liked him; it was as you fancy a fiery
+      steed with mane disheveled, as young Alexander fancied Bucephalus; which
+      wild horse, when he patted, he preferred holding by the bridle. But more
+      of Samoa anon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our course determined, and the command of the vessel tacitly yielded up to
+      myself, the next thing done was to put every thing in order. The tattered
+      sails were replaced by others, dragged up from the sail- room below; in
+      several places, new running-rigging was rove; blocks restrapped; and the
+      slackened stays and shrouds set taught. For all of which, we were mostly
+      indebted to my Viking's unwearied and skillful marling-spike, which he
+      swayed like a scepter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little Parki's toilet being thus thoroughly made for the first time
+      since the massacre, we gave her new raiment to the breeze, and daintily
+      squaring her yards, she gracefully glided away; honest old Jarl at the
+      helm, watchfully guiding her path, like some devoted old foster-father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I stood by his side like a captain, or walked up and down on the
+      quarter-deck, I felt no little importance upon thus assuming for the first
+      time in my life, the command of a vessel at sea. The novel circumstances
+      of the case only augmented this feeling; the wild and remote seas where we
+      were; the character of my crew, and the consideration, that to all
+      purposes, I was owner, as well as commander of the craft I sailed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX &mdash; Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      My original intention to touch at the Kingsmill Chain, or the countries
+      adjacent, was greatly strengthened by thus encountering Samoa; and the
+      more I had to do with my Belisarius, the more I was pleased with him. Nor
+      could I avoid congratulating myself, upon having fallen in with a hero,
+      who in various ways, could not fail of proving exceedingly useful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like any man of mark, Samoa best speaks for himself; but we may as well
+      convey some idea of his person. Though manly enough, nay, an obelisk in
+      stature, the savage was far from being sentimentally prepossessing. Be not
+      alarmed; but he wore his knife in the lobe of his dexter ear, which, by
+      constant elongation almost drooped upon his shoulder. A mode of sheathing
+      it exceedingly handy, and far less brigandish than the Highlander's dagger
+      concealed in his leggins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was the mother of Samoa, who at a still earlier day had punctured
+      him through and through in still another direction. The middle cartilage
+      of his nose was slightly pendent, peaked, and Gothic, and perforated with
+      a hole; in which, like a Newfoundland dog carrying a cane, Samoa sported a
+      trinket: a well polished nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In other respects he was equally a coxcomb. In his style of tattooing, for
+      instance, which seemed rather incomplete; his marks embracing but a
+      vertical half of his person, from crown to sole; the other side being free
+      from the slightest stain. Thus clapped together, as it were, he looked
+      like a union of the unmatched moieties of two distinct beings; and your
+      fancy was lost in conjecturing, where roamed the absent ones. When he
+      turned round upon you suddenly, you thought you saw some one else, not him
+      whom you had been regarding before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was one feature in Samoa beyond the reach of the innovations of
+      art:&mdash;his eye; which in civilized man or savage, ever shines in the
+      head, just as it shone at birth. Truly, our eyes are miraculous things.
+      But alas, that in so many instances, these divine organs should be mere
+      lenses inserted into the socket, as glasses in spectacle rims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But my Islander had a soul in his eye; looking out upon you there, like
+      somebody in him. What an eye, to be sure! At times, brilliantly changeful
+      as opal; in anger, glowing like steel at white heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Belisarius, be it remembered, had but very recently lost an arm. But you
+      would have thought he had been born without it; so Lord Nelson- like and
+      cavalierly did he sport the honorable stump.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no more of Samoa; only this: that his name had been given him by a
+      sea-captain; to whom it had been suggested by the native designation of
+      the islands to which he belonged; the Saviian or Samoan group, otherwise
+      known as the Navigator Islands. The island of Upolua, one of that cluster,
+      claiming the special honor of his birth, as Corsica does Napoleon's, we
+      shall occasionally hereafter speak of Samoa as the Upoluan; by which title
+      he most loved to be called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is ever ungallant to pass over a lady. But what shall be said of
+      Annatoo? As I live, I can make no pleasing portrait of the dame; for as in
+      most ugly subjects, flattering would but make the matter worse.
+      Furthermore, unalleviated ugliness should ever go unpainted, as something
+      unnecessary to duplicate. But the only ugliness is that of the heart, seen
+      through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the only loveliness is
+      invisible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI &mdash; Rovings Alow And Aloft
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Every one knows what a fascination there is in wandering up and down in a
+      deserted old tenement in some warm, dreamy country; where the vacant halls
+      seem echoing of silence, and the doors creak open like the footsteps of
+      strangers; and into every window the old garden trees thrust their dark
+      boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; and ever and anon the nails start
+      from the wainscot; while behind it the mice rattle like dice. Up and down
+      in such old specter houses one loves to wander; and so much the more, if
+      the place be haunted by some marvelous story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, very much such a
+      fancy had I, for prying about our little brigantine, whose tragic hull was
+      haunted by the memory of the massacre, of which it still bore innumerable
+      traces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so far as the indulgence of quiet strolling and reverie was concerned,
+      it was well nigh the same as if I were all by myself. For Samoa, for a
+      time, was rather reserved, being occupied with thoughts of his own. And
+      Annatoo seldom troubled me with her presence. She was taken up with her
+      calicoes and jewelry; which I had permitted her to retain, to keep her in
+      good humor if possible. And as for My royal old Viking, he was one of
+      those individuals who seldom speak, unless personally addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, all that by day was necessary to navigating the Parki was, that&mdash;somebody
+      should stand at the helm; the craft being so small, and the grating,
+      whereon the steersman stood, so elevated, that he commanded a view far
+      beyond the bowsprit; thus keeping Argus eyes on the sea, as he steered us
+      along. In all other respects we left the brigantine to the guardianship of
+      the gentle winds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My own turn at the helm&mdash;for though commander, I felt constrained to
+      do duty with the rest&mdash;came but once in the twenty-four hours. And
+      not only did Jarl and Samoa, officiate as helmsmen, but also Dame Annatoo,
+      who had become quite expert at the business. Though Jarl always maintained
+      that there was a slight drawback upon her usefulness in this vocation. Too
+      much taken up by her lovely image partially reflected in the glass of the
+      binnacle before her, Annatoo now and then neglected her duty, and led us
+      some devious dances. Nor was she, I ween, the first woman that ever led
+      men into zigzags.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the reasons above stated, I had many spare hours to myself. At times,
+      I mounted aloft, and lounging in the slings of the topsail yard&mdash;one
+      of the many snug nooks in a ship's rigging&mdash;I gazed broad off upon
+      the blue boundless sea, and wondered what they were doing in that unknown
+      land, toward which we were fated to be borne. Or feeling less meditative,
+      I roved about hither and thither; slipping over, by the stays, from one
+      mast to the other; climbing up to the truck; or lounging out to the ends
+      of the yards; exploring wherever there was a foothold. It was like
+      climbing about in some mighty old oak, and resting in the crotches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a sailor, a ship's ropes are a study. And to me, every rope-yarn of the
+      Parki's was invested with interest. The outlandish fashion of her shrouds,
+      the collars of her stays, the stirrups, seizings, Flemish-horses, gaskets,&mdash;all
+      the wilderness of her rigging, bore unequivocal traces of her origin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, perhaps, my pleasantest hours were those which I spent, stretched out
+      on a pile of old sails, in the fore-top; lazily dozing to the craft's
+      light roll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frequently, I descended to the cabin: for the fiftieth time, exploring the
+      lockers and state-rooms for some new object of curiosity. And often, with
+      a glimmering light, I went into the midnight hold, as into old vaults and
+      catacombs; and creeping between damp ranges of casks, penetrated into its
+      farthest recesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, I lighted upon sundry
+      out-of-the-way hiding places of Annatoo's; where were snugly secreted
+      divers articles, with which she had been smitten. In truth, no small
+      portion of the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its own
+      bowels. I found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain's, hidden away in the
+      hollow heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most
+      touchingly natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a breaker,
+      discovered several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied together with
+      cords almost strong enough to sustain the mainmast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down into
+      this part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as Charles
+      the First. And herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a discovery
+      which accounted for what had often proved an enigma. Not seldom Annatoo
+      had been among the missing; and though, from stem to stern, loudly invoked
+      to come forth and relieve the poignant distress of her anxious friends,
+      the dame remained perdu; silent and invisible as a spirit. But in her own
+      good time, she would mysteriously emerge; or be suddenly espied lounging
+      quietly in the forecastle, as if she had been there from all eternity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Useless to inquire, "Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo?" For no sweet
+      rejoinder would she give.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the problem was solved. Here, in this silent cask in the hold,
+      Annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about: whether
+      she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved to this
+      unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could tell. Can you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in building
+      their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a fool of a
+      sage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII &mdash; Xiphius Platypterus
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      About this time, the loneliness of our voyage was relieved by an event
+      worth relating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ever since leaving the Pearl Shell Islands, the Parki had been followed by
+      shoals of small fish, pleasantly enlivening the sea, and socially swimming
+      by her side. But in vain did Jarl and I search among their ranks for the
+      little, steel-blue Pilot fish, so long outriders of the Chamois. But
+      perhaps since the Chamois was now high and dry on the Parki's deck, our
+      bright little avant-couriers were lurking out of sight, far down in the
+      brine; racing along close to the keel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is not with the Pilot fish that we now have to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning our attention was attracted to a mighty commotion in the
+      water. The shoals of fish were darting hither and thither, and leaping
+      into the air in the utmost affright. Samoa declared, that their deadly foe
+      the Sword fish must be after them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here let me say, that, since of all the bullies, and braggarts, and
+      bravoes, and free-booters, and Hectors, and fish-at-arms, and
+      knight-errants, and moss-troopers, and assassins, and foot-pads, and
+      gallant soldiers, and immortal heroes that swim the seas, the Indian Sword
+      fish is by far the most remarkable, I propose to dedicate this chapter to
+      a special description of the warrior. In doing which, I &mdash; but follow
+      the example of all chroniclers and historians, my Peloponnesian friend
+      Thucydides and others, who are ever mindful of devoting much space to
+      accounts of eminent destroyers; for the purpose, no doubt, of holding them
+      up as ensamples to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the fish here treated of is a very different creature from the Sword
+      fish frequenting the Northern Atlantic; being much larger every way, and a
+      more dashing varlet to boot. Furthermore, he is denominated the Indian
+      Sword fish, in contradistinction from his namesake above mentioned. But by
+      seamen in the Pacific, he is more commonly known as the Bill fish; while
+      for those who love science and hard names, be it known, that among the
+      erudite naturalists he goeth by the outlandish appellation of "<i>Xiphius
+      Platypterus</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I waive for my hero all these his cognomens, and substitute a much
+      better one of my own: namely, the Chevalier. And a Chevalier he is, by
+      good right and title. A true gentleman of Black Prince Edward's bright
+      day, when all gentlemen were known by their swords; whereas, in times
+      present, the Sword fish excepted, they are mostly known by their high
+      polished boots and rattans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A right valiant and jaunty Chevalier is our hero; going about with his
+      long Toledo perpetually drawn. Rely upon it, he will fight you to the
+      hilt, for his bony blade has never a scabbard. He himself sprang from it
+      at birth; yea, at the very moment he leaped into the Battle of Life; as we
+      mortals ourselves spring all naked and scabbardless into the world. Yet,
+      rather, are we scabbards to our souls. And the drawn soul of genius is
+      more glittering than the drawn cimeter of Saladin. But how many let their
+      steel sleep, till it eat up the scabbard itself, and both corrode to
+      rust-chips. Saw you ever the hillocks of old Spanish anchors, and
+      anchor-stocks of ancient galleons, at the bottom of Callao Bay? The world
+      is full of old Tower armories, and dilapidated Venetian arsenals, and
+      rusty old rapiers. But true warriors polish their good blades by the
+      bright beams of the morning; and gird them on to their brave sirloins; and
+      watch for rust spots as for foes; and by many stout thrusts and stoccadoes
+      keep their metal lustrous and keen, as the spears of the Northern Lights
+      charging over Greenland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fire from the flint is our Chevalier enraged. He takes umbrage at the cut
+      of some ship's keel crossing his road; and straightway runs a tilt at it;
+      with one mad lounge thrusting his Andrea Ferrara clean through and
+      through; not seldom breaking it short off at the haft, like a bravo
+      leaving his poignard in the vitals of his foe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the case of the English ship Foxhound, the blade penetrated through the
+      most solid part of her hull, the bow; going completely through the copper
+      plates and timbers, and showing for several inches in the hold. On the
+      return of the ship to London, it was carefully sawn out; and, imbedded in
+      the original wood, like a fossil, is still preserved. But this was a
+      comparatively harmless onslaught of the valiant Chevalier. With the
+      Rousseau, of Nantucket, it fared worse. She was almost mortally stabbed;
+      her assailant withdrawing his blade. And it was only by keeping the pumps
+      clanging, that she managed to swim into a Tahitian harbor, "heave down,"
+      and have her wound dressed by a ship-surgeon with tar and oakum. This ship
+      I met with at sea, shortly after the disaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At what armory our Chevalier equips himself after one of his spiteful
+      tilting-matches, it would not be easy to say. But very hard for him, if
+      ever after he goes about in the lists, swordless and disarmed, at the
+      mercy of any caitiff shark he may meet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, seeing that our fellow-voyagers, the little fish along-side, were
+      sorely tormented and thinned out by the incursions of a pertinacious
+      Chevalier, bent upon making a hearty breakfast out of them, I determined
+      to interfere in their behalf, and capture the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With shark-hook and line I succeeded, and brought my brave gentleman to
+      the deck. He made an emphatic landing; lashing the planks with his sinewy
+      tail; while a yard and a half in advance of his eyes, reached forth his
+      terrible blade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As victor, I was entitled to the arms of the vanquished; so, quickly
+      dispatching him, and sawing off his Toledo, I bore it away for a trophy.
+      It was three-sided, slightly concave on each, like a bayonet; and some
+      three inches through at the base, it tapered from thence to a point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And though tempered not in Tagus or Guadalquiver, it yet revealed upon its
+      surface that wavy grain and watery fleckiness peculiar to tried blades of
+      Spain. It was an aromatic sword; like the ancient caliph's, giving out a
+      peculiar musky odor by friction. But far different from steel of Tagus or
+      Damascus, it was inflexible as Crocket's rifle tube; no doubt, as deadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long hung that rapier over the head of my hammock. Was it not storied as
+      the good trenchant blade of brave Bayard, that other chevalier? The
+      knight's may have slain its scores, or fifties; but the weapon I &mdash;
+      preserved had, doubtless, run through and riddled its thousands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII &mdash; Otard
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      And here is another little incident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One afternoon while all by myself curiously penetrating into the hold, I
+      most unexpectedly obtained proof, that the ill-fated captain of the Parki
+      had been a man of sound judgment and most excellent taste. In brief, I
+      lighted upon an aromatic cask of prime old Otard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, I mean not to speak lightly of any thing immediately connected with
+      the unfortunate captain. Nor, on the other hand, would I &mdash; resemble
+      the inconsolable mourner, who among other tokens of affliction, bound in
+      funereal crape his deceased friend's copy of Joe Miller. Is there not a
+      fitness in things?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let that pass. I found the Otard, and drank there-of; finding it,
+      moreover, most pleasant to the palate, and right cheering to the soul. My
+      next impulse was to share my prize with my shipmates. But here a judicious
+      reflection obtruded. From the sea-monarchs, his ancestors, my Viking had
+      inherited one of their cardinal virtues, a detestation and abhorrence of
+      all vinous and spirituous beverages; insomuch, that he never could see
+      any, but he instantly quaffed it out of sight. To be short, like Alexander
+      the Great and other royalties, Jarl was prone to overmuch bibing. And
+      though at sea more sober than a Fifth Monarchy Elder, it was only because
+      he was then removed from temptation. But having thus divulged my Viking's
+      weak; side, I earnestly entreat, that it may not disparage him in any
+      charitable man's estimation. Only think, how many more there are like him
+      to say nothing further of Alexander the Great&mdash;especially among his
+      own class; and consider, I beseech, that the most capacious-souled
+      fellows, for that very reason, are the most apt to be too liberal in their
+      libations; since, being so large-hearted, they hold so much more good
+      cheer than others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Samoa, from his utter silence hitherto as to aught inebriating on
+      board, I concluded, that, along with his other secrets, the departed
+      captain had very wisely kept his Otard to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor did I doubt, but that the Upoluan, like all Polynesians, much loved
+      getting high of head; and in that state, would be more intractable than a
+      Black Forest boar. And concerning Annatoo, I &mdash; shuddered to think,
+      how that Otard might inflame her into a Fury more fierce than the foremost
+      of those that pursued Orestes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In good time, then, bethinking me of the peril of publishing my discovery;&mdash;bethinking
+      me of the quiet, lazy, ever-present perils of the voyage, of all
+      circumstances, the very worst under which to introduce an intoxicating
+      beverage to my companions, I resolved to withhold it from them altogether.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So impressed was I with all this, that for a moment, I was almost tempted
+      to roll over the cask on its bilge, remove the stopper, and suffer its
+      contents to mix with the foul water at the bottom of the hold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no, no: What: dilute the brine with the double distilled soul of the
+      precious grape? Haft himself would have haunted me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then again, it might come into play medicinally; and Paracelsus himself
+      stands sponsor for every cup drunk for the good of the abdomen. So at
+      last, I determined to let it remain where it was: visiting it
+      occasionally, by myself, for inspection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But by way of advice to all ship-masters, let me say, that if your Otard
+      magazine be exposed to view&mdash;then, in the evil hour of wreck, stave
+      in your spirit-casks, ere rigging the life-boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV &mdash; How They Steered On Their Way
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at least
+      two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had abandoned
+      the Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been, North or South of
+      the Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line,
+      seemed obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme Polar
+      constellations was visible; though often we scanned the northern and
+      southern horizon in search of them. So far as regards the aspect of the
+      skies near the ocean's rim, the difference of several degrees in one's
+      latitude at sea, is readily perceived by a person long accustomed to
+      surveying the heavens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time here
+      alluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been making in
+      the Parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to sail, ere the
+      country we sought would be found. But for obvious reasons, how long
+      precisely we might continue to float out of sight of land, it was
+      impossible to say. Calms, light breezes, and currents made every thing
+      uncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating our due westward progress,
+      except by what is called Dead Reckoning,&mdash;the computation of the
+      knots run hourly; allowances' being made for the supposed deviations from
+      our course, by reason of the ocean streams; which at times in this quarter
+      of the Pacific run with very great velocity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the Parki than in
+      the Chamois. The sense of danger is less vivid, the greater the number of
+      lives involved. He who is ready to despair in solitary peril, plucks up a
+      heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of comrades is much
+      countenance and consolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, in the brigantine there were many sources of uneasiness and anxiety
+      unknown to me in the whale-boat. True, we had now between us and the deep,
+      five hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant little chip. But the
+      Parki required more care and attention; especially by night, when a
+      vigilant look-out was indispensable. With impunity, in our whale-boat, we
+      might have run close to shoal or reef; whereas, similar carelessness or
+      temerity now, might prove fatal to all concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, I
+      &mdash; was little troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of
+      darkness it was quite another thing. And the apprehensions, nay terrors I
+      &mdash; felt, were much augmented by the remissness of both Jarl and
+      Samoa, in keeping their night-watches. Several times I was seized with a
+      deadly panic, and earnestly scanned the murky horizon, when rising from
+      slumber I found the steersman, in whose hands for the time being were life
+      and death, sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of a fixture
+      there, as the open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Were it not, that on board of other vessels, I myself had many a time
+      dozed at the helm, spite of all struggles, I would have been almost at a
+      loss to account for this heedlessness in my comrades. But it seemed as if
+      the mere sense of our situation, should have been sufficient to prevent
+      the like conduct in all on board our craft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samoa's aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. His large
+      opal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the binnacle,
+      gleamed between the lids like bars of flame. And added to all, was his
+      giant stature and savage lineaments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in vain, that I remonstrated, begged, or threatened: the occasional
+      drowsiness of my fellow-voyagers proved incurable. To no purpose, I
+      reminded my Viking that sleeping in the night-watch in a craft like ours,
+      was far different from similar heedlessness on board the Arcturion. For
+      there, our place upon the ocean was always known, and our distance from
+      land; so that when by night the seamen were permitted to be drowsy, it was
+      mostly, because the captain well knew that strict watchfulness could be
+      dispensed with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though in all else, the Skyeman proved a most faithful ally, in this one
+      thing he was either perversely obtuse, or infatuated. Or, perhaps, finding
+      himself once more in a double-decked craft, which rocked him as of yore,
+      he was lulled into a deceitful security.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Samoa, his drowsiness was the drowsiness of one beat on sleep, come
+      dreams or death. He seemed insensible to the peril we ran. Often I sent
+      the sleepy savage below, sad, steered myself till morning. At last I made
+      a point of slumbering much by day, the better to stand watch by night;
+      though I made Samoa and Jarl regularly go through with their allotted four
+      hours each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been mentioned, that Annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it was
+      only by day. And in justice to the lady, I must affirm, that upon the
+      whole she acquitted herself well. For notwithstanding the syren face in
+      the binnacle, which dimly allured her glances, Annatoo after all was
+      tolerably heedful of her steering. Indeed she took much pride therein;
+      always ready for her turn; with marvelous exactitude calculating the
+      approaching hour, as it came on in regular rotation. Her time-piece was
+      ours, the sun. By night it must have been her guardian star; for
+      frequently she gazed up at a particular section of the heavens, like one
+      regarding the dial in a tower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By some odd reasoning or other, she had cajoled herself into the notion,
+      that whoever steered the brigantine, for that period was captain.
+      Wherefore, she gave herself mighty airs at the tiller; with extravagant
+      gestures issuing unintelligible orders about trimming the sails, or
+      pitching overboard something to see how fast we were going. All this much
+      diverted my Viking, who several times was delivered of a laugh; a loud and
+      healthy one to boot: a phenomenon worthy the chronicling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus much for Annatoo, preliminary to what is further to be said.
+      Seeing the drowsiness of Jarl and Samoa, which so often kept me from my
+      hammock at night, forcing me to repose by day, when I far preferred being
+      broad awake, I decided to let Annatoo take her turn at the night watches;
+      which several times she had solicited me to do; railing at the sleepiness
+      of her spouse; though abstaining from all reflections upon Jarl, toward
+      whom she had of late grown exceedingly friendly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the Calmuc stood her first night watch to admiration; if any thing,
+      was altogether too wakeful. The mere steering of the craft employed not
+      sufficiently her active mind. Ever and anon she must needs rush from the
+      tiller to take a parenthetical pull at the fore- brace, the end of which
+      led down to the bulwarks near by; then refreshing herself with a draught
+      or two of water and a biscuit, she would continue to steer away, full of
+      the importance of her office. At any unusual flapping of the sails, a
+      violent stamping on deck announced the fact to the startled crew. Finding
+      her thus indefatigable, I readily induced her to stand two watches to
+      Jarl's and Samoa's one; and when she was at the helm, I permitted myself
+      to doze on a pile of old sails, spread every evening on the quarter-deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Skyeman, who often admonished me to "heave the ship to" every
+      night, thus stopping her headway till morning; a plan which, under other
+      circumstances, might have perhaps warranted the slumbers of all. But as it
+      was, such a course would have been highly imprudent. For while making no
+      onward progress through the water, the rapid currents we encountered would
+      continually be drifting us eastward; since, contrary to our previous
+      experience, they seemed latterly to have reversed their flow, a phenomenon
+      by no means unusual in the vicinity of the Line in the Pacific. And this
+      it was that so prolonged our passage to the westward. Even in a moderate
+      breeze, I sometimes fancied, that the impulse of the wind little more than
+      counteracted the glide of the currents; so that with much show of sailing,
+      we were in reality almost a fixture on the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The equatorial currents of the South Seas may be regarded as among the
+      most mysterious of the mysteries of the deep. Whence they come, whither
+      go, who knows? Tell us, what hidden law regulates their flow. Regardless
+      of the theory which ascribes to them a nearly uniform course from east to
+      west, induced by the eastwardly winds of the Line, and the collateral
+      action of the Polar streams; these currents are forever shifting. Nor can
+      the period of their revolutions be at all relied upon or predicted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But however difficult it may be to assign a specific cause for the ocean
+      streams, in any part of the world, one of the wholesome effects thereby
+      produced would seem obvious enough. And though the circumstance here
+      alluded to is perhaps known to every body, it may be questioned, whether
+      it is generally invested with the importance it deserves. Reference is
+      here made to the constant commingling and purification of the sea-water by
+      reason of the currents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, that the ocean, according to the popular theory, possesses a special
+      purifying agent in its salts, is somewhat to be doubted. Nor can it be
+      explicitly denied, that those very salts might corrupt it, were it not for
+      the brisk circulation of its particles consequent upon the flow of the
+      streams. It is well known to seamen, that a bucket of sea-water, left
+      standing in a tropical climate, very soon becomes highly offensive; which
+      is not the case with rainwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I build no theories. And by way of obstructing the one, which might
+      possibly be evolved from the statement above, let me add, that the
+      offensiveness of sea-water left standing, may arise in no small degree
+      from the presence of decomposed animal matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXV &mdash; Ah, Annatoo!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In order to a complete revelation, I must needs once again discourse of
+      Annatoo and her pilferings; and to what those pilferings led. In the
+      simplicity of my soul, I fancied that the dame, so much flattered as she
+      needs must have been, by the confidence I began to repose in her, would
+      now mend her ways, and abstain from her larcenies. But not so. She was
+      possessed by some scores of devils, perpetually her to mischief on their
+      own separate behoof, and not less for many of her pranks were of no
+      earthly advantage to her, present or prospective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo. She came; but knew
+      nothing about it. Jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a substitute;
+      and a few days after, pop, we came upon the lost: article hidden away in
+      the main-top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another time, discovering the little vessel to "gripe" hard in steering,
+      as if some one under water were jerking her backward, we instituted a
+      diligent examination, to see what was the matter. When lo; what should we
+      find but a rope, cunningly attached to one of the chain-plates under the
+      starboard main-channel. It towed heavily in the water. Upon dragging it up&mdash;much
+      as you would the cord of a ponderous bucket far down in a well&mdash;a
+      stout wooden box was discovered at the end; which opened, disclosed sundry
+      knives, hatchets, and ax-heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Called to the stand, the Upoluan deposed, that thrice he had rescued that
+      identical box from Annatoo's all-appropriating clutches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, here were four human beings shut up in this little oaken craft, and,
+      for the time being, their interests the same. What sane mortal, then,
+      would forever be committing thefts, without rhyme or reason. It was like
+      stealing silver from one pocket and decanting it into the other. And what
+      might it not lead to in the end?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of the compass
+      from the binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute for it, the one
+      brought along in the Chamois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Jarl that first published this last and alarming theft. Annatoo
+      being at the helm at dawn, he had gone to relieve her; and looking to see
+      how we headed, was horror-struck at the emptiness of the binnacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously demanded the
+      compass. But her face was a blank; every word a denial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further lenity was madness. I summoned Samoa, told him what had happened,
+      and affirmed that there was no safety for us except in the nightly
+      incarceration of his spouse. To this he privily assented; and that very
+      evening, when Annatoo descended into the forecastle, we barred over her
+      the scuttle-slide. Long she clamored, but unavailingly. And every night
+      this was repeated; the dame saying her vespers most energetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has somewhere been hinted, that Annatoo occasionally cast sheep's eyes
+      at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised when her manner toward him
+      decidedly changed. Pulling at the ropes with us, she would give him sly
+      pinches, and then look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then again, she
+      would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with him; with wry faces,
+      rinsed out the wooden can at the water cask, if it so chanced that my
+      Viking had previously been drinking therefrom. At other times, when the
+      honest Skyeman came up from below, she would set up a shout of derision,
+      and loll out her tongue; accompanying all this by certain indecorous and
+      exceedingly unladylike gestures, significant of the profound contempt in
+      which she held him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, never did Jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently overlooked and
+      forgave it. Inquiring the reason of the dame's singular conduct, I
+      learned, that with eye averted, she had very lately crept close to my
+      Viking, and met with no tender reception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless, Jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently imagined that
+      ere long the lady would forgive and forget him. But what knows a
+      philosopher about women?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ere long, so outrageous became Annatoo's detestation of him, that the
+      honest old tar could stand it no longer, and like most good-natured men
+      when once fairly roused, he was swept through and through with a terrible
+      typhoon of passion. He proposed, that forthwith the woman should be sacked
+      and committed to the deep; he could stand it no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Murder is catching. At first I almost jumped at the proposition; but as
+      quickly rejected it. Ah! Annatoo: Woman unendurable: deliver me, ye gods,
+      from being shut up in a ship with such a hornet again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But are we yet through with her? Not yet. Hitherto she had continued to
+      perform the duties of the office assigned her since the commencement of
+      the voyage: namely, those of the culinary department. From this she was
+      now deposed. Her skewer was broken. My Viking solemnly averring, that he
+      would eat nothing more of her concocting, for fear of being poisoned. For
+      myself, I almost believed, that there was malice enough in the minx to
+      give us our henbane broth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what said Samoa to all this? Passing over the matter of the cookery,
+      will it be credited, that living right among us as he did, he was yet
+      blind to the premeditated though unachieved peccadilloes of his spouse?
+      Yet so it was. And thus blind was Belisarius himself, concerning the
+      intrigues of Antonina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Witness that noble dame's affair with the youth Theodosius; when her
+      deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns she had
+      bestowed upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate Annatoo's
+      thievings, Samoa proudly intimated, that the lady was the most virtuous of
+      her sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But alas, poor Annatoo, why say more? And bethinking me of the hard fate
+      that so soon overtook thee, I almost repent what has already and too
+      faithfully been portrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVI &mdash; The Parki Gives Up The Ghost
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A long calm in the boat, and now, God help us, another in the brigantine.
+      It was airless and profound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In that hot calm, we lay fixed and frozen in like Parry at the Pole. The
+      sun played upon the glassy sea like the sun upon the glaciers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of two days we lifted up our eyes and beheld a low, creeping,
+      hungry cloud expanding like an army, wing and wing, along the eastern
+      horizon. Instantly Jarl bode me take heed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here be it said, that though for weeks and weeks reign over the equatorial
+      latitudes of the Pacific, the mildest and sunniest of days; that
+      nevertheless, when storms do come, they come in their strength: spending
+      in a few, brief blasts their concentrated rage. They come like the
+      Mamelukes: they charge, and away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It wanted full an hour to sunset; but the sun was well nigh obscured. It
+      seemed toiling among bleak Scythian steeps in the hazy background. Above
+      the storm-cloud flitted ominous patches of scud, rapidly advancing and
+      receding: Attila's skirmishers, thrown forward in the van of his Huns.
+      Beneath, a fitful shadow slid along the surface. As we gazed, the cloud
+      came nearer; accelerating its approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With all haste we proceeded to furl the sails, which, owing to the calm,
+      had been hanging loose in the brails. And by help of a spare boom, used on
+      the forecastle-deck sit a sweep or great oar, we endeavored to cast the
+      brigantine's head toward the foe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The storm seemed about to overtake us; but we felt no breeze. The
+      noiseless cloud stole on; its advancing shadow lowering over a distinct
+      and prominent milk-white crest upon the surface of the ocean. But now this
+      line of surging foam came rolling down upon us like a white charge of
+      cavalry: mad Hotspur and plumed Murat at its head; pouring right forward
+      in a continuous frothy cascade, which curled over, and fell upon the
+      glassy sea before it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, no breath of air. But of a sudden, like a blow from a man's hand,
+      and before our canvas could be secured, the stunned craft, giving one
+      lurch to port, was stricken down on her beam-ends; the roaring tide dashed
+      high up against her windward side, and drops of brine fell upon the deck,
+      heavy as drops of gore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all a din and a mist; a crashing of spars and of ropes; a horrible
+      blending of sights and of sounds; as for an instant we seemed in the hot
+      heart of the gale; our cordage, like harp-strings, shrieking above the
+      fury of the blast. The masts rose, and swayed, and dipped their trucks in
+      the sea. And like unto some stricken buffalo brought low to the plain, the
+      brigantine's black hull, shaggy with sea-weed, lay panting on its flank in
+      the foam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frantically we clung to the uppermost bulwarks. And now, loud above the
+      roar of the sea, was suddenly heard a sharp, splintering sound, as of a
+      Norway woodman felling a pine in the forest. It was brave Jarl, who
+      foremost of all had snatched from its rack against the mainmast, the ax,
+      always there kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Cut the lanyards to windward!" he cried; and again buried his ax into the
+      mast. He was quickly obeyed. And upon cutting the third lanyard of the
+      five, he shouted for us to pause. Dropping his ax, he climbed up to
+      windward. As he clutched the rail, the wounded mast snapped in twain with
+      a report like a cannon. A slight smoke was perceptible where it broke. The
+      remaining lanyards parted. From the violent strain upon them, the two
+      shrouds flew madly into the air, and one of the great blocks at their
+      ends, striking Annatoo upon the forehead, she let go her hold upon a
+      stanchion, and sliding across the aslant deck, was swallowed up in the
+      whirlpool under our lea. Samoa shrieked. But there was no time to mourn;
+      no hand could reach to save.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the connecting stays, the mainmast carried over with it the foremast;
+      when we instantly righted, and for the time were saved; my own royal
+      Viking our saviour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first fury of the gale was gone. But far to leeward was seen the even,
+      white line of its onset, pawing the ocean into foam. All round us, the sea
+      boiled like ten thousand caldrons; and through eddy, wave, and surge, our
+      almost water-logged craft waded heavily; every dead clash ringing hollow
+      against her hull, like blows upon a coffin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We floated a wreck. With every pitch we lifted our dangling jib-boom into
+      the air; and beating against the side, were the shattered fragments of the
+      masts. From these we made all haste to be free, by cutting the rigging
+      that held them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon, the worst of the gale was blown over. But the sea ran high. Yet the
+      rack and scud of the tempest, its mad, tearing foam, was subdued into
+      immense, long-extended, and long-rolling billows; the white cream on their
+      crests like snow on the Andes. Ever and anon we hung poised on their
+      brows; when the furrowed ocean all round looked like a panorama from
+      Chimborazo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few hours more, and the surges went down. There was a moderate sea, a
+      steady breeze, and a clear, starry sky. Such was the storm that came after
+      our calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVII &mdash; Once More They Take To The Chamois
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Try the pumps. We dropped the sinker, and found the Parki bleeding at
+      every pore. Up from her well, the water, spring-like, came bubbling, pure
+      and limpid as the water of Saratoga. Her time had come. But by keeping two
+      hands at the pumps, we had no doubt she would float till daylight;
+      previous to which we liked not to abandon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The interval was employed in clanging at the pump-breaks, and preparing
+      the Chamois for our reception. So soon as the sea permitted, we lowered it
+      over the side; and letting it float under the stern, stowed it with water
+      and provisions, together with various other things, including muskets and
+      cutlasses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after daylight, a violent jostling and thumping under foot showed
+      that the water, gaining rapidly in the, hold, spite of all pumping, had
+      floated the lighter casks up-ward to the deck, against which they were
+      striking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, owing to the number of empty butts in the hold, there would have
+      been, perhaps, but small danger of the vessel's sinking outright&mdash;all
+      awash as her decks would soon be&mdash;were it not, that many of her
+      timbers were of a native wood, which, like the Teak of India, is
+      specifically heavier than water. This, with the pearl shells on board,
+      counteracted the buoyancy of the casks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, the sun&mdash;long waited for&mdash;arose; the Parki meantime
+      sinking lower and lower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All things being in readiness, we proceeded to embark from the wreck, as
+      from a wharf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not without some show of love for our poor brigantine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a seaman, a ship is no piece of mechanism merely; but a creature of
+      thoughts and fancies, instinct with life. Standing at her vibrating helm,
+      you feel her beating pulse. I have loved ships, as I &mdash; have loved
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To abandon the poor Parki was like leaving to its fate something that
+      could feel. It was meet that she should die decently and bravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this thought the Skyeman. Samoa and I were in the boat, calling upon
+      him to enter quickly, lest the vessel should sink, and carry us down in
+      the eddies; for already she had gone round twice. But cutting adrift the
+      last fragments of her broken shrouds, and putting her decks in order, Jarl
+      buried his ax in the splintered stump of the mainmast, and not till then
+      did he join us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We slowly cheered, and sailed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not ten minutes after, the hull rolled convulsively in the sea; went round
+      once more; lifted its sharp prow as a man with arms pointed for a dive;
+      gave a long seething plunge; and went down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many of her old planks were twice wrecked; once strown upon ocean's beach;
+      now dropped into its lowermost vaults, with the bones of drowned ships and
+      drowned men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more afloat in our shell! But not with the intrepid spirit that
+      shoved off with us from the deck of the Arcturion. A bold deed done from
+      impulse, for the time carries few or no misgivings along with it. But
+      forced upon you, its terrors stare you in the face. So now. I &mdash; had
+      pushed from the Arcturion with a stout heart; but quitting the sinking
+      Parki, my heart sunk with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a fair wind, we held on our way westward, hoping to see land before
+      many days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVIII &mdash; The Sea On Fire
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The night following our abandonment of the Parki, was made memorable by a
+      remarkable spectacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slumbering in the bottom of the boat, Jarl and I were suddenly awakened by
+      Samoa. Starting, we beheld the ocean of a pallid white color, corruscating
+      all over with tiny golden sparkles. But the pervading hue of the water
+      cast a cadaverous gleam upon the boat, so that we looked to each other
+      like ghosts. For many rods astern our wake was revealed in a line of
+      rushing illuminated foam; while here and there beneath the surface, the
+      tracks of sharks were denoted by vivid, greenish trails, crossing and
+      recrossing each other in every direction. Farther away, and distributed in
+      clusters, floated on the sea, like constellations in the heavens,
+      innumerable Medusae, a species of small, round, refulgent fish, only to be
+      met with in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, as we gazed, there shot high into the air a bushy jet of
+      flashes, accompanied by the unmistakable deep breathing sound of a sperm
+      whale. Soon, the sea all round us spouted in fountains of fire; and vast
+      forms, emitting a glare from their flanks, and ever and anon raising their
+      heads above water, and shaking off the sparkles, showed where an immense
+      shoal of Cachalots had risen from below to sport in these phosphorescent
+      billows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vapor jetted forth was far more radiant than any portion of the sea;
+      ascribable perhaps to the originally luminous fluid contracting still more
+      brilliancy from its passage through the spouting canal of the whales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were in great fear, lest without any vicious intention the Leviathans
+      might destroy us, by coming into close contact with our boat. We would
+      have shunned them; but they were all round and round us. Nevertheless we
+      were safe; for as we parted the pallid brine, the peculiar irradiation
+      which shot from about our keel seemed to deter them. Apparently
+      discovering us of a sudden, many of them plunged headlong down into the
+      water, tossing their fiery tails high into the air, and leaving the sea
+      still more sparkling from the violent surging of their descent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their general course seemed the same as our own; to the westward. To
+      remove from them, we at last out oars, and pulled toward the north. So
+      doing, we were steadily pursued by a solitary whale, that must have taken
+      our Chamois for a kindred fish. Spite of all our efforts, he drew nearer
+      and nearer; at length rubbing his fiery flank against the Chamois'
+      gunwale, here and there leaving long strips of the glossy transparent
+      substance which thin as gossamer invests the body of the Cachalot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In terror at a sight so new, Samoa shrank. But Jarl and I, more used to
+      the intimate companionship of the whales, pushed the boat away from it
+      with our oars: a thing often done in the fishery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The close vicinity of the whale revived in the so long astute Skyeman all
+      the enthusiasm of his daring vocation. However quiet by nature, a
+      thorough-bred whaleman betrays no little excitement in sight of his game.
+      And it required some persuasion to prevent Jarl from darting his harpoon:
+      insanity under present circumstances; and of course without object. But
+      "Oh! for a dart," cried my Viking. And "Where's now our old ship?" he
+      added reminiscently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to my great joy the monster at last departed; rejoining the shoal,
+      whose lofty spoutings of flame were still visible upon the distant line of
+      the horizon; showing there, like the fitful starts of the Aurora Borealis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sea retained its luminosity for about three hours; at the expiration
+      of half that period beginning to fade; and excepting occasional faint
+      illuminations consequent upon the rapid darting of fish under water, the
+      phenomenon at last wholly disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heretofore, I had beheld several exhibitions of marine phosphorescence,
+      both in the Atlantic and Pacific. But nothing in comparison with what was
+      seen that night. In the Atlantic, there is very seldom any portion of the
+      ocean luminous, except the crests of the waves; and these mostly appear so
+      during wet, murky weather. Whereas, in the Pacific, all instances of the
+      sort, previously corning under my notice, had been marked by patches of
+      greenish light, unattended with any pallidness of sea. Save twice on the
+      coast of Peru, where I was summoned from my hammock to the alarming
+      midnight cry of "All hands ahoy! tack ship!" And rushing on deck, beheld
+      the sea white as a shroud; for which reason it was feared we were on
+      soundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, sailors love marvels, and love to repeat them. And from many an old
+      shipmate I have heard various sage opinings, concerning the phenomenon in
+      question. Dismissing, as destitute of sound philosophic probability, the
+      extravagant notion of one of my nautical friends&mdash;no less a
+      philosopher than my Viking himself&mdash;namely: that the phosphoresence
+      of the sea is caused by a commotion among the mermaids, whose golden
+      locks, all torn and disheveled, do irradiate the waters at such times; I
+      proceed to record more reliable theories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Faraday might, perhaps, impute the phenomenon to a peculiarly electrical
+      condition of the atmosphere; and to that solely. But herein, my scientific
+      friend would be stoutly contradicted by many intelligent seamen, who, in
+      part, impute it to the presence of large quantities of putrescent animal
+      matter; with which the sea is well known to abound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it would seem not unreasonable to suppose, that it is by this means
+      that the fluid itself becomes charged with the luminous principle. Draw a
+      bucket of water from the phosphorescent ocean, and it still retains traces
+      of fire; but, standing awhile, this soon subsides. Now pour it along the
+      deck, and it is a stream of flame; caused by its renewed agitation. Empty
+      the bucket, and for a space sparkles cling to it tenaciously; and every
+      stave seems ignited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after all, this seeming ignition of the sea can not be wholly produced
+      by dead matter therein. There are many living fish, phosphorescent; and,
+      under certain conditions, by a rapid throwing off of luminous particles
+      must largely contribute to the result. Not to particularize this
+      circumstance as true of divers species of sharks, cuttle-fish, and many
+      others of the larger varieties of the finny tribes; the myriads of
+      microscopic mollusca, well known to swarm off soundings, might alone be
+      deemed almost sufficient to kindle a fire in the brine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these are only surmises; likely, but uncertain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After science comes sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A French naturalist maintains, that the nocturnal radiance of the fire-fly
+      is purposely intended as an attraction to the opposite sex; that the
+      artful insect illuminates its body for a beacon to love. Thus: perched
+      upon the edge of a leaf, and waiting the approach of her Leander, who
+      comes buffeting with his wings the aroma of the flowers, some insect Hero
+      may show a torch to her gossamer gallant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But alas, thrice alas, for the poor little fire-fish of the sea, whose
+      radiance but reveals them to their foes, and lights the way to their
+      destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIX &mdash; They Fall In With Strangers
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      After quitting the Parki, we had much calm weather, varied by light
+      breezes. And sailing smoothly over a sea, so recently one sheet of foam, I
+      could not avoid bethinking me, how fortunate it was, that the gale had
+      overtaken us in the brigantine, and not in the Chamois. For deservedly
+      high as the whale-shallop ranks as a sea boat; still, in a severe storm,
+      the larger your craft the greater your sense of security. Wherefore, the
+      thousand reckless souls tenanting a line-of- battle ship scoff at the most
+      awful hurricanes; though, in reality, they may be less safe in their
+      wooden-walled Troy, than those who contend with the gale in a clipper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not only did I congratulate myself upon salvation from the past, but
+      upon the prospect for the future. For storms happening so seldom in these
+      seas, one just blown over is almost a sure guarantee of very many weeks'
+      calm weather to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now sun followed sun; and no land. And at length it almost seemed as if we
+      must have sailed past the remotest presumable westerly limit of the chain
+      of islands we sought; a lurking suspicion which I &mdash; sedulously kept
+      to myself However, I could not but nourish a latent faith that all would
+      yet be well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the ninth day my forebodings were over. In the gray of the dawn,
+      perched upon the peak of our sail, a noddy was seen fast asleep. This
+      freak was true to the nature of that curious fowl, whose name is
+      significant of its drowsiness. Its plumage was snow-white, its bill and
+      legs blood-red; the latter looking like little pantalettes. In a sly
+      attempt at catching the bird, Samoa captured three tail- feathers; the
+      alarmed creature flying away with a scream, and leaving its quills in his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sailing on, we gradually broke in upon immense low-sailing flights of
+      other aquatic fowls, mostly of those species which are seldom found far
+      from land: terns, frigate-birds, mollymeaux, reef-pigeons, boobies, gulls,
+      and the like. They darkened the air; their wings making overhead an
+      incessant rustling like the simultaneous turning over of ten thousand
+      leaves. The smaller sort skimmed the sea like pebbles sent skipping from
+      the shore. Over these, flew myriads of birds of broader wing. While high
+      above all, soared in air the daring "Diver," or sea-kite, the power of
+      whose vision is truly wonderful. It perceives the little flying-fish in
+      the water, at a height which can not be less than four hundred feet.
+      Spirally wheeling and screaming as it goes, the sea-kite, bill foremost,
+      darts downward, swoops into the water, and for a moment altogether
+      disappearing, emerges at last; its prey firmly trussed in its claws. But
+      bearing it aloft, the bold bandit is quickly assailed by other birds of
+      prey, that strive to wrest from him his booty. And snatched from his
+      talons, you see the fish falling through the air, till again caught up in
+      the very act of descent, by the fleetest of its pursuers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving these sights astern, we presently picked up the slimy husk of a
+      cocoanut, all over green barnacles. And shortly after, passed two or three
+      limbs of trees, and the solitary trunk of a palm; which, upon sailing
+      nearer, seemed but very recently started on its endless voyage. As noon
+      came on; the dark purple land-haze, which had been dimly descried resting
+      upon the western horizon, was very nearly obscured. Nevertheless, behind
+      that dim drapery we doubted not bright boughs were waving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were now in high spirits. Samoa between times humming to himself some
+      heathenish ditty, and Jarl ten times more intent on his silence than ever;
+      yet his eye full of expectation and gazing broad off from our bow. Of a
+      sudden, shading his face with his hand, he gazed fixedly for an instant,
+      and then springing to his feet, uttered the long-drawn sound&mdash;"Sail
+      ho!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just tipping the furthest edge of the sky was a little speck, dancing into
+      view every time we rose upon the swells. It looked like one of many birds;
+      for half intercepting our view, fell showers of plumage: a flight of
+      milk-white noddies flying downward to the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon the birds are seen no more. Yet there remains the speck; plainly
+      a sail; but too small for a ship. Was it a boat after a whale? The vessel
+      to which it belonged far astern, and shrouded by the haze? So it seemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quietly, however, we waited the stranger's nearer approach; confident,
+      that for some time he would not be able to perceive us, owing to our being
+      in what mariners denominate the "sun-glade," or that part of the ocean
+      upon which the sun's rays flash with peculiar intensity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the sail drew nigh, its failing to glisten white led us to doubt
+      whether it was indeed a whale-boat. Presently, it showed yellow; and Samoa
+      declared, that it must be the sail of some island craft. True. The
+      stranger proving a large double-canoe, like those used by the Polynesians
+      in making passages between distant islands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Upoluan was now clamorous for a meeting, to which Jarl was averse.
+      Deliberating a moment, I directed the muskets to be loaded; then setting
+      the sail the wind on our quarter&mdash;we headed away for the canoe, now
+      sailing at right angles with our previous course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here it must be mentioned, that from the various gay cloths and other
+      things provided for barter by the captain of the Parki, I had very
+      strikingly improved my costume; making it free, flowing, and eastern. I
+      looked like an Emir. Nor had my Viking neglected to follow my example;
+      though with some few modifications of his own. With his long tangled hair
+      and harpoon, he looked like the sea-god, that boards ships, for the first
+      time crossing the Equator. For tatooed Samoa, he yet sported both kilt and
+      turban, reminding one of a tawny leopard, though his spots were all in one
+      place. Besides this raiment of ours, against emergencies we had provided
+      our boat with divers nankeens and silks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now into full view comes a yoke of huge clumsy prows, shaggy with
+      carving, and driving through the water with considerable velocity; the
+      immense sprawling sail holding the wind like a bag. She seemed full of
+      men; and from the dissonant cries borne over to us, and the canoe's widely
+      yawing, it was plain that we had occasioned no small sensation. They
+      seemed undetermined what course to pursue: whether to court a meeting, or
+      avoid it; whether to regard us as friends or foes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we came still nearer, distinctly beholding their faces, we loudly
+      hailed them, inviting them to furl their sails, and allow us to board
+      them. But no answer was returned; their confusion increasing. And now,
+      within less than two ships'-lengths, they swept right across our bow,
+      gazing at us with blended curiosity and fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their craft was about thirty feet long, consisting of a pair of parallel
+      canoes, very narrow, and at the distance of a yard or so, lengthwise,
+      united by stout cross-timbers, lashed across the four gunwales. Upon these
+      timbers was a raised platform or dais, quite dry; and astern an arched
+      cabin or tent; behind which, were two broad-bladed paddles terminating in
+      rude shark-tails, by which the craft was steered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The yard, spreading a yellow sail, was a crooked bough, supported
+      obliquely in the crotch of a mast, to which the green bark was still
+      clinging. Here and there were little tufts of moss. The high, beaked prow
+      of that canoe in which the mast was placed, resembled a rude altar; and
+      all round it was suspended a great variety of fruits, including scores of
+      cocoanuts, unhusked. This prow was railed off, forming a sort of chancel
+      within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foremost beam, crossing the gunwales, extended some twelve feet beyond
+      the side of the dais; and at regular intervals hereupon, stout cords were
+      fastened, which, leading up to the head of the mast, answered the purpose
+      of shrouds. The breeze was now streaming fresh; and, as if to force down
+      into the water the windward side of the craft, five men stood upon this
+      long beam, grasping five shrouds. Yet they failed to counterbalance the
+      pressure of the sail; and owing to the opposite inclination of the twin
+      canoes, these living statues were elevated high above the water; their
+      appearance rendered still more striking by their eager attitudes, and the
+      apparent peril of their position, as the mad spray from the bow dashed
+      over them. Suddenly, the Islanders threw their craft into the wind; while,
+      for ourselves, we lay on our oars, fearful of alarming them by now coming
+      nearer. But hailing them again, we said we were friends; and had friendly
+      gifts for them, if they would peaceably permit us to approach. This
+      understood, there ensued a mighty clamor; insomuch, that I bade Jarl and
+      Samoa out oars, and row very gently toward the strangers. Whereupon, amid
+      a storm of vociferations, some of them hurried to the furthest side of
+      their dais; standing with arms arched over their heads, as if for a dive;
+      others menacing us with clubs and spears; and one, an old man with a
+      bamboo trellis on his head forming a sort of arbor for his hair, planted
+      himself full before the tent, stretching behind him a wide plaited sling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this hostile display, Samoa dropped his oar, and brought his piece to
+      bear upon the old man, who, by his attitude, seemed to menace us with the
+      fate of the great braggart of Gath. But I quickly knocked down the muzzle
+      of his musket, and forbade the slightest token of hostility; enjoining it
+      upon my companions, nevertheless, to keep well on their guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We now ceased rowing, and after a few minutes' uproar in the canoe, they
+      ran to the steering-paddles, and forcing round their craft before the
+      wind, rapidly ran away from us. With all haste we set our sail, and
+      pulling also at our oars, soon overtook them, determined upon coming into
+      closer communion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XL &mdash; Sire And Sons
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Seeing flight was useless, the Islanders again stopped their canoe, and
+      once more we cautiously drew nearer; myself crying out to them not to be
+      fearful; and Samoa, with the odd humor of his race, averring that he had
+      known every soul of them from his infancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We approached within two or three yards; when we paused, which somewhat
+      allayed their alarm. Fastening a red China handkerchief to the blade of
+      our long mid-ship oar, I waved it in the air. A lively clapping of hands,
+      and many wild exclamations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While yet waving the flag, I whispered to Jarl to give the boat a sheer
+      toward the canoe, which being adroitly done, brought the bow, where I
+      stood, still nearer to the Islanders. I then dropped the silk among them;
+      and the Islander, who caught it, at once handed it to the warlike old man
+      with the sling; who, on seating himself, spread it before him; while the
+      rest crowding round, glanced rapidly from the wonderful gift, to the more
+      wonderful donors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This old man was the superior of the party. And Samoa asserted, that he
+      must be a priest of the country to which the Islanders belonged; that the
+      craft could be no other than one of their sacred canoes, bound on some
+      priestly voyage. All this he inferred from the altar- like prow, and there
+      being no women on board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bent upon conciliating the old priest, I dropped into the canoe another
+      silk handkerchief; while Samoa loudly exclaimed, that we were only three
+      men, and were peaceably inclined. Meantime, old Aaron, fastening the two
+      silks crosswise over his shoulders, like a brace of Highland plaids,
+      crosslegged sat, and eyed us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a curious sight. The old priest, like a scroll of old parchment,
+      covered all over with hieroglyphical devices, harder to interpret, I'll
+      warrant, than any old Sanscrit manuscript. And upon his broad brow,
+      deep-graven in wrinkles, were characters still more mysterious, which no
+      Champollion nor gipsy could have deciphered. He looked old as the elderly
+      hills; eyes sunken, though bright; and head white as the summit of Mont
+      Blanc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rest were a youthful and comely set: their complexion that of Gold
+      Sherry, and all tattooed after this pattern: two broad cross- stripes on
+      the chest and back; reaching down to the waist, like a foot-soldier's
+      harness. Their faces were full of expression; and their mouths were full
+      of fine teeth; so that the parting of their lips, was as the opening of
+      pearl oysters. Marked, here and there, after the style of Tahiti, with
+      little round figures in blue, dotted in the middle with a spot of
+      vermilion, their brawny brown thighs looked not unlike the gallant hams of
+      Westphalia, spotted with the red dust of Cayenne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what a marvelous resemblance in the features of all. Were they born at
+      one birth? This resemblance was heightened by their uniform marks. But it
+      was subsequently ascertained, that they were the children of one sire; and
+      that sire, old Aaron; who, no doubt, reposed upon his sons, as an old
+      general upon the trophies of his youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were the children of as many mothers; and he was training them up for
+      the priesthood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLI &mdash; A Fray
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      So bent were the strangers upon concealing who they were, and the object
+      of their voyage, that it was some time ere we could obtain the information
+      we desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They pointed toward the tent, as if it contained their Eleusinian
+      mysteries. And the old priest gave us to know, that it would be
+      profanation to enter it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all this only roused my curiosity to unravel the wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I succeeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In that mysterious tent was concealed a beautiful maiden. And, in
+      pursuance of a barbarous custom, by Aleema, the priest, she was being
+      borne an offering from the island of Amma to the gods of Tedaidee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, hearing of the maiden, I waited for no more. Need I add, how stirred
+      was my soul toward this invisible victim; and how hotly I &mdash; swore,
+      that precious blood of hers should never smoke upon an altar. If we
+      drowned for it, I was bent upon rescuing the captive. But as yet, no
+      gentle signal of distress had been waved to us from the tent. Thence, no
+      sound could be heard, but an occasional rustle of the matting. Was it
+      possible, that one about to be immolated could proceed thus tranquilly to
+      her fate?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But desperately as I resolved to accomplish the deliverance of the maiden,
+      it was best to set heedfully about it. I desired no shedding of blood;
+      though the odds were against us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old priest seemed determined to prevent us from boarding his craft.
+      But being equally determined the other way, I cautiously laid the bow of
+      the Chamois against the canoe's quarter, so as to present the smallest
+      possible chance for a hostile entrance into our boat. Then, Samoa, knife
+      in ear, and myself with a cutlass, stepped upon the dais, leaving Jarl in
+      the boat's head, equipped with his harpoon; three loaded muskets lying by
+      his side. He was strictly enjoined to resist the slightest demonstration
+      toward our craft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we boarded the canoe, the Islanders slowly retreated; meantime
+      earnestly conferring in whispers; all but the old priest, who, still
+      seated, presented an undaunted though troubled front. To our surprise, he
+      motioned us to sit down by him; which we did; taking care, however, not to
+      cut off our communication with Jarl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the hope of inspiring good will, I now unfolded a roll of printed
+      cotton, and spreading it before the priest, directed his attention to the
+      pictorial embellishments thereon, representing some hundreds of sailor
+      boys simultaneously ascending some hundreds of uniform sections of a
+      ship's rigging. Glancing at them a moment, by a significant sign, he gave
+      me to know, that long previous he himself had ascended the shrouds of a
+      ship. Making this allusion, his countenance was overcast with a ferocious
+      expression, as if something terrific was connected with the reminiscence.
+      But it soon passed away, and somewhat abruptly he assumed an air of much
+      merriment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were thus sitting together, and my whole soul full of the
+      thoughts of the captive, and how best to accomplish my purpose, and often
+      gazing toward the tent; I all at once noticed a movement among the
+      strangers. Almost in the same instant, Samoa, right across the face of
+      Aleema, and in his ordinary tones, bade me take heed to myself, for
+      mischief was brewing. Hardly was this warning uttered, when, with carved
+      clubs in their hands, the Islanders completely surrounded us. Then up rose
+      the old priest, and gave us to know, that we were wholly in his power, and
+      if we did not swear to depart in our boat forthwith, and molest him no
+      more, the peril be ours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Depart and you live; stay and you die."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifteen to three. Madness to gainsay his mandate. Yet a beautiful maiden
+      was at stake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knife before dangling in Samoa's ear was now in his hand. Jarl cried
+      out for us to regain the boat, several of the Islanders making a rush for
+      it. No time to think. All passed quicker than it can be said. They closed
+      in upon us, to push us from the canoe: Rudely the old priest flung me from
+      his side, menacing me with his dagger, the sharp spine of a fish. A thrust
+      and a threat! Ere I knew it, my cutlass made a quick lunge. A curse from
+      the priest's mouth; red blood from his side; he tottered, stared about
+      him, and fell over like a brown hemlock into the sea. A yell of
+      maledictions rose on the air. A wild cry was heard from the tent. Making a
+      dead breach among the crowd, we now dashed side by side for the boat.
+      Springing into it, we found Jarl battling with two Islanders; while the
+      rest were still howling upon the dais. Rage and grief had almost disabled
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With one stroke of my cutlass, I now parted the line that held us to the
+      canoe, and with Samoa falling upon the two Islanders, by Jarl's help, we
+      quickly mastered them; forcing them down into the bottom of the boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Skyeman and Samoa holding passive the captives, I quickly set our
+      sail, and snatching the sheet at the cavil, we rapidly shot from the
+      canoe. The strangers defying us with their spears; several couching them
+      as if to dart; while others held back their hands, as if to prevent them
+      from jeopardizing the lives of their countrymen in the Chamois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seemingly untoward events oftentimes lead to successful results: Far from
+      destroying all chance of rescuing the captive, our temporary flight,
+      indispensable for the safety of Jarl, only made the success of our
+      enterprise more probable. For having made prisoners two of the strangers,
+      I determined to retain them as hostages, through whom to effect my plans
+      without further bloodshed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here it must needs be related, that some of the natives were wounded
+      in the fray: while all three of their assailants had received several
+      bruises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLII &mdash; Remorse
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the skirmish not a single musket had been discharged. The first
+      snatched by Jarl had missed fire, and ere he could seize another, it was
+      close quarters with him, and no gestures to spare. His harpoon was his
+      all. And truly, there is nothing like steel in a fray. It comes and it
+      goes with a will, and is never a-weary. Your sword is your life, and that
+      of your foe; to keep or to take as it happens. Closer home does it go than
+      a rammer; and fighting with steel is a play without ever an interlude.
+      There are points more deadly than bullets; and stocks packed full of
+      subtle tubes, whence comes an impulse more reliable than powder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Binding our prisoners lengthwise across the boat's seats, we rowed for the
+      canoe, making signs of amity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, if there be any thing fitted to make a high tide ebb in the veins, it
+      is the sight of a vanquished foe, inferior to yourself in powers of
+      destruction; but whom some necessity has forced you to subdue. All
+      victories are not triumphs, nor all who conquer, heroes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we drew near the canoe, it was plain, that the loss of their sire had
+      again for the instant overcome the survivors. Raising hands, they cursed
+      us; and at intervals sent forth a low, piercing wail, peculiar to their
+      race. As before, faint cries were heard from the tent. And all the while
+      rose and fell on the sea, the ill-fated canoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I gazed at this sight, what iron mace fell on my soul; what curse rang
+      sharp in my ear! It was I, who was the author of the deed that caused the
+      shrill wails that I heard. By this hand, the dead man had died. Remorse
+      smote me hard; and like lightning I asked myself, whether the death-deed I
+      had done was sprung of a virtuous motive, the rescuing a captive from
+      thrall; or whether beneath that pretense, I had engaged in this fatal
+      affray for some other, and selfish purpose; the companionship of a
+      beautiful maid. But throttling the thought, I swore to be gay. Am I not
+      rescuing the maiden? Let them go down who withstand me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the dismal spectacle before him, Jarl, hitherto menacing our prisoners
+      with his weapon, in order to intimidate their countrymen, honest Jarl
+      dropped his harpoon. But shaking his knife in the air, Samoa yet defied
+      the strangers; nor could we prevent him. His heathenish blood was up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Standing foremost in the boat, I now assured the strangers, that all we
+      sought at their hands was the maiden in the tent. That captive
+      surrendered, our own, unharmed, should be restored. If not, they must die.
+      With a cry, they started to their feet, and brandished their clubs; but,
+      seeing Jarl's harpoon quivering over the hearts of our prisoners, they
+      quickly retreated; at last signifying their acquiescence in my demand.
+      Upon this, I sprang to the dais, and across it indicating a line near the
+      bow, signed the Islanders to retire beyond it. Then, calling upon them one
+      by one to deliver their weapons, they were passed into the boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chamois was now brought round to the canoe's stern; and leaving Jarl
+      to defend it as before, the Upoluan rejoined me on the dais. By these
+      precautions&mdash;the hostages still remaining bound hand and foot in the
+      boat&mdash;we deemed ourselves entirely secure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Attended by Samoa, I stood before the tent, now still as the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIII &mdash; The Tent Entered
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      By means of thin spaces between the braids of matting, the place was open
+      to the air, but not to view. There was also a round opening on one side,
+      only large enough, however, to admit the arm; but this aperture was
+      partially closed from within. In front, a deep-dyed rug of osiers,
+      covering the entrance way, was intricately laced to the standing part of
+      the tent. As I divided this lacing with my cutlass, there arose an
+      outburst of voices from the Islanders. And they covered their faces, as
+      the interior was revealed to my gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before me crouched a beautiful girl. Her hands were drooping. And, like a
+      saint from a shrine, she looked sadly out from her long, fair hair. A low
+      wail issued from her lips, and she trembled like a sound. There were tears
+      on her cheek, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did I dream?&mdash;A snow-white skin: blue, firmament eyes: Golconda
+      locks. For an instant spell-bound I stood; while with a slow, apprehensive
+      movement, and still gazing fixedly, the captive gathered more closely
+      about her a gauze-like robe. Taking one step within, and partially
+      dropping the curtain of the tent, I so stood, as to have both sight and
+      speech of Samoa, who tarried without; while the maiden, crouching in the
+      farther corner of the retreat, was wholly screened from all eyes but mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crossing my hands before me, I now stood without speaking. For the soul of
+      me, I could not link this mysterious creature with the tawny strangers.
+      She seemed of another race. So powerful was this impression, that
+      unconsciously, I addressed her in my own tongue. She started, and bending
+      over, listened intently, as if to the first faint echo of something dimly
+      remembered. Again I spoke, when throwing back her hair, the maiden looked
+      up with a piercing, bewildered gaze. But her eyes soon fell, and bending
+      over once more, she resumed her former attitude. At length she slowly
+      chanted to herself several musical words, unlike those of the Islanders;
+      but though I knew not what they meant, they vaguely seemed familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Impatient to learn her story, I now questioned her in Polynesian. But with
+      much earnestness, she signed me to address her as before. Soon perceiving,
+      however, that without comprehending the meaning of the words I employed,
+      she seemed merely touched by something pleasing in their sound, I once
+      more addressed her in Polynesian; saying that I &mdash; was all eagerness
+      to hear her history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm at every sound
+      from without; yet all the while deeply regarding me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are here presented in
+      the form in which they were afterward more fully narrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So unearthly was the story, that at first I little comprehended it; and
+      was almost persuaded that the luckless maiden was some beautiful maniac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from Oroolia, the Island
+      of Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the Polynesians.
+      To this isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical power, she had been
+      spirited from Amma, the place of her nativity. Her name was Yillah. And
+      hardly had the waters of Oroolia washed white her olive skin, and tinged
+      her hair with gold, when one day strolling in the woodlands, she was
+      snared in the tendrils of a vine. Drawing her into its bowers, it gently
+      transformed her into one of its blossoms, leaving her conscious soul
+      folded up in the transparent petals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here hung Yillah in a trance, the world without all tinged with the rosy
+      hue of her prison. At length when her spirit was about to burst forth in
+      the opening flower, the blossom was snapped from its stem; and borne by a
+      soft wind to the sea; where it fell into the opening valve of a shell;
+      which in good time was cast upon the beach of the Island of Amma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the priest; who by a
+      spell unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now showed
+      signs of opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy revealings,
+      as of the dawn behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding, the blossom
+      exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the air. Condensing at
+      last, there emerged from this mist the same radiant young Yillah as
+      before; her locks all moist, and a rose- colored pearl on her bosom.
+      Enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful child now tarried in the sacred
+      temple of Apo, buried in a dell; never beheld of mortal eyes save
+      Aleema's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four days gone by, Aleema
+      came to her with a dream; that the spirits in Oroolia had recalled her
+      home by the way of Tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up in the sea an
+      enchanted spring; which streaming over upon the brine, flowed on between
+      blue watery banks; and, plunging into a vortex, went round and round,
+      descending into depths unknown. Into this whirlpool Yillah was to descend
+      in a canoe, at last to well up in an inland fountain of Oroolia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIV &mdash; Away
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Though clothed in language of my own, the maiden's story is in substance
+      the same as she related. Yet were not these things narrated as past
+      events; she merely recounted them as impressions of her childhood, and of
+      her destiny yet unaccomplished. And mystical as the tale most assuredly
+      was, my knowledge of the strange arts of the island priesthood, and the
+      rapt fancies indulged in by many of their victims, deprived it in good
+      part of the effect it otherwise would have produced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For ulterior purposes connected with their sacerdotal supremacy, the
+      priests of these climes oftentimes secrete mere infants in their temples;
+      and jealously secluding them from all intercourse with the world, craftily
+      delude them, as they grow up, into the wildest conceits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus wrought upon, their pupils almost lose their humanity in the constant
+      indulgence of seraphic imaginings. In many cases becoming inspired as
+      oracles; and as such, they are sometimes resorted to by devotees; always
+      screened from view, however, in the recesses of the temples. But in every
+      instance, their end is certain. Beguiled with some fairy tale about
+      revisiting the islands of Paradise, they are led to the secret sacrifice,
+      and perish unknown to their kindred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, would that all this had been hidden from me at the time. For Yillah
+      was lovely enough to be really divine; and so I might have been tranced
+      into a belief of her mystical legends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But with what passionate exultation did I find myself the deliverer of
+      this beautiful maiden; who, thinking no harm, and rapt in a dream, was
+      being borne to her fate on the coast of Tedaidee. Nor now, for a moment,
+      did the death of Aleema her guardian seem to hang heavy upon my heart. I
+      rejoiced that I had sent him to his gods; that in place of the sea moss
+      growing over sweet Yillah drowned in the sea, the vile priest himself had
+      sunk to the bottom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though he had sunk in the deep, his ghost sunk not in the deep waters
+      of my soul. However in exultations its surface foamed up, at bottom guilt
+      brooded. Sifted out, my motives to this enterprise justified not the mad
+      deed, which, in a moment of rage, I had done: though, those motives had
+      been covered with a gracious pretense; concealing myself from myself. But
+      I beat down the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In relating her story, the maiden frequently interrupted it with questions
+      concerning myself:&mdash;Whence I came: being white, from Oroolia? Whither
+      I was going: to Amma? And what had happened to Aleema? For she had been
+      dismayed at the fray, though knowing not what it could mean; and she had
+      heard the priest's name called upon in lamentations. These questions for
+      the time I endeavored to evade; only inducing her to fancy me some gentle
+      demigod, that had come over the sea from her own fabulous Oroolia. And all
+      this she must verily have believed. For whom, like me, ere this could she
+      have beheld? Still fixed she her eyes upon me strangely, and hung upon the
+      accents of my voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While this scene was passing, the strangers began to show signs of
+      impatience, and a voice from the Chamois repeatedly hailed us to
+      accelerate our movements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My course was quickly decided. The only obstacle to be encountered was the
+      possibility of Yillah's alarm at being suddenly borne into my prow. For
+      this event I now sought to prepare her. I informed the damsel that Aleema
+      had been dispatched on a long errand to Oroolia; leaving to my care, for
+      the present, the guardianship of the lovely Yillah; and that therefore, it
+      was necessary to carry her tent into my own canoe, then waiting to receive
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This intelligence she received with the utmost concern; and not knowing to
+      what her perplexity might lead, I thought fit to transport her into the
+      Chamois, while yet overwhelmed by the announcement of my intention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quitting her retreat, I apprised Jarl of my design; and then, no more
+      delay!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At bottom, the tent was attached to a light framework of bamboos; and from
+      its upper corners, four cords, like those of a marquee, confined it to the
+      dais. These, Samoa's knife soon parted; when lifting the light tent, we
+      speedily transferred it to the Chamois; a wild yell going up from the
+      Islanders, which drowned the faint cries of the maiden. But we heeded not
+      the din. Toss in the fruit, hanging from the altar-prow! It was done; and
+      then running up our sail, we glided away;&mdash;Chamois, tent, hostages,
+      and all. Rushing to the now vacant stern of their canoe, the Islanders
+      once more lifted up their hands and their voices in curses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A suitable distance gained, we paused to fling overboard the arms we had
+      taken; and Jarl proceeded to liberate the hostages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, I entered the tent, and by many tokens, sought to allay the
+      maiden's alarm. Thus engaged, violent plunges were heard: our prisoners
+      taking to the sea to regain their canoe. All dripping, they were received
+      by their brethren with wild caresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From something now said by the captives, the rest seemed suddenly
+      inspirited with hopes of revenge; again wildly shaking their spears, just
+      before picked up from the sea. With great clamor and confusion they soon
+      set their mat-sail; and instead of sailing southward for Tedaidee, or
+      northward for Amma their home, they steered straight after us, in our
+      wake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Foremost in the prow stood three; javelins poised for a dart; at
+      intervals, raising a yell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did they mean to pursue me? Full in my rear they came on, baying like
+      hounds on their game. Yillah trembled at their cries. My own heart beat
+      hard with undefinable dread. The corpse of Aleema seemed floating before:
+      its avengers were raging behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon these phantoms departed. For very soon it appeared that in vain
+      the pagans pursued. Their craft, our fleet Chamois outleaped. And farther
+      and farther astern dropped the evil-boding canoe, till at last but a
+      speck; when a great swell of the sea surged up before it, and it was seen
+      no more. Samoa swore that it must have swamped, and gone down. But however
+      it was, my heart lightened apace. I saw none but ourselves on the sea: I
+      remembered that our keel left no track as it sailed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let the Oregon Indian through brush, bramble, and brier, hunt his enemy's
+      trail, far over the mountains and down in the vales; comes he to the
+      water, he snuffs idly in air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLV &mdash; Reminiscences
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In resecuing the gentle Yillah from the hands of the Islanders, a design
+      seemed accomplished. But what was now to be done? Here, in our adventurous
+      Chamois, was a damsel more lovely than the flushes of morning; and for
+      companions, whom had she but me and my comrades? Besides, her bosom still
+      throbbed with alarms, her fancies all roving through mazes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How subdue these dangerous imaginings? How gently dispel them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one way there was: to lead her thoughts toward me, as her friend and
+      preserver; and a better and wiser than Aleema the priest. Yet could not
+      this be effected but by still maintaining my assumption of a divine origin
+      in the blessed isle of Oroolia; and thus fostering in her heart the
+      mysterious interest, with which from the first she had regarded me. But if
+      punctilious reserve on the part of her deliverer should teach her to
+      regard him as some frigid stranger from the Arctic Zone, what sympathy
+      could she have for him? and hence, what peace of mind, having no one else
+      to cling to?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried Aleema.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Think not of him, sweet Yillah," I cried. "Look on me. Am I not white
+      like yourself? Behold, though since quitting Oroolia the sun has dyed my
+      cheek, am I not even as you? Am I brown like the dusky Aleema? They
+      snatched you away from your isle in the sea, too early for you to remember
+      me there. But you have not been forgotten by me, sweetest Yillah. Ha! ha!
+      shook we not the palm-trees together, and chased we not the rolling nuts
+      down the glen? Did we not dive into the grotto on the sea-shore, and come
+      up together in the cool cavern in the hill? In my home in Oroolia, dear
+      Yillah, I have a lock of your hair, ere yet it was golden: a little dark
+      tress like a ring. How your cheeks were then changing from olive to white.
+      And when shall I forget the hour, that I came upon you sleeping among the
+      flowers, with roses and lilies for cheeks. Still forgetful? Know you not
+      my voice? Those little spirits in your eyes have seen me before. They
+      mimic me now as they sport in their lakes. All the past a dim blank? Think
+      of the time when we ran up and down in our arbor, where the green vines
+      grew over the great ribs of the stranded whale. Oh Yillah, little Yillah,
+      has it all come to this? am I forever forgotten? Yet over the wide watery
+      world have I sought thee: from isle to isle, from sea to sea. And now we
+      part not. Aleema is gone. My prow shall keep kissing the waves, till it
+      kisses the beach at Oroolia. Yillah, look up."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunk the ghost of Aleema: Sweet Yillah was mine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVI &mdash; The Chamois With A Roving Commission
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Through the assiduity of my Viking, ere nightfall our Chamois was again in
+      good order. And with many subtle and seamanlike splices the light tent was
+      lashed in its place; the sail taken up by a reef.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My comrades now questioned me, as to my purposes; whether they had been
+      modified by the events of the day. I replied that our destination was
+      still the islands to the westward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But from these we had steadily been drifting all the morning long; so that
+      now no loom of the land was visible. But our prow was kept pointing as
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the helm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. The rays of the sun,
+      setting behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of a
+      shaded light behind a lattice. And the low breeze, pervaded with the
+      peculiar balm of the mid-Pacific near land, was fragrant as the breath of
+      a bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of Yillah in mine
+      seemed no hand, but a touch. Visions flitted before me and in me;
+      something hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now entered a thought into my heart. I reflected how serenely we might
+      thus glide along, far removed from all care and anxiety. And then, what
+      different scenes might await us upon any of the shores roundabout. But
+      there seemed no danger in the balmy sea; the assured vicinity of land
+      imparting a sense of security. We had ample supplies for several days
+      more, and thanks to the Pagan canoe, an abundance of fruit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, what cared I now for the green groves and bright shore? Was not
+      Yillah my shore and my grove? my meadow, my mead, my soft shady vine, and
+      my arbor? Of all things desirable and delightful, the full- plumed sheaf,
+      and my own right arm the band? Enough: no shore for me yet. One sweep of
+      the helm, and our light prow headed round toward the vague land of song,
+      sun, and vine: the fabled South.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we glided along, strange Yillah gazed down in the sea, and would fain
+      have had me plunge into it with her, to rove through its depths. But I
+      started dismayed; in fancy, I saw the stark body of the priest drifting
+      by. Again that phantom obtruded; again guilt laid his red hand on my soul.
+      But I laughed. Was not Yillah my own? by my arm rescued from ill? To do
+      her a good, I had periled myself. So down, down, Aleema.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When next morning, starting from slumber, my comrades beheld the sun on
+      our beam, instead of astern as before at that hour, they eagerly inquired,
+      "Whither now?" But very briefly I gave them to know, that after devoting
+      the night to the due consideration of a matter so important, I had
+      determined upon voyaging for the island Tedaidee, in place of the land to
+      the westward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this, they were not displeased. But to tell the plain truth, I &mdash;
+      harbored some shadowy purpose of merely hovering about for a while, till I
+      felt more landwardly inclined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But had I not declared to Yillah, that our destination was the fairy isle
+      she spoke of, even Oroolia? Yet that shore was so exceedingly remote, and
+      the folly of endeavoring to reach it in a craft built with hands, so very
+      apparent, that what wonder I really nourished no thought of it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So away floated the Chamois, like a vagrant cloud in the heavens: bound,
+      no one knew whither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVII &mdash; Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      But time to tell, how Samoa and Jarl regarded this mystical Yillah; and
+      how Yillah regarded them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Beauty from the Beast, so at first shrank the damsel from my one- armed
+      companion. But seeing my confidence in the savage, a reaction soon
+      followed. And in accordance with that curious law, by which, under certain
+      conditions, the ugliest mortals become only amiably hideous, Yillah at
+      length came to look upon Samoa as a sort of harmless and good-natured
+      goblin. Whence came he, she cared not; or what was his history; or in what
+      manner his fortunes were united to mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May be, she held him a being of spontaneous origin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as every where women are the tamers of the menageries of men; so
+      Yillah in good time tamed down Samoa to the relinquishment of that
+      horrible thing in his ear, and persuaded him to substitute a vacancy for
+      the bauble in his nose. On his part, however, all this was conditional. He
+      stipulated for the privilege of restoring both trinkets upon suitable
+      occasions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if thus gayly the damsel sported with Samoa; how different his
+      emotions toward her? The fate to which she had been destined, and every
+      nameless thing about her, appealed to all his native superstitions, which
+      ascribed to beings of her complexion a more than terrestrial origin. When
+      permitted to approach her, he looked timid and awkwardly strange;
+      suggesting the likeness of some clumsy satyr, drawing in his horns; slowly
+      wagging his tail; crouching abashed before some radiant spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this reverence of his was most pleasing to me, Bravo! thought I; be a
+      pagan forever. No more than myself; for, after a different fashion, Yillah
+      was an idol to both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what of my Viking? Why, of good Jarl I grieve to say, that the
+      old-fashioned interest he took in my affairs led him to look upon Yillah
+      as a sort of intruder, an Ammonite syren, who might lead me astray. This
+      would now and then provoke a phillipic; but he would only turn toward my
+      resentment his devotion; and then I was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unsophisticated as a wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable of
+      perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our
+      companions. And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption, that
+      it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove otherwise than
+      irresistible to all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She betrayed much surprise at my Vikings appearance. But most of all was
+      she struck by a characteristic device upon the arm of the wonderful
+      mariner&mdash;our Saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown of thorns,
+      and three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one from each hand
+      and foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, honest Jarl did vastly pride himself upon this ornament. It was the
+      only piece of vanity about him. And like a lady keeping gloveless her hand
+      to show off a fine Turquoise ring, he invariably wore that sleeve of his
+      frock rolled up, the better to display the embellishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And round and round would Yillah turn Jarl's arm, till Jarl was fain to
+      stand firm, for fear of revolving all over. How such untutored homage
+      would have thrilled the heart of the ingenious artist!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eventually, through the Upoluan, she made overtures to the Skyeman,
+      concerning the possession of his picture in her own proper right. In her
+      very simplicity, little heeding, that like a landscape in fresco, it could
+      not be removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVIII &mdash; Something Under The Surface
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Not to omit an occurrence of considerable interest, we must needs here
+      present some account of a curious retinue of fish which overtook our
+      Chamois, a day or two after parting with the canoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A violent creaming and frothing in our rear announced their approach. Soon
+      we found ourselves the nucleus of an incredible multitude of finny
+      creatures, mostly anonymous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, far in advance of our prow, swam the helmeted Silver-heads; side by
+      side, in uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas, with their
+      flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct regiment, wormed and
+      twisted through the water like Archimedean screws, the quivering
+      Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the Trigger-fish&mdash;so
+      called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs with a
+      comical curve, as if at half-cock. Far astern the rear was brought up by
+      endless battalions of Yellow- backs, right martially vested in buff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And slow sailing overhead were flights of birds; a wing in the air for
+      every fin in the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let the sea-fowls fly on: turn we to the fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their numbers were amazing; countless as the tears shed for perfidious
+      lovers. Far abroad on both flanks, they swam in long lines, tier above
+      tier; the water alive with their hosts. Locusts of the sea, peradventure,
+      going to fall with a blight upon some green, mossy province of Neptune.
+      And tame and fearless they were, as the first fish that swam in Euphrates;
+      hardly evading the hand; insomuch that Samoa caught many without lure or
+      line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They formed a decorous escort; paddling along by our barnacled sides, as
+      if they had been with us from the very beginning; neither scared by our
+      craft's surging in the water; nor in the least sympathetic at losing a
+      comrade by the hand of Samoa. They closed in their ranks and swam on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How innocent, yet heartless they looked! Had a plank dropped out of our
+      boat, we had sunk to the bottom; and belike, our cheerful retinue would
+      have paid the last rites to our remains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But still we kept company; as sociably as you please; Samoa helping
+      himself when he listed, and Yillah clapping her hands as the radiant
+      creatures, by a simultaneous turning round on their silvery bellies,
+      caused the whole sea to glow like a burnished shield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what has befallen this poor little Boneeta astern, that he swims so
+      toilingly on, with gills showing purple? What has he there, towing behind?
+      It is tangled sea-kelp clinging to its fins. But the clogged thing strains
+      to keep up with its fellows. Yet little they heed. Away they go; every
+      fish for itself, and any fish for Samoa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the poor Boneeta is seen no more. The myriad fins swim on; a
+      lonely waste, where the lost one drops behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strange fish! All the live-long day, they were there by our side; and at
+      night still tarried and shone; more crystal and scaly in the pale
+      moonbeams, than in the golden glare of the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How prettily they swim; all silver life; darting hither and thither
+      between their long ranks, and touching their noses, and scraping
+      acquaintance. No mourning they wear for the Boneeta left far astern; nor
+      for those so cruelly killed by Samoa. No, no; all is glee, fishy glee, and
+      frolicking fun; light hearts and light fins; gay backs and gay spirits.&mdash;Swim
+      away, swim away! my merry fins all. Let us roam the flood; let us follow
+      this monster fish with the barnacled sides; this strange-looking fish, so
+      high out of water; that goes without fins. What fish can it be? What
+      rippling is that? Dost hear the great monster breathe? Why, 'tis sharp at
+      both ends; a tail either way; nor eyes has it any, nor mouth. What a
+      curious fish! what a comical fish! But more comical far, those creatures
+      above, on its hollow back, clinging thereto like the snaky eels, that
+      cling and slide on the back of the Sword fish, our terrible foe. But what
+      curious eels these are! Do they deem themselves pretty as we? No, no; for
+      sure, they behold our limber fins, our speckled and beautiful scales.
+      Poor, powerless things! How they must wish they were we, that roam the
+      flood, and scour the seas with a wish. Swim away; merry fins, swim away!
+      Let him drop, that fellow that halts; make a lane; close in, and fill up.
+      Let him drown, if he can not keep pace. No laggards for us:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,
+    We care not for friend nor for foe:
+      Our fins are stout,
+      Our tails are out,
+    As through the seas we go.
+
+    Fish, Fish, we are fish with red gills;
+      Naught disturbs us, our blood is at zero:
+    We are buoyant because of our bags,
+      Being many, each fish is a hero.
+    We care not what is it, this life
+      That we follow, this phantom unknown:
+    To swim, it's exceedingly pleasant,&mdash;
+      So swim away, making a foam.
+    This strange looking thing by our side,
+      Not for safety, around it we flee:&mdash;
+    Its shadow's so shady, that's all,&mdash;
+      We only swim under its lee.
+    And as for the eels there above,
+      And as for the fowls in the air,
+    We care not for them nor their ways,
+      As we cheerily glide afar!
+
+    We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,
+    We care not for friend nor for foe:
+      Our fins are stout,
+      Our tails are out,
+    As through the seas we go.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But how now, my fine fish! what alarms your long ranks, and tosses them
+      all into a hubbub of scales and of foam? Never mind that long knave with
+      the spear there, astern. Pipe away, merry fish, and give us a stave or two
+      more, keeping time with your doggerel tails. But no, no! their singing was
+      over. Grim death, in the shape of a Chevalier, was after them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How they changed their boastful tune! How they hugged the vilified boat!
+      How they wished they were in it, the braggarts! And how they all tingled
+      with fear!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, now here, now there, is heard a terrific rushing sound under water,
+      betokening the onslaught of the dread fish of prey, that with spear ever
+      in rest, charges in upon the out-skirts of the shoal, transfixing the fish
+      on his weapon. Re-treating and shaking them off, the Chevalier devours
+      them; then returns to the charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hugging the boat to desperation, the poor fish fairly crowded themselves
+      up to the surface, and floundered upon each other, as men are lifted off
+      their feet in a mob. They clung to us thus, out of a fancied security in
+      our presence. Knowing this, we felt no little alarm for ourselves,
+      dreading lest the Chevalier might despise our boat, full as much as his
+      prey; and in pursuing the fish, run through the poor Chamois with a lunge.
+      A jacket, rolled up, was kept in readiness to be thrust into the first
+      opening made; while as the thousand fins audibly patted against our
+      slender planks, we felt nervously enough; as if treading upon thin,
+      crackling ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, to our no small delight, the enemy swam away; and again by our
+      side merrily paddled our escort; ten times merrier than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0049" id="link2HCH0049"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIX &mdash; Yillah
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While for a few days, now this way, now that, as our craft glides along,
+      surrounded by these locusts of the deep, let the story of Yillah flow on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of her beauty say I nothing. It was that of a crystal lake in a fathomless
+      wood: all light and shade; full of fleeting revealings; now shadowed in
+      depths; now sunny in dimples; but all sparkling and shifting, and blending
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her wild beauty was a vail to things still more strange. As often she
+      gazed so earnestly into my eyes, like some pure spirit looking far down
+      into my soul, and seeing therein some upturned faces, I &mdash; started in
+      amaze, and asked what spell was on me, that thus she gazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Often she entreated me to repeat over and over again certain syllables of
+      my language. These she would chant to herself, pausing now and then, as if
+      striving to discover wherein lay their charm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In her accent, there was something very different from that of the people
+      of the canoe. Wherein lay the difference. I knew not; but it enabled her
+      to pronounce with readiness all the words which I taught her; even as if
+      recalling sounds long forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If all this filled me with wonder, how much was that wonder increased, and
+      yet baffled again, by considering her complexion, and the cast of her
+      features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After endeavoring in various ways to account for these things, I was led
+      to imagine, that the damsel must be an Albino (Tulla) occasionally to be
+      met with among the people of the Pacific. These persons are of an
+      exceedingly delicate white skin, tinted with a faint rose hue, like the
+      lips of a shell. Their hair is golden. But, unlike the Albinos of other
+      climes, their eyes are invariably blue, and no way intolerant of light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a race, the Tullas die early. And hence the belief, that they pertain
+      to some distant sphere, and only through irregularities in the providence
+      of the gods, come to make their appearance upon earth: whence, the
+      oversight discovered, they are hastily snatched. And it is chiefly on this
+      account, that in those islands where human sacrifices are offered, the
+      Tullas are deemed the most suitable oblations for the altar, to which from
+      their birth many are prospectively devoted. It was these considerations,
+      united to others, which at times induced me to fancy, that by the priest,
+      Yillah was regarded as one of these beings. So mystical, however, her
+      revelations concerning her past history, that often I knew not what to
+      divine. But plainly they showed that she had not the remotest conception
+      of her real origin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these conceits of a state of being anterior to an earthly existence
+      may have originated in one of those celestial visions seen transparently
+      stealing over the face of a slumbering child. And craftily drawn forth and
+      re-echoed by another, and at times repeated over to her with many
+      additions, these imaginings must at length have assumed in her mind a hue
+      of reality, heightened into conviction by the dreamy seclusion of her
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now, let her subsequent and more credible history be related, as from
+      time to time she rehearsed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0050" id="link2HCH0050"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER L &mdash; Yillah In Ardair
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the verdant glen of Ardair, far in the silent interior of Amma, shut in
+      by hoar old cliffs, Yillah the maiden abode.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So small and so deep was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by steep
+      acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive the shadows
+      that played there; that, from above, it seemed more like a lake of cool,
+      balmy air, than a glen: its woodlands and grasses gleaming shadowy all,
+      like sea groves and mosses beneath the calm sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, none came but Aleema the priest, who at times was absent for days
+      together. But at certain seasons, an unseen multitude with loud chants
+      stood upon the verge of the neighboring precipices, and traversing those
+      shaded wilds, slowly retreated; their voices lessening and lessening, as
+      they wended their way through the more distant groves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At other times, Yillah being immured in the temple of Apo, a band of men
+      entering the vale, surrounded her retreat, dancing there till evening
+      came. Meanwhile, heaps of fruit, garlands of flowers, and baskets of fish,
+      were laid upon an altar without, where stood Aleema, arrayed in white
+      tappa, and muttering to himself, as the offerings were laid at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Aleema was gone, Yillah went forth into the glen, and wandered among
+      the trees, and reposed by the banks of the stream. And ever as she
+      strolled, looked down upon her the grim old cliffs, bearded with trailing
+      moss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward the lower end of the vale, its lofty walls advancing and
+      overhanging their base, almost met in mid air. And a great rock, hurled
+      from an adjacent height, and falling into the space intercepted, there
+      remained fixed. Aerial trees shot up from its surface; birds nested in its
+      clefts; and strange vines roved abroad, overrunning the tops of the trees,
+      lying thereon in coils and undulations, like anacondas basking in the
+      light. Beneath this rock, was a lofty wall of ponderous stones. Between
+      its crevices, peeps were had of a long and leafy arcade, quivering far
+      away to where the sea rolled in the sun. Lower down, these crevices gave
+      an outlet to the waters of the brook, which, in a long cascade, poured
+      over sloping green ledges near the foot of the wall, into a deep shady
+      pool; whose rocky sides, by the perpetual eddying of the water, had been
+      worn into a grotesque resemblance to a group of giants, with heads
+      submerged, indolently reclining about the basin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this pool, Yillah would bathe. And once, emerging, she heard the echoes
+      of a voice, and called aloud. But the only reply, was the rustling of
+      branches, as some one, invisible, fled down the valley beyond. Soon after,
+      a stone rolled inward, and Aleema the priest stood before her; saying that
+      the voice she had heard was his. But it was not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined for
+      companionship. When the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves of the
+      mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as tears in
+      the eye, Yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in her soul to
+      awaken. She sang low airs, she thought she had heard in Oroolia; but
+      started affrighted, as from dingles and dells, came back to her strains
+      more wild than hers. And ever, when sad, Aleema would seek to cheer her
+      soul, by calling to mind the bright scenes of Oroolia the Blest, to which
+      place, he averred, she was shortly to return, never more to depart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak, presenting
+      at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose shadow, every
+      afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain: a silent phantom,
+      stealing all over the bosom of the glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth, and
+      waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her arms in a
+      caress; saying, "Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?" And at last, when it
+      crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the whole valley in
+      gloom; Aleema would say, "Arise Yillah; Apo hath stretched himself to
+      sleep in Ardair. Go, slumber where thou wilt; for thou wilt slumber in his
+      arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim Apo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something that
+      every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully still; she
+      went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from the peak. Of a
+      sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that made it to look as if
+      parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and thought it was Apo calling
+      "Yillah! Yillah!" But now it seemed like the voice she had heard while
+      bathing in the pool. Glancing upward, she beheld a beautiful open-armed
+      youth, gazing down upon her from an inaccessible crag. But presently,
+      there was a rustling in the groves behind, and swift as thought, something
+      darted through the air. The youth bounded forward. Yillah opened her arms
+      to receive him; but he fell upon the cliff, and was seen no more. As
+      alarmed, and in tears, she fled from the scene, some one out of sight ran
+      before her through the wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon recounting this adventure to Aleema, he said, that the being she had
+      seen, must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that Apo had
+      slain him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of this youth, filled Yillah with wild yearnings to escape from
+      her lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest and the
+      phantom, suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings, in regions
+      beyond Ardair. But Aleema sought to put away these conceits; saying, that
+      ere long she would be journeying to Oroolia, there to rejoin the spirits
+      she dimly remembered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after, he came to her with a shell&mdash;one of those ever moaning of
+      ocean&mdash;and placing it to her ear, bade her list to the being within,
+      which in that little shell had voyaged from Oroolia to bear her company in
+      Amma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the maiden oft held it to her ear, and closing her eyes, listened and
+      listened to its soft inner breathings, till visions were born of the
+      sound, and her soul lay for hours in a trance of delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again the priest came, and brought her a milk-white bird, with a bill
+      jet-black, and eyes like stars. "In this, lurks the soul of a maiden; it
+      hath flown from Oroolia to greet you." The soft stranger willingly nestled
+      in her bosom; turning its bright eyes upon hers, and softly warbling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many days passed; and Yillah, the bird, and the shell were inseparable.
+      The bird grew familiar; pecked seeds from her mouth; perched upon her
+      shoulder, and sang in her ear; and at night, folded its wings in her
+      bosom, and, like a sea-fowl, went softly to sleep: rising and falling upon
+      the maiden's heart. And every morning it flew from its nest, and fluttered
+      and chirped; and sailed to and fro; and blithely sang; and brushed
+      Yillah's cheek till she woke. Then came to her hand: and Yillah, looking
+      earnestly in its eyes, saw strange faces there; and said to herself as she
+      gazed&mdash;"These are two souls, not one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, going forth into the groves with the bird, it suddenly flew
+      from her side, and perched in a bough; and throwing back its white downy
+      throat, there gushed from its bill a clear warbling jet, like a little
+      fountain in air. Now the song ceased; when up and away toward the head of
+      the vale, flew the bird. "Lil! Lil! come back, leave me not, blest souls
+      of the maidens." But on flew the bird, far up a defile, winging its way
+      till a speck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was shortly after this, and upon the evening of a day which had been
+      tumultuous with sounds of warfare beyond the lower wall of the glen; that
+      Aleema came to Yillah in alarm; saying&mdash;"Yillah, the time has come to
+      follow thy bird; come, return to thy home in Oroolia." And he told her the
+      way she would voyage there: by the vortex on the coast of Tedaidee. That
+      night, being veiled and placed in the tent, the maiden was borne to the
+      sea-side, where the canoe was in waiting. And setting sail quickly, by
+      next morning the island of Amma was no longer in sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this was the voyage, whose sequel has already been recounted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0051" id="link2HCH0051"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LI &mdash; The Dream Begins To Fade
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Stripped of the strange associations, with which a mind like Yillah's must
+      have invested every incident of her life, the story of her abode in Ardair
+      seemed not incredible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But so etherealized had she become from the wild conceits she nourished,
+      that she verily believed herself a being of the lands of dreams. Her
+      fabulous past was her present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet as our intimacy grew closer and closer, these fancies seemed to be
+      losing their hold. And often she questioned me concerning my own
+      reminiscences of her shadowy isle. And cautiously I sought to produce the
+      impression, that whatever I had said of that clime, had been revealed to
+      me in dreams; but that in these dreams, her own lineaments had smiled upon
+      me; and hence the impulse which had sent me roving after the substance of
+      this spiritual image.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And true it was to say so; and right it was to swear it, upon her white
+      arms crossed. For oh, Yillah; were you not the earthly semblance of that
+      sweet vision, that haunted my earliest thoughts?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first she had wildly believed, that the nameless affinities between us,
+      were owing to our having in times gone by dwelt together in the same
+      ethereal region. But thoughts like these were fast dying out. Yet not
+      without many strange scrutinies. More intently than ever she gazed into my
+      eyes; rested her ear against my heart, and listened to its beatings. And
+      love, which in the eye of its object ever seeks to invest itself with some
+      rare superiority, love, sometimes induced me to prop my failing divinity;
+      though it was I myself who had undermined it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if it was with many regrets, that in the sight of Yillah, I &mdash;
+      perceived myself thus dwarfing down to a mortal; it was with quite
+      contrary emotions, that I contemplated the extinguishment in her heart of
+      the notion of her own spirituality. For as such thoughts were chased away,
+      she clung the more closely to me, as unto one without whom she would be
+      desolate indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, at intervals, she was sad, and often gazed long and fixedly into
+      the sea. Nor would she say why it was, that she did so; until at length
+      she yielded; and replied, that whatever false things Aleema might have
+      instilled into her mind; of this much she was certain: that the whirlpool
+      on the coast of Tedaidee prefigured her fate; that in the waters she saw
+      lustrous eyes, and beckoning phantoms, and strange shapes smoothing her a
+      couch among the mosses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her dreams seemed mine. Many visions I had of the green corse of the
+      priest, outstretching its arms in the water, to receive pale Yillah, as
+      she sunk in the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these forebodings departed, no happiness in the universe like ours. We
+      lived and we loved; life and love were united; in gladness glided our
+      days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LII &mdash; World Ho!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Five suns rose and set. And Yillah pining for the shore, we turned our
+      prow due west, and next morning came in sight of land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was innumerable islands; lifting themselves bluely through the azure
+      air, and looking upon the distant sea, like haycocks in a hazy field.
+      Towering above all, and mid-most, rose a mighty peak; one fleecy cloud
+      sloping against its summit; a column wreathed. Beyond, like purple steeps
+      in heaven at set of sun, stretched far away, what seemed lands on lands,
+      in infinite perspective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gliding on, the islands grew more distinct; rising up from the billows to
+      greet us; revealing hills, vales, and peaks, grouped within a milk-white
+      zone of reef, so vast, that in the distance all was dim. The jeweled
+      vapors, ere-while hovering over these violet shores, now seemed to be
+      shedding their gems; and as the almost level rays of the sun, shooting
+      through the air like a variegated prism, touched the verdant land, it
+      trembled all over with dewy sparkles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still nearer we came: our sail faintly distended as the breeze died away
+      from our vicinity to the isles. The billows rolled listlessly by, as if
+      conscious that their long task was nigh done; while gleamed the white
+      reef, like the trail of a great fish in a calm. But as yet, no sign of
+      paddle or canoe; no distant smoke; no shining thatch. Bravo! good
+      comrades, we've discovered some new constellation in the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sweet Yillah, no more of Oroolia; see you not this flowery land? Nevermore
+      shall we desire to roam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Voyaging along the zone, we came to an opening; and quitting the firmament
+      blue of the open sea, we glided in upon the still, green waters of the
+      wide lagoon. Mapped out in the broad shadows of the isles, and tinted here
+      and there with the reflected hues of the sun clouds, the mild waters
+      stretched all around us like another sky. Near by the break in the reef,
+      was a little island, with palm trees harping in the breeze; an aviary of
+      alluring sounds, that seemed calling upon us to land. And here, Yillah,
+      whom the sight of the verdure had made glad, threw out a merry suggestion.
+      Nothing less, than to plant our mast, sail-set, upon the highest hill; and
+      fly away, island and all; trees rocking, birds caroling, flowers
+      springing; away, away, across the wide waters, to Oroolia! But alas! how
+      weigh the isle's coral anchor, leagues down in the fathomless sea?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We glanced around; but all the islands seemed slumbering in the flooding
+      light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A canoe! a canoe!" cried Samoa, as three proas showed themselves rounding
+      a neighboring shore. Instantly we sailed for them; but after shooting to
+      and fro for a time, and standing up and gazing at us, the Islanders
+      retreated behind the headland. Hardly were they out of sight, when from
+      many a shore roundabout, other proas pushed off. Soon the water all round
+      us was enlivened by fleets of canoes, darting hither and thither like
+      frighted water-fowls. Presently they all made for one island.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From their actions we argued that these people could have had but little
+      or no intercourse with whites; and most probably knew not how to account
+      for our appearance among them. Desirous, therefore, of a friendly meeting,
+      ere any hostile suspicions might arise, we pointed our craft for the
+      island, whither all the canoes were now hastening. Whereupon, those which
+      had not yet reached their destination, turned and fled; while the
+      occupants of the proas that had landed, ran into the groves, and were lost
+      to view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crossing the distinct outer line of the isle's shadow on the water, we
+      gained the shore; and gliding along its margin, passing canoe after canoe,
+      hauled up on the silent beach, which otherwise seemed entirely innocent of
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A dilemma. But I decided at last upon disembarking Jarl and Samoa, to seek
+      out and conciliate the natives. So, landing them upon a jutting buttress
+      of coral, whence they waded to the shore; I pushed off with Yillah into
+      the water beyond, to await the event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Full an hour must have elapsed; when, to our great joy, loud shouts were
+      heard; and there burst into view a tumultuous crowd, in the midst of which
+      my Viking was descried, mounted upon the shoulders of two brawny natives;
+      while the Upoluan, striding on in advance, seemed resisting a similar
+      attempt to elevate him in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good omens both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come ashore!" cried Jarl. "Aramai!" cried Samoa; while storms of
+      interjections went up from the Islanders who with extravagant gestures
+      danced about the beach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further caution seemed needless: I pointed our prow for the shore. No
+      sooner was this perceived, than, raising an applauding shout, the
+      Islanders ran up to their waists in the sea. And skimming like a gull over
+      the smooth lagoon, the light shallop darted in among them. Quick as
+      thought, fifty hands were on the gunwale: and, with all its contents,
+      lifted bodily into the air, the little Chamois, upon many a dripping
+      shoulder, was borne deep into the groves. Yillah shrieked at the rocking
+      motion, and when the boughs of the trees brushed against the tent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With his staff, an old man now pointed to a couple of twin-like trees,
+      some four paces apart; and a little way from the ground conveniently
+      crotched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here, eftsoons, they deposited their burden; lowering the Chamois
+      gently between the forks of the trees, whose willow-like foliage fringed
+      the tent and its inmate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0053" id="link2HCH0053"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LIII &mdash; The Chamois Ashore
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Until now, enveloped in her robe, and crouching like a fawn, Yillah had
+      been well nigh hidden from view. But presently she withdrew her hood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What saw the Islanders, that they so gazed and adored in silence: some
+      retreating, some creeping nearer, and the women all in a flutter? Long
+      they gazed; and following Samoa's example, stretched forth their arms in
+      reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The adoration of the maiden was extended to myself. Indeed, from the
+      singular gestures employed, I had all along suspected, that we were being
+      received with unwonted honors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I now sought to get speech of my comrades. But so obstreperous was the
+      crowd, that it was next to impossible. Jarl was still in his perch in the
+      air; his enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to alight. Samoa,
+      however, who had managed to keep out of the saddle, by-and-by contrived to
+      draw nearer to the Chamois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He advised me, by no means to descend for the present; since in any event
+      we were sure of remaining unmolested therein; the Islanders regarding it
+      as sacred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Upoluan attracted a great deal of attention; chiefly from his style of
+      tattooing, which, together with other peculiarities, so interested the
+      natives, that they were perpetually hanging about him, putting eager
+      questions, and all the time keeping up a violent clamor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But despite the large demand upon his lungs, Samoa made out to inform me,
+      that notwithstanding the multitude assembled, there was no high chief, or
+      person of consequence present; the king of the place, also those of the
+      islands adjacent, being absent at a festival in another quarter of the
+      Archipelago. But upon the first distant glimpse of the Chamois, fleet
+      canoes had been dispatched to announce the surprising event that had
+      happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In good time, the crowd becoming less tumultuous, and abandoning the siege
+      of Samoa, I availed myself of this welcome lull, and called upon him and
+      my Viking to enter the Chamois; desirous of condensing our forces against
+      all emergencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Samoa now gave me to understand, that from all he could learn, the
+      Islanders regarded me as a superior being. They had inquired of him,
+      whether I was not white Taji, a sort of half-and-half deity, now and then
+      an Avatar among them, and ranking among their inferior ex- officio
+      demi-gods. To this, Samoa had said ay; adding, moreover, all he could to
+      encourage the idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now entreated me, at the first opportunity, to announce myself as Taji:
+      declaring that if once received under that title, the unbounded
+      hospitality of our final reception would be certain; and our persons
+      fenced about from all harm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Encouraging this. But it was best to be wary. For although among some
+      barbarians the first strangers landing upon their shores, are frequently
+      hailed as divine; and in more than one wild land have been actually styled
+      gods, as a familiar designation; yet this has not exempted the celestial
+      visitants from peril, when too much presuming upon the reception extended
+      to them. In sudden tumults they have been slain outright, and while full
+      faith in their divinity had in no wise abated. The sad fate of an eminent
+      navigator is a well-known illustration of this unaccountable waywardness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With no small anxiety, therefore, we awaited the approach of some of the
+      dignitaries of Mardi; for by this collective appellation, the people
+      informed us, their islands were known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We waited not long. Of a sudden, from the sea-side, a single shrill cry
+      was heard. A moment more, and the blast of numerous conch shells startled
+      the air; a confused clamor drew nearer and nearer; and flying our eyes in
+      the direction of these sounds, we impatiently awaited what was to follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0054" id="link2HCH0054"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LIV &mdash; A Gentleman From The Sun
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Never before had I seen the deep foliage of woodlands navigated by canoes.
+      But on they came sailing through the leaves; two abreast; borne on men's
+      shoulders; in each a chief, carried along to the measured march of his
+      bearers; paddle blades reversed under arms. As they emerged, the multitude
+      made gestures of homage. At the distance of some eight or ten paces the
+      procession halted; when the kings alighted to the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were fine-looking men, arrayed in various garbs. Rare the show of
+      stained feathers, and jewels, and other adornments. Brave the floating of
+      dyed mantles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The regal bearing of these personages, the deference paid them, and their
+      entire self-possession, not a little surprised me. And it seemed
+      preposterous, to assume a divine dignity in the presence of these
+      undoubted potentates of <i>terra firma</i>. Taji seemed oozing from my
+      fingers' ends. But courage! and erecting my crest, I strove to look every
+      inch the character I had determined to assume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time, it was almost impossible to tell with what emotions precisely
+      the chiefs were regarding me. They said not a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But plucking up heart of grace, I crossed my cutlass on my chest, and
+      reposing my hand on the hilt, addressed their High Mightinesses thus. "Men
+      of Mardi, I come from the sun. When this morning it rose and touched the
+      wave, I pushed my shallop from its golden beach, and hither sailed before
+      its level rays. I am Taji."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More would have been added, but I paused for the effect of my exordium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stepping back a pace or two, the chiefs eagerly conversed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emboldened, I returned to the charge, and labored hard to impress them
+      with just such impressions of me and mine, as I deemed desirable. The
+      gentle Yillah was a seraph from the sun; Samoa I had picked off a reef in
+      my route from that orb; and as for the Skyeman, why, as his name imported,
+      he came from above. In a word, we were all strolling divinities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Advancing toward the Chamois, one of the kings, a calm old man, now
+      addressed me as follows:&mdash;"Is this indeed Taji? he, who according to
+      a tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? But that
+      period is yet unexpired. What bring'st thou hither then, Taji, before thy
+      time? Thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when thou
+      dwelt among our sires. But wherefore comest thou, Taji? Truly, thou wilt
+      interfere with the worship of thy images, and we have plenty of gods
+      besides thee. But comest thou to fight?&mdash;We have plenty of spears,
+      and desire not thine. Comest thou to dwell?&mdash;Small are the houses of
+      Mardi. Or comest thou to fish in the sea? Tell us, Taji."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, all this was a series of posers hard to be answered; furnishing a
+      curious example, moreover, of the reception given to strange demi- gods
+      when they travel without their portmanteaus; and also of the familiar
+      manner in which these kings address the immortals. Much I &mdash; mourned
+      that I had not previously studied better my part, and learned the precise
+      nature of my previous existence in the land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But nothing like carrying it bravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Attend. Taji comes, old man, because it pleases him to come. And Taji
+      will depart when it suits him. Ask the shades of your sires whether Taji
+      thus scurvily greeted them, when they came stalking into his presence in
+      the land of spirits. No. Taji spread the banquet. He removed their
+      mantles. He kindled a fire to drive away the damp. He said not, 'Come you
+      to fight, you fogs and vapors? come you to dwell? or come you to fish in
+      the sea?' Go to, then, kings of Mardi!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this, the old king fell back; and his place was supplied by a noble
+      chief, of a free, frank bearing. Advancing quickly toward the boat, he
+      exclaimed&mdash;"I am Media, the son of Media. Thrice welcome, Taji. On my
+      island of Odo hast thou an altar. I claim thee for my guest." He then
+      reminded the rest, that the strangers had voyaged far, and needed repose.
+      And, furthermore, that he proposed escorting them forthwith to his own
+      dominions; where, next day, he would be happy to welcome all visitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And good as his word, he commanded his followers to range themselves under
+      the Chamois. Springing out of our prow, the Upoluan was followed by Jarl;
+      leaving Yillah and Taji to be borne therein toward the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon, we were once more afloat; by our side, Media sociably seated; six of
+      his paddlers, perched upon the gunwale, swiftly urging us over the lagoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The transition from the grove to the sea was instantaneous. All seemed a
+      dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The place to which we were hastening, being some distance away, as we
+      rounded isle after isle, the extent of the Archipelago grew upon us
+      greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0055" id="link2HCH0055"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LV &mdash; Tiffin In A Temple
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Upon at last drawing nigh to Odo, its appearance somewhat disappointed me.
+      A small island, of moderate elevation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But plumb not the height of the house that feasts you. The beach was lined
+      with expectant natives, who, lifting the Chamois, carried us up the beach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alighting, as they were bearing us along, King Media, designating a
+      canoe-house hard by, ordered our craft to be deposited therein. This being
+      done, we stepped upon the soil. It was the first we had pressed in very
+      many days. It sent a sympathetic thrill through our frames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning his steps inland, Media signed us to follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon we came to a rude sort of inclosure, fenced in by an imposing wall.
+      Here a halt was sounded, and in great haste the natives proceeded to throw
+      down a portion of the stones. This accomplished, we were signed to enter
+      the fortress thus carried by storm. Upon an artificial mound, opposite the
+      breach, stood a small structure of bamboo, open in front. Within, was a
+      long pedestal, like a settee, supporting three images, also of wood, and
+      about the size of men; bearing, likewise, a remote resemblance to that
+      species of animated nature. Before these idols was an altar, and at its
+      base many fine mats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Entering the temple, as if he felt very much at home, Media disposed these
+      mats so as to form a very pleasant lounge; where he deferentially
+      entreated Yillah to recline. Then deliberately removing the first idol, he
+      motioned me to seat myself in its place. Setting aside the middle one, he
+      quietly established himself in its stead. The displaced ciphers,
+      meanwhile, standing upright before us, and their blank faces looking upon
+      this occasion unusually expressive. As yet, not a syllable as to the
+      meaning of this cavalier treatment of their wooden godships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We now tranquilly awaited what next might happen, and I earnestly prayed,
+      that if sacrilege was being committed, the vengeance of the gods might be
+      averted from an ignoramus like me; notwithstanding the petitioner himself
+      hailed from the other world. Perfect silence was preserved: Jarl and Samoa
+      standing a little without the temple; the first looking quite composed,
+      but his comrade casting wondering glances at my sociable apotheosis with
+      Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now happening to glance upon the image last removed, I was not long in
+      detecting a certain resemblance between it and our host. Both were
+      decorated in the same manner; the carving on the idol exactly
+      corresponding with the tattooing of the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, the silence was relieved by a commotion without: and a butler
+      approached, staggering under an immense wooden trencher; which, with
+      profound genuflexions, he deposited upon the altar before us. The tray was
+      loaded like any harvest wain; heaped up with good things sundry and
+      divers: Bread-fruit, and cocoanuts, and plantains, and guavas; all
+      pleasant to the eye, and furnishing good earnest of something equally
+      pleasant to the palate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Transported at the sight of these viands, after so long an estrangement
+      from full indulgence in things green, I was forthwith proceeding to help
+      Yillah and myself, when, like lightning, a most unwelcome query obtruded.
+      Did deities dine? Then also recurred what Media had declared about my
+      shrine in Odo. Was this it? Self- sacrilegious demigod that I was, was I
+      going to gluttonize on the very offerings, laid before me in my own sacred
+      fane? Give heed to thy ways, oh Taji, lest thou stumble and be lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hereupon, what saw we, but his cool majesty of Odo tranquilly
+      proceeding to lunch in the temple?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How now? Was Media too a god? Egad, it must be so. Else, why his image
+      here in the fane, and the original so entirely at his ease, with legs full
+      cosily tucked away under the very altar itself. This put to flight all
+      appalling apprehensions of the necessity of starving to keep up the
+      assumption of my divinity. So without more ado I helped myself right and
+      left; taking the best care of Yillah; who over fed her flushed beauty with
+      juicy fruits, thereby transferring to her cheek the sweet glow of the
+      guava.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our hunger appeased, and Media in token thereof celestially laying his
+      hand upon the appropriate region, we proceeded to quit the inclosure. But
+      coming to the wall where the breach had been made, lo, and behold, no
+      breach was to be seen. But down it came tumbling again, and forth we
+      issued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This overthrowing of walls, be it known, is an incidental compliment paid
+      distinguished personages in this part of Mardi. It would seem to signify,
+      that such gentry can go nowhere without creating an impression; even upon
+      the most obdurate substances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to return to our ambrosial lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sublimate, as you will, the idea of our ethereality as intellectual
+      beings; no sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast deal
+      of satisfaction in dining. More: there is a savor of life and immortality
+      in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And well knowing this, nature has provided this jolly round board, our
+      globe, which in an endless sequence of courses and crops, spreads a
+      perpetual feast. Though, as with most public banquets, there is no small
+      crowding, and many go away famished from plenty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0056" id="link2HCH0056"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LVI &mdash; King Media A Host
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Striking into a grove, about sunset we emerged upon a fine, clear space,
+      and spied a city in the woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of all, like a generalissimo's marquee among tents, was a
+      structure more imposing than the rest. Here, abode King Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were many palm posts
+      staked firmly in the earth. A man's height from the ground, these
+      supported numerous horizontal trunks, upon which lay a flooring of
+      habiscus. High over this dais, but resting upon independent supports
+      beyond, a gable-ended roof sloped away to within a short distance of the
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered it by an arched, arbored entrance, at one of its
+palmetto-thatched ends. But not through this exclusive portal entered the
+      Islanders. Humbly stooping, they found ingress under the drooping eaves. A
+      custom immemorial, and well calculated to remind all contumacious subjects
+      of the dignity of the habitation thus entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three steps led to the summit of the dais, where piles of soft mats, and
+      light pillows of woven grass, stuffed with the golden down of a wild
+      thistle, invited all loiterers to lounge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How pleasant the twilight that welled up from under the low eaves, above
+      which we were seated. And how obvious now the design of the roof. No shade
+      more grateful and complete; the garish sun lingering without like some
+      lackey in waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But who is this in the corner, gaping at us like a butler in a quandary?
+      Media's household deity, in the guise of a plethoric monster, his enormous
+      head lolling back, and wide, gaping mouth stuffed full of fresh fruits and
+      green leaves. Truly, had the idol possessed a soul under his knotty ribs,
+      how tantalizing to hold so glorious a mouthful without the power of
+      deglutition. Far worse than the inexorable lock-jaw, which will not admit
+      of the step preliminary to a swallow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This jolly Josh image was that of an inferior deity, the god of Good
+      Cheer, and often after, we met with his merry round mouth in many other
+      abodes in Mardi. Daily, his jaws are replenished, as a flower vase in
+      summer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But did the demi-divine Media thus brook the perpetual presence of a
+      subaltern divinity? Still more; did he render it homage? But ere long the
+      Mardian mythology will be discussed, thereby making plain what may now
+      seem anomalous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Politely escorting us into his palace, Media did the honors by inviting
+      his guests to recline. He then seemed very anxious to impress us with the
+      fact, that, by bringing us to his home, and thereby charging the royal
+      larder with our maintenance, he had taken no hasty or imprudent step. His
+      merry butlers kept piling round us viands, till we were well nigh walled
+      in. At every fresh deposit, Media directing our attention to the same, as
+      yet additional evidence of his ample resources as a host. The evidence was
+      finally closed by dragging under the eaves a felled plantain tree, the
+      spike of red ripe fruit, sprouting therefrom, blushing all over, at so
+      rude an introduction to the notice of strangers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this scene, Jarl was privily nudging Samoa, in wonderment, to know
+      what upon earth it all meant. But Samoa, scarcely deigning to notice
+      interrogatories propounded through the elbow, only let drop a vague hint
+      or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite amusing, what airs Samoa now gave himself, at least toward my
+      Viking. Among the Mardians he was at home. And who, when there, stretches
+      not out his legs, and says unto himself, "Who is greater than I?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be plain: concerning himself and the Skyeman, the tables were turned.
+      At sea, Jarl had been the oracle: an old sea-sage, learned in hemp and
+      helm. But our craft high and dry, the Upoluan lifted his crest as the
+      erudite pagan; master of Gog and Magog, expounder of all things heathenish
+      and obscure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour or two was now laughed away in very charming conversation with
+      Media; when I hinted, that a couch and solitude would be acceptable.
+      Whereupon, seizing a taper, our host escorted us without the palace. And
+      ushering us into a handsome unoccupied mansion, gave me to understand that
+      the same was mine. Mounting to the dais, he then instituted a vigorous
+      investigation, to discern whether every thing was in order. Not fancying
+      something about the mats, he rolled them up into bundles, and one by one
+      sent them flying at the heads of his servitors; who, upon that gentle hint
+      made off with them, soon after returning with fresh ones. These, with
+      mathematical precision, Media in person now spread on the dais; looking
+      carefully to the fringes or ruffles with which they were bordered, as if
+      striving to impart to them a sentimental expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This done, he withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0057" id="link2HCH0057"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LVII &mdash; Taji Takes Counsel With Himself
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      My brief intercourse with our host, had by this time enabled me to form a
+      pretty good notion of the light, in which I was held by him and his more
+      intelligent subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my
+      assumptions, he was no way overawed by them; treating me as familiarly,
+      indeed, as if I were a mere mortal, one of the abject generation of
+      mushrooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene in the temple, however, had done much toward explaining this
+      demeanor of his. A demi-god in his own proper person, my claims to a
+      similar dignity neither struck him with wonder, nor lessened his good
+      opinion of himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for any thing foreign in my aspect, and my ignorance of Mardian customs&mdash;-all
+      this, instead of begetting a doubt unfavorable to my pretensions, but
+      strengthened the conviction of them as verities. Thus has it been in
+      similar instances; but to a much greater extent. The celebrated navigator
+      referred to in a preceding chapter, was hailed by the Hawaiians as one of
+      their demi-gods, returned to earth, after a wide tour of the universe. And
+      they worshiped him as such, though incessantly he was interrogating them,
+      as to who under the sun his worshipers were; how their ancestors came on
+      the island; and whether they would have the kindness to provide his
+      followers with plenty of pork during his stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a word or two concerning the idols in the shrine at Odo. Superadded to
+      the homage rendered him as a temporal prince, Media was there worshiped as
+      a spiritual being. In his corporeal absence, his effigy receiving all
+      oblations intended for him. And in the days of his boyhood, listening to
+      the old legends of the Mardian mythology, Media had conceived a strong
+      liking for the fabulous Taji; a deity whom he had often declared was
+      worthy a niche in any temple extant. Hence he had honored my image with a
+      place in his own special shrine; placing it side by side with his
+      worshipful likeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I appreciated the compliment. But of the close companionship of the other
+      image there, I was heartily ashamed. And with reason. The nuisance in
+      question being the image of a deified maker of plantain- pudding, lately
+      deceased; who had been famed far and wide as the most notable fellow of
+      his profession in the whole Archipelago. During his sublunary career,
+      having been attached to the household of Media, his grateful master had
+      afterward seen fit to crown his celebrity by this posthumous distinction:
+      a circumstance sadly subtracting from the dignity of an apotheosis. Nor
+      must it here be omitted, that in this part of Mardi culinary artists are
+      accounted worthy of high consideration. For among these people of Odo, the
+      matter of eating and drinking is held a matter of life and of death. "Drag
+      away my queen from my arms," said old Tyty when overcome of Adommo, "but
+      leave me my cook."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, among the Mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to keep me
+      in countenance. Most of the kings of the Archipelago, besides Media,
+      claiming homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of hereditary
+      descent, the divine spark being transmissable from father to son. In
+      illustration of this, was the fact, that in several instances the people
+      of the land addressed the supreme god Oro, in the very same terms employed
+      in the political adoration of their sublunary rulers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay: there were deities in Mardi far greater and taller than I: right royal
+      monarchs to boot, living in jolly round tabernacles of jolly brown clay;
+      and feasting, and roystering, and lording it in yellow tabernacles of
+      bamboo. These demi-gods had wherewithal to sustain their lofty
+      pretensions. If need were, could crush out of him the infidelity of a
+      non-conformist. And by this immaculate union of church and state, god and
+      king, in their own proper persons reigned supreme Caesars over the souls
+      and bodies of their subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beside these mighty magnates, I and my divinity shrank into nothing. In
+      their woodland ante-chambers plebeian deities were kept lingering. For be
+      it known, that in due time we met with several decayed, broken down
+      demi-gods: magnificos of no mark in Mardi; having no temples wherein to
+      feast personal admirers, or spiritual devotees. They wandered about
+      forlorn and friendless. And oftentimes in their dinnerless despair hugely
+      gluttonized, and would fain have grown fat, by reflecting upon the
+      magnificence of their genealogies. But poor fellows! like shabby Scotch
+      lords in London in King James's time, the very multitude of them
+      confounded distinction. And since they could show no rent-roll, they were
+      permitted to fume unheeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in Mardi, that
+      I held my divinity but cheaply. And seeing such a host of immortals, and
+      hearing of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their nature, haunting
+      woodlands and streams; my views of theology grew strangely confused; I
+      began to bethink me of the Jew that rejected the Talmud, and his
+      all-permeating principle, to which Goethe and others have subscribed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to palm
+      myself off as a god&mdash;the way in which the thing first impressed me&mdash;I
+      now perceived that I might be a god as much as I pleased, and yet not
+      whisk a lion's tail after all at least on that special account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Media's reception, its graciousness was not wholly owing to the
+      divine character imputed to me. His, he believed to be the same. But to a
+      whim, a freakishness in his soul, which led him to fancy me as one among
+      many, not as one with no peer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the apparent unconcern of King Media with respect to my godship, by no
+      means so much surprised me, as his unaffected indifference to my amazing
+      voyage from the sun; his indifference to the sun itself; and all the
+      wonderful circumstances that must have attended my departure. Whether he
+      had ever been there himself, that he regarded a solar trip with so much
+      unconcern, almost became a question in my mind. Certain it is, that as a
+      mere traveler he must have deemed me no very great prodigy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My surprise at these things was enhanced by reflecting, that to the people
+      of the Archipelago the map of Mardi was the map of the world. With the
+      exception of certain islands out of sight and at an indefinite distance,
+      they had no certain knowledge of any isles but their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, no long time elapsed ere I had still additional reasons to cease
+      wondering at the easy faith accorded to the story which I had given of
+      myself. For these Mardians were familiar with still greater marvels than
+      mine; verily believing in prodigies of all sorts. Any one of them put my
+      exploits to the blush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look to thy ways then, Taji, thought I, and carry not thy crest too high.
+      Of a surety, thou hast more peers than inferiors. Thou art overtopped all
+      round. Bear thyself discreetly and not haughtily, Taji. It will not answer
+      to give thyself airs. Abstain from all consequential allusions to the
+      other world, and the genteel deities among whom thou hast circled. Sport
+      not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel in Mardi; nor boast of
+      the fleetness of thy Chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of
+      thy pedigree, Taji; for Media himself will measure it with thee there by
+      the furlong. Be not a "snob," Taji.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So then, weighing all things well, and myself severely, I &mdash; resolved
+      to follow my Mentor's wise counsel; neither arrogating aught, nor abating
+      of just dues; but circulating freely, sociably, and frankly, among the
+      gods, heroes, high priests, kings, and gentlemen, that made up the
+      principalities of Mardi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0058" id="link2HCH0058"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LVIII &mdash; Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the night following our arrival, many dreams were no doubt dreamt
+      in Odo. But my thoughts were wakeful. And while all others slept, obeying
+      a restless impulse, I stole without into the magical starlight. There are
+      those who in a strange land ever love to view it by night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been said, that the opening in the groves where was situated
+      Media's city, was elevated above the surrounding plains. Hence was
+      commanded a broad reach of prospect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far and wide was deep low-sobbing repose of man and nature. The groves
+      were motionless; and in the meadows, like goblins, the shadows advanced
+      and retreated. Full before me, lay the Mardian fleet of isles, profoundly
+      at anchor within their coral harbor. Near by was one belted round by a
+      frothy luminous reef, wherein it lay, like Saturn in its ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From all their summits, went up a milk-white smoke, as from Indian wigwams
+      in the hazy harvest-moon. And floating away, these vapors blended with the
+      faint mist, as of a cataract, hovering over the circumvallating reef. Far
+      beyond all, and far into the infinite night, surged the jet-black ocean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how tranquil the wide lagoon, which mirrored the burning spots in
+      heaven! Deep down into its innermost heart penetrated the slanting rays of
+      Hesperus like a shaft of light, sunk far into mysterious Golcondas, where
+      myriad gnomes seemed toiling. Soon a light breeze rippled the water, and
+      the shaft was seen no more. But the moon's bright wake was still revealed:
+      a silver track, tipping every wave-crest in its course, till each seemed a
+      pearly, scroll-prowed nautilus, buoyant with some elfin crew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From earth to heaven! High above me was Night's shadowy bower, traversed,
+      vine-like, by the Milky Way, and heavy with golden clusterings. Oh stars!
+      oh eyes, that see me, wheresoe'er I roam: serene, intent, inscrutable for
+      aye, tell me Sybils, what I am.&mdash; Wondrous worlds on worlds! Lo,
+      round and round me, shining, awful spells: all glorious, vivid
+      constellations, God's diadem ye are! To you, ye stars, man owes his
+      subtlest raptures, thoughts unspeakable, yet full of faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how your mild effulgence stings the boding heart. Am I a murderer,
+      stars?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hours pass. The starry trance is departed. Long waited for, the dawn now
+      comes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, breaking along the waking face; peeping from out the languid lids;
+      then shining forth in longer glances; till, like the sun, up comes the
+      soul, and sheds its rays abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When thus my Yillah did daily dawn, how she lit up my world; tinging more
+      rosily the roseate clouds, that in her summer cheek played to and fro,
+      like clouds in Italian air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0059" id="link2HCH0059"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LIX &mdash; Their Morning Meal
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Not wholly is our world made up of bright stars and bright eyes: so now to
+      our story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A conscientious host should ever be up betimes, to look after the welfare
+      of his guests, and see to it that their day begin auspiciously. King Media
+      announced the advent of the sun, by rustling at my bower's eaves in
+      person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A repast was spread in an adjoining arbor, which Media's pages had
+      smoothed for our reception, and where his subordinate chiefs were in
+      attendance. Here we reclined upon mats. Balmy and fresh blew the breath of
+      the morning; golden vapors were upon the mountains, silver sheen upon the
+      grass; and the birds were at matins in the groves; their bright plumage
+      flashing into view, here and there, as if some rainbow were crouching in
+      the foliage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spread before us were viands, served in quaint-shaped, curiously-dyed
+      gourds, not Sevres, but almost as tasteful; and like true porcelain, fire
+      had tempered them. Green and yielding, they are plucked from the tree; and
+      emptied of their pulp, are scratched over with minute marks, like those of
+      a line engraving. The ground prepared, the various figures are carefully
+      etched. And the outlines filled up with delicate punctures, certain
+      vegetable oils are poured over them, for coloring. Filled with a peculiar
+      species of earth, the gourd is now placed in an oven in the ground. And in
+      due time exhumed, emptied of its contents, and washed in the stream, it
+      presents a deep-dyed exterior; every figure distinctly traced and opaque,
+      but the ground semi-transparent. In some cases, owing to the variety of
+      dyes employed, each figure is of a different hue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More glorious goblets than these for the drinking of wine, went never from
+      hand to mouth. Capacious as pitchers, they almost superseded decanters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in a tropical climate, fruit, with light wines, forms the only fit
+      meal of a morning. And with orchards and vineyards forever in sight, who
+      but the Hetman of the Cossacs would desire more? We had plenty of the
+      juice of the grape. But of this hereafter; there are some fine old
+      cellars, and plenty of good cheer in store.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the repast, Media, for a time, was much taken up with our raiment.
+      He begged me to examine for a moment the texture of his right royal robe,
+      and observe how much superior it was to my own. It put my mantle to the
+      blush; being tastefully stained with rare devices in red and black; and
+      bordered with dyed fringes of feathers, and tassels of red birds' claws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next came under observation the Skyeman's Guayaquil hat; at whose
+      preposterous shape, our host laughed in derision; clapping a great conical
+      calabash upon the head of an attendant, and saying that now he was Jarl.
+      At this, and all similar sallies, Samoa was sure to roar louder than any;
+      though mirth was no constitutional thing with him. But he seemed rejoiced
+      at the opportunity of turning upon us the ridicule, which as a barbarian
+      among whites, he himself had so often experienced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These pleasantries over, King Media very slightly drew himself up, as if
+      to make amends for his previous unbending. He discoursed imperially with
+      his chiefs; nodded his sovereign will to his pages; called for another
+      gourd of wine; in all respects carrying his royalty bravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repast concluded, we journeyed to the canoe-house, where we found the
+      little Chamois stabled like a steed. One solitary depredation had been
+      committed. Its sides and bottom had been completely denuded of the minute
+      green barnacles, and short sea-grass, which, like so many leeches, had
+      fastened to our planks during our long, lazy voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the people they had been devoured as dainties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0060" id="link2HCH0060"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LX &mdash; Belshazzar On The Bench
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Now, Media was king of Odo. And from the simplicity of his manners
+      hitherto, and his easy, frank demeanor toward ourselves, had we foolishly
+      doubted that fact, no skepticism could have survived an illustration of
+      it, which this very day we witnessed at noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For at high noon, Media was wont to don his dignity with his symbols of
+      state; and sit on his judgment divan or throne, to hear and try all causes
+      brought before him, and fulminate his royal decrees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This divan was elevated at one end of a spacious arbor, formed by an
+      avenue of regal palms, which in brave state, held aloft their majestical
+      canopy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crown of the island prince was of the primitive old Eastern style; in
+      shape, similar, perhaps, to that jauntily sported as a foraging cap by his
+      sacred majesty King Nimrod, who so lustily followed the hounds. It was a
+      plaited turban of red tappa, radiated by the pointed and polished white
+      bones of the Ray-fish. These diverged from a bandeau or fillet of the most
+      precious pearls; brought up from the sea by the deepest diving mermen of
+      Mardi. From the middle of the crown rose a tri-foiled spear-head. And a
+      spear- headed scepter graced the right hand of the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, for all the rant of your democrats, a fine king on a throne is a very
+      fine sight to behold. He looks very much like a god. No wonder that his
+      more dutiful subjects so swore, that their good lord and master King Media
+      was demi-divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A king on his throne! Ah, believe me, ye Gracchi, ye Acephali, ye
+      Levelers, it is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at Babylon
+      the Tremendous, when Nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old Scone in the days
+      of Macbeth; at Rheims, among Oriflammes, at the coronation of Louis le
+      Grand; at Westminster Abbey, when the gentlemanly George doffed his beaver
+      for a diadem; or under the soft shade of palm trees on an isle in the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that Gabriel
+      might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold it in
+      heaven. But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the Persians, or the
+      conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a whit
+      more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently ringing for his valet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A king on his throne! It is Jupiter nodding in the councils of Olympus;
+      Satan, seen among the coronets in Hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A king on his throne! It is the sun over a mountain; the sun over
+      law-giving Sinai; the sun in our system: planets, duke-like, dancing
+      attendance, and baronial satellites in waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A king on his throne! After all, but a gentleman seated. And thus sat the
+      good lord, King Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time passed. And after trying and dismissing several minor affairs, Media
+      called for certain witnesses to testify concerning one Jiromo, a foolhardy
+      wight, who had been silly enough to plot against the majesty now sitting
+      judge and jury upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His guilt was clear. And the witnesses being heard, from a bunch of palm
+      plumes Media taking a leaf, placed it in the hand of a runner or
+      pursuivant, saying, "This to Jiromo, where he is prisoned; with his king's
+      compliments; say we here wait for his head."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was doffed like a turban before a Dey, and brought back on the instant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now came certain lean-visaged, poverty-stricken, and hence
+      suspicious-looking varlets, grumbling and growling, and amiable as Bruin.
+      They came muttering some wild jargon about "bulwarks," "bulkheads,"
+      "cofferdams," "safeguards," "noble charters," "shields," and "paladiums,"
+      "great and glorious birthrights," and other unintelligible gibberish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the pursuivants, these worthies asked audience of Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go, kneel at the throne," was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our knee-pans are stiff with sciatics," was the rheumatic reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An artifice to keep on your legs," said the pursuivants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And advancing they salamed, and told Media the excuse of those
+sour-looking varlets. Whereupon my lord commanded them to down on their
+      marrow-bones instanter, either before him or the headsman, whichsoever
+      they pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They preferred the former. And as they there kneeled, in vain did men with
+      sharp ears (who abound in all courts) prick their auriculars, to list to
+      that strange crackling and firing off of bone balls and sockets, ever
+      incident to the genuflections of rheumatic courtiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a row, then, these selfsame knee-pans did kneel before the king; who
+      eyed them as eagles in air do goslings on dunghills; or hunters, hounds
+      crouching round their calves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your prayer?" said Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a petition, that thereafter all differences between man and man in
+      Ode, together with all alleged offenses against the state, might be tried
+      by twelve good men and true. These twelve to be unobnoxious to the party
+      or parties concerned; their peers; and previously unbiased touching the
+      matter at issue. Furthermore, that unanimity in these twelve should be
+      indispensable to a verdict; and no dinner be vouchsafed till unanimity
+      came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud and long laughed King Media in scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This be your judge," he cried, swaying his scepter. "What! are twelve
+      wise men more wise than one? or will twelve fools, put together, make one
+      sage? Are twelve honest men more honest than one? or twelve knaves less
+      knavish than one? And if, of twelve men, three be fools, and three wise,
+      three knaves, and three upright, how obtain real unanimity from such?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But if twelve judges be better than one, then are twelve hundred better
+      than twelve. But take the whole populace for a judge, and you will long
+      wait for a unanimous verdict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If upon a thing dubious, there be little unanimity in the conflicting
+      opinions of one man's mind, how expect it in the uproar of twelve puzzled
+      brains? though much unanimity be found in twelve hungry stomachs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Judges unobnoxious to the accused! Apply it to a criminal case. Ha! ha!
+      if peradventure a Cacti be rejected, because he had seen the accused
+      commit the crime for which he is arraigned. Then, his mind would be
+      biased: no impartiality from him! Or your testy accused might object to
+      another, because of his tomahawk nose, or a cruel squint of the eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of all follies the most foolish! Know ye from me, that true peers render
+      not true verdicts. Jiromo was a rebel. Had I tried him by his peers, I had
+      tried him by rebels; and the rebel had rebelled to some purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Away! As unerring justice dwells in a unity, and as one judge will at
+      last judge the world beyond all appeal; so&mdash;though often here below
+      justice be hard to attain&mdash;does man come nearest the mark, when he
+      imitates that model divine. Hence, one judge is better than twelve."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And as Justice, in ideal, is ever painted high lifted above the crowd;
+      so, from the exaltation of his rank, an honest king is the best of those
+      unical judges, which individually are better than twelve. And therefore am
+      I, King Media, the best judge in this land."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Subjects! so long as I live, I will rule you and judge you alone. And
+      though you here kneeled before me till you grew into the ground, and there
+      took root, no yea to your petition will you get from this throne. I am
+      king: ye are slaves. Mine to command: yours to obey. And this hour I
+      decree, that henceforth no gibberish of bulwarks and bulkheads be heard in
+      this land. For a dead bulwark and a bulkhead, to dam off sedition, will I
+      make of that man, who again but breathes those bulky words. Ho! spears!
+      see that these knee-pans here kneel till set of sun."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      High noon was now passed; and removing his crown, and placing it on the
+      dais for the kneelers to look at during their devotions, King Media
+      departed from that place, and once more played the agreeable host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0061" id="link2HCH0061"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXI &mdash; An Incognito
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For the rest of that day, and several that followed, we were continually
+      receiving visits from the neighboring islands; whose inhabitants in fleets
+      and flotillas flocked round Odo to behold the guests of its lord. Among
+      them came many messengers from the neighboring kings with soft speeches
+      and gifts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it were needless to detail our various interviews, or relate in what
+      manifold ways, the royal strangers gave token of their interest concerning
+      us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the third day, however, there was noticed a mysterious figure, like
+      the inscrutable incognitos sometimes encountered, crossing the
+      tower-shadowed Plaza of Assignations at Lima. It was enveloped in a dark
+      robe of tappa, so drawn and plaited about the limbs; and with one hand, so
+      wimpled about the face, as only to expose a solitary eye. But that eye was
+      a world. Now it was fixed upon Yillah with a sinister glance, and now upon
+      me, but with a different expression. However great the crowd, however
+      tumultuous, that fathomless eye gazed on; till at last it seemed no eye,
+      but a spirit, forever prying into my soul. Often I strove to approach it,
+      but it would evade me, soon reappearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pointing out the apparition to Media, I intreated him to take means to fix
+      it, that my suspicions might be dispelled, as to its being incorporeal. He
+      replied that, by courtesy, incognitos were sacred. Insomuch that the
+      close-plaited robe and the wimple were secure as a castle. At last, to my
+      relief, the phantom disappeared, and was seen no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Numerous and fervent the invitations received to return the calls
+      wherewith we were honored. But for the present we declined them;
+      preferring to establish ourselves firmly in the heart of Media, ere
+      encountering the vicissitudes of roaming. In a multitude of acquaintances
+      is less security, than in one faithful friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, while these civilities were being received, and on the fourth morning
+      after our arrival, there landed on the beach three black-eyed damsels,
+      deep brunettes, habited in long variegated robes, and with gay blossoms on
+      their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With many salams, the strangers were ushered into my presence by an old
+      white-haired servitor of Media's, who with a parting congé murmured, "From
+      Queen Hautia," then departed. Surprised, I stood mute, and welcomed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first, with many smiles and blandishments, waved before me a
+      many-tinted Iris: the flag-flower streaming with pennons. Advancing, the
+      second then presented three rose-hued purple-veined Circea flowers, the
+      dew still clinging to them. The third placed in my hand a moss-rose bud;
+      then, a Venus-car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks for your favors! now your message."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Starting at this reception, graciously intended, they conferred a moment;
+      when the Iris-bearer said in winning phrase, "We come from Hautia, whose
+      moss-rose you hold."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All thanks to Hautia then; the bud is very fragrant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she pointed to the Venus-car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This too is sweet; thanks to Hautia for her flowers. Pray, bring me
+      more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He mocks our mistress," and gliding from me, they waved witch- hazels,
+      leaving me alone and wondering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Informing Media of this scene, he smiled; threw out queer hints of Hautia;
+      but knew not what her message meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first this affair occasioned me no little uneasiness, with much matter
+      for marveling; but in the novel pleasure of our sojourn in Odo, it soon
+      slipped from my mind; nor for some time, did I again hear aught of Queen
+      Hautia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0062" id="link2HCH0062"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXII &mdash; Taji Retires From The World
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      After a while, when the strangers came not in shoals as before, I &mdash;
+      proposed to our host, a stroll over his dominions; desirous of beholding
+      the same, and secretly induced by the hope of selecting an abode, more
+      agreeable to my fastidious taste, than the one already assigned me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ramble over&mdash;a pleasant one it was&mdash;it resulted in a
+      determination on my part to quit Odo. Yet not to go very far; only ten or
+      twelve yards, to a little green tuft of an islet; one of many, which here
+      and there, all round the island, nestled like birds' nests in the
+      branching boughs of the coral grove, whose roots laid hold of the
+      foundations of the deep. Between these islets and the shore, extended
+      shelving ledges, with shallows above, just sufficient to float a canoe.
+      One of these islets was wooded and wined; an arbor in the sea. And here,
+      Media permitting, I decided to dwell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long was Media in complying; nor long, ere my retreat was in
+      readiness. Laced together, the twisting boughs were closely thatched. And
+      thatched were the sides also, with deep crimson pandannus leaves; whose
+      long, forked spears, lifted by the breeze, caused the whole place to
+      blaze, as with flames. Canes, laid on palm trunks, formed the floor. How
+      elastic! In vogue all over Odo, among the chiefs, it imparted such a
+      buoyancy to the person, that to this special cause may be imputed in good
+      part the famous fine spirits of the nobles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hypochondriac! essay the elastic flooring! It shall so pleasantly and
+      gently jolt thee, as to shake up, and pack off the stagnant humors
+      mantling thy pool-like soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was my dwelling. But I make no mention of sundry little appurtenances
+      of tropical housekeeping: calabashes, cocoanut shells, and rolls of fine
+      tappa; till with Yillah seated at last in my arbor, I looked round, and
+      wanted for naught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what of Jarl and Samoa? Why Jarl must needs be fanciful, as well as
+      myself. Like a bachelor in chambers, he settled down right opposite to me,
+      on the main land, in a little wigwam in the grove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Samoa, following not his comrade's example, still tarried in the camp
+      of the Hittites and Jebusites of Odo. Beguiling men of their leisure by
+      his marvelous stories: and maidens of their hearts by his marvelous wiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I chose, I was completely undisturbed in my arbor; an ukase of
+      Media's forbidding indiscriminate intrusion. But thrice in the day came a
+      garrulous old man with my viands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus sequestered, however, I could not entirely elude the pryings of the
+      people of the neighboring islands; who often passed by, slowly paddling,
+      and earnestly regarding my retreat. But gliding along at a distance, and
+      never essaying a landing, their occasional vicinity troubled me but
+      little. But now and then of an evening, when thick and fleet the shadows
+      were falling, dim glimpses of a canoe would be spied; hovering about the
+      place like a ghost. And once, in the stillness of the night, hearing the
+      near ripple of a prow, I sallied forth, but the phantom quickly departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night, Yillah shuddered as she slept. "The whirl-pool," she murmured,
+      "sweet mosses." Next day she was lost in reveries, plucking pensive
+      hyacinths, or gazing intently into the lagoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0063" id="link2HCH0063"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXIII &mdash; Odo And Its Lord
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Time now to enter upon some further description of the island and its
+      lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And first for Media: a gallant gentleman and king. From a goodly stock he
+      came. In his endless pedigree, reckoning deities by decimals, innumerable
+      kings, and scores of great heroes, chiefs, and priests. Nor in person, did
+      he belie his origin. No far-descended dwarf was he, the least of a
+      receding race. He stood like a palm tree; about whose acanthus capital
+      droops not more gracefully the silken fringes, than Media's locks upon his
+      noble brow. Strong was his arm to wield the club, or hurl the javelin; and
+      potent, I ween, round a maiden's waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much here for Media. Now comes his isle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by itself; full of
+      beauties as a garden; chequered by charming groves; watered by roving
+      brooks; and fringed all round by a border of palm trees, whose roots drew
+      nourishment from the water. But though abounding in other quarters of the
+      Archipelago, not a solitary bread-fruit grew in Odo. A noteworthy
+      circumstance, observable in these regions, where islands close adjoining,
+      so differ in their soil, that certain fruits growing genially in one, are
+      foreign to another. But Odo was famed for its guavas, whose flavor was
+      likened to the flavor of new-blown lips; and for its grapes, whose juices
+      prompted many a laugh and many a groan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beside the city where Media dwelt, there were few other clusters of
+      habitations in Odo. The higher classes living, here and there, in separate
+      households; but not as eremites. Some buried themselves in the cool,
+      quivering bosoms of the groves. Others, fancying a marine vicinity, dwelt
+      hard by the beach in little cages of bamboo; whence of mornings they
+      sallied out with jocund cries, and went plunging into the refreshing bath,
+      whose frothy margin was the threshold of their dwellings. Others still,
+      like birds, built their nests among the sylvan nooks of the elevated
+      interior; whence all below, and hazy green, lay steeped in languor the
+      island's throbbing heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. The common sort, including
+      serfs, and Helots, war-captives held in bondage, lived in secret places,
+      hard to find. Whence it came, that, to a stranger, the whole isle looked
+      care-free and beautiful. Deep among the ravines and the rocks, these
+      beings lived in noisome caves, lairs for beasts, not human homes; or built
+      them coops of rotten boughs&mdash;living trees were banned them&mdash;whose
+      mouldy hearts hatched vermin. Fearing infection of some plague, born of
+      this filth, the chiefs of Odo seldom passed that way and looking round
+      within their green retreats, and pouring out their wine, and plucking from
+      orchards of the best, marveled how these swine could grovel in the mire,
+      and wear such sallow cheeks. But they offered no sweet homes; from that
+      mire they never sought to drag them out; they open threw no orchard; and
+      intermitted not the mandates that condemned their drudges to a life of
+      deaths. Sad sight! to see those round-shouldered Helots, stooping in their
+      trenches: artificial, three in number, and concentric: the isle well nigh
+      surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from heaven, and
+      bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious Taro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief
+      that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man toils
+      and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to them&mdash;then,
+      then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with these poor
+      serfs. And few of them could choose but be the brutes they seemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed, and
+      plenty without a pause?&mdash;Odo, in whose lurking-places infants turned
+      from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.&mdash;Odo, in whose inmost
+      haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard most dismal
+      cries, and voices cursing Media. There, men were scourged; their crime, a
+      heresy; the heresy, that Media was no demigod. For this they shrieked.
+      Their fathers shrieked before; their fathers, who, tormented, said, "Happy
+      we to groan, that our children's children may be glad." But their
+      children's children howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous generations,
+      and loudly swore, "The pit that's dug for us may prove another's grave."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo seemed a
+      happy land. The palm-trees waved&mdash;though here and there you marked
+      one sear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed&mdash;though dead ones
+      moldered in decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee&mdash;though,
+      receding, they sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle. Did
+      men in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon's fountain there? For near and
+      far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations harvested in
+      winrows. In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a gentle epitaph; no
+      requiescat-in-pace mocked a sinner damned; no memento-mori admonished men
+      to live while yet they might. Here Death hid his skull; and hid it in the
+      sea, the common sepulcher of Odo. Not dust to dust, but dust to brine; not
+      hearses but canoes. For all who died upon that isle were carried out
+      beyond the outer reef, and there were buried with their sires' sires.
+      Hence came the thought, that of gusty nights, when round the isles, and
+      high toward heaven, flew the white reef's rack and foam, that then and
+      there, kept chattering watch and ward, the myriads that were
+ocean-tombed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But why these watery obsequies?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead, and
+      Life's small colony be dislodged by Death's grim hosts; as the gaunt
+      tribes of Tamerlane o'erspread the tented pastures of the Khan?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, what follows, said these Islanders: "Why sow corruption in the
+      soil which yields us life? We would not pluck our grapes from over graves.
+      This earth's an urn for flowers, not for ashes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more sublimely urned? Or do the
+      minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of Charlemagne, show more of pomp,
+      than all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked mariner?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not their
+      company; though full soon we shall all have them for fellows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0064" id="link2HCH0064"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXIV &mdash; Yillah A Phantom
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For a time we were happy in Odo: Yillah and I in our islet. Nor did the
+      pearl on her bosom glow more rosily than the roses in her cheeks; though
+      at intervals they waned and departed; and deadly pale was her glance, when
+      she murmured of the whirlpool and mosses. As pale my soul, bethinking me
+      of Aleema the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But day by day, did her spell weave round me its magic, and all the hidden
+      things of her being grew more lovely and strange. Did I &mdash; commune
+      with a spirit? Often I thought that Paradise had overtaken me on earth,
+      and that Yillah was verily an angel, and hence the mysteries that hallowed
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.&mdash;Long
+      memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours&mdash;how
+      common are ye to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say&mdash;"Lo,
+      thy felicity, my soul?" No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when
+      looked back upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to
+      behold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sped the hours, the days, the one brief moment of our joys. Fairy bower in
+      the fair lagoon, scene of sylvan ease and heart's repose,&mdash; Oh,
+      Yillah, Yillah! All the woods repeat the sound, the wild, wild woods of my
+      wild soul. Yillah! Yillah! cry the small strange voices in me, and
+      evermore, and far and deep, they echo on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Days passed. When one morning I found the arbor vacant. Gone! A dream. I
+      closed my eyes, and would have dreamed her back. In vain. Starting, I
+      called upon her name; but none replied. Fleeing from the islet, I gained
+      the neighboring shore, and searched among the woods; and my comrades
+      meeting, besought their aid. But idle all. No glimpse of aught, save trees
+      and flowers. Then Media was sought out; the event made known; and quickly,
+      bands were summoned to range the isle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Noon came; but no Yillah. When Media averred she was no longer in Odo.
+      Whither she was gone, or how, he knew not; nor could any imagine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this juncture, there chanced to arrive certain messengers from abroad;
+      who, presuming that all was well with Taji, came with renewed invitations
+      to visit various pleasant places round about. Among these, came Queen
+      Hautia's heralds, with their Iris flag, once more bringing flowers. But
+      they came and went unheeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Setting out to return, these envoys were accompanied by numerous followers
+      of Media, dispatched to the neighboring islands, to seek out the missing
+      Yillah. But three days passed; and, one by one, they all returned; and
+      stood before me silently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time I raved. Then, falling into outer repose, lived for a space in
+      moods and reveries, with eyes that knew no closing, one glance forever
+      fixed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They strove to rouse me. Girls danced and sang; and tales of fairy times
+      were told; of monstrous imps, and youths enchanted; of groves and gardens
+      in the sea. Yet still I moved not, hearing all, yet noting naught. Media
+      cried, "For shame, oh Taji; thou, a god?" and placed a spear in my
+      nerveless hand. And Jarl loud called upon me to awake. Samoa marveled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still sped the days. And at length, my memory was restored. The thoughts
+      of things broke over me like returning billows on a beach long bared. A
+      rush, a foam of recollections!&mdash;Sweet Yillah gone, and I bereaved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another interval, and that mood was past. Misery became a memory. The keen
+      pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though
+      bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful
+      pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever
+      it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so with that
+      other grief. Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest
+      notes are struck from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring
+      only wells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I turned to Media, saying I must hie from Odo, and rove throughout
+      all Mardi; for Yillah might yet be found.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hereafter, in words, little more of the maiden, till perchance her
+      fate be learned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0065" id="link2HCH0065"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXV &mdash; Taji Makes Three Acquaintances
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Down to this period, I had restrained Samoa from wandering to the
+      neighboring islands, though he had much desired it, in compliance with the
+      invitations continually received. But now I informed both him, and his
+      comrade, of the tour I purposed; desiring their company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the announcement of my intention to depart, to my no small surprise
+      Media also proposed to accompany me: a proposition gladly embraced. It
+      seems, that for some reason, he had not as yet extended his travels to the
+      more distant islands. Hence the voyage in prospect was particularly
+      agreeable to him. Nor did he forbear any pains to insure its prosperity;
+      assuring me, furthermore, that its object must eventually be crowned with
+      success. "I myself am interested in this pursuit," said he; "and trust me,
+      Yillah will be found."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the tour of the lagoon, the docile Chamois was proposed; but Media
+      dissented; saying, that it befitted not the lord of Odo to voyage in the
+      equipage of his guest. Therefore, three canoes were selected from his own
+      royal fleet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One for ourselves, and a trio of companions whom he purposed introducing
+      to my notice; the rest were reserved for attendants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks to Media's taste and heedfulness, the strangers above mentioned
+      proved truly acceptable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first was Mohi, or Braid-Beard, so called from the manner in which he
+      wore that appendage, exceedingly long and gray. He was a venerable teller
+      of stories and legends, one of the Keepers of the Chronicles of the Kings
+      of Mardi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second was Babbalanja, a man of a mystical aspect, habited in a
+      voluminous robe. He was learned in Mardian lore; much given to quotations
+      from ancient and obsolete authorities: the Ponderings of Old Bardianna:
+      the Pandects of Alla-Malolla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Third and last, was Yoomy, or the Warbler. A youthful, long-haired,
+      blue-eyed minstrel; all fits and starts; at times, absent of mind, and wan
+      of cheek; but always very neat and pretty in his apparel; wearing the most
+      becoming of turbans, a Bird of Paradise feather its plume, and sporting
+      the gayest of sashes. Most given was Yoomy to amorous melodies, and
+      rondos, and roundelays, very witching to hear. But at times disdaining the
+      oaten reed, like a clarion he burst forth with lusty lays of arms and
+      battle; or, in mournful strains, sounded elegies for departed bards and
+      heroes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much for Yoomy as a minstrel. In other respects, it would be hard to
+      depict him. He was so capricious a mortal; so swayed by contrary moods; so
+      lofty, so humble, so sad, so merry; so made up of a thousand
+      contradictions, that we must e'en let him depict himself as our story
+      progresses. And herein it is hoped he will succeed; since no one in Mardi
+      comprehended him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the trio, thus destined for companions on our voyage, had for some
+      time been anxious to take the tour of the Archipelago. In particular,
+      Babbalanja had often expressed the most ardent desire to visit every one
+      of the isles, in quest of some object, mysteriously hinted. He murmured
+      deep concern for my loss, the sincerest sympathy; and pressing my hand
+      more than once, said lowly, "Your pursuit is mine, noble Taji. Where'er
+      you search, I follow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, too, Yoomy addressed me; but with still more feeling. And something
+      like this, also, Braid-Beard repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to my sorrow, I marked that both Mohi and Babbalanja, especially the
+      last, seemed not so buoyant of hope, concerning lost Yillah, as the
+      youthful Yoomy, and his high-spirited lord, King Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As our voyage would embrace no small period of time, it behoved King Media
+      to appoint some trustworthy regent, to rule during his absence. This
+      regent was found in Almanni, a stem-eyed, resolute warrior, a kinsman of
+      the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All things at last in readiness, and the ensuing morning appointed for a
+      start, Media, on the beach, at eventide, when both light and water waned,
+      drew a rude map of the lagoon, to compensate for the obstructions in the
+      way of a comprehensive glance at it from Odo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus was sketched the plan of our voyage; which islands first to
+      visit; and which to touch at, when we should be homeward bound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0066" id="link2HCH0066"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXVI &mdash; With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      True each to his word, up came the sun, and round to my isle came Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How glorious a morning! The new-born clouds all dappled with gold, and
+      streaked with violet; the sun in high spirits; and the pleasant air cooled
+      overnight by the blending circumambient fountains, forever playing all
+      round the reef; the lagoon within, the coral-rimmed basin, into which they
+      poured, subsiding, hereabouts, into green tranquillity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what monsters of canoes! Would they devour an innocent voyager? their
+      great black prows curling aloft, and thrown back like trunks of elephants;
+      a dark, snaky length behind, like the sea-serpent's train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prow of the foremost terminated in a large, open, shark's mouth,
+      garnished with ten rows of pearly human teeth, curiously inserted into the
+      sculptured wood. The gunwale was ornamented with rows of rich spotted
+      Leopard and Tiger-shells; here and there, varied by others, flat and
+      round, and spirally traced; gay serpents petrified in coils. These were
+      imbedded in a grooved margin, by means of a resinous compound, exhaling
+      such spices, that the canoes were odoriferous as the Indian chests of the
+      Maldives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The likeness of the foremost canoe to an elephant, was helped by a sort of
+      canopied Howdah in its stern, of heavy, russet-dyed tappa, tasselled at
+      the corners with long bunches of cocoanut fibres, stained red. These
+      swayed to and fro, like the fox-tails on a Tuscarora robe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what is this, in the head of the canoe, just under the shark's mouth?
+      A grinning little imp of an image; a ring in its nose; cowrie shells
+      jingling at its ears; with an abominable leer, like that of Silenus
+      reeling on his ass. It was taking its ease; cosily smoking a pipe; its
+      bowl, a duodecimo edition of the face of the smoker. This image looked
+      sternward; everlastingly mocking us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of these canoes, it may be well to state, that although during our stay in
+      Odo, so many barges and shallops had touched there, nothing similar to
+      Media's had been seen. But inquiring whence his sea- equipage came, we
+      were thereupon taught to reverence the same as antiquities and heir-looms;
+      claw-keeled, dragon-prowed crafts of a bygone generation; at present,
+      superseded in general use by the more swan-like canoes, significant of the
+      advanced stage of marine architecture in Mardi. No sooner was this known,
+      than what had seemed almost hideous in my eyes, became merely grotesque.
+      Nor could I help being greatly delighted with the good old family pride of
+      our host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The upper corners of our sails displayed the family crest of Media; three
+      upright boars' tusks, in an heraldic field argent. A fierce device: Whom
+      rends he?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All things in readiness, we glided away: the multitude waving adieu; and
+      our flotilla disposed in the following order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First went the royal Elephant, carrying Media, myself, Jarl, and Samoa;
+      Mohi the Teller of Legends, Babbalanja, and Yoomy, and six vivacious
+      paddlers; their broad paddle-blades carved with the royal boars' tusks,
+      the same tattooed on their chests for a livery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus, as Media had promised, we voyaged in state. To crown all, seated
+      sideways in the high, open shark's-mouth of our prow was a little dwarf of
+      a boy, one of Media's pages, a red conch-shell, bugle-wise suspended at
+      his side. Among various other offices, it was the duty of little Vee-Vee
+      to announce the advent of his master, upon drawing near to the islands in
+      our route. Two short bars, projecting from one side of the prow, furnished
+      him the means of ascent to his perch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we gained the open lagoon with bellied sails, and paddles playing, a
+      sheaf of foam borne upright at our prow; Yoomy, standing where the spicy
+      spray flew over him, stretched forth his hand and cried&mdash;"The dawn of
+      day is passed, and Mardi lies all before us: all her isles, and all her
+      lakes; all her stores of good and evil. Storms may come, our barks may
+      drown. But blow before us, all ye winds; give us a lively blast, good
+      clarion; rally round us all our wits; and be this voyage full gayly
+      sailed, for Yillah will yet be found."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0067" id="link2HCH0067"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXVII &mdash; Little King Peepi
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Valapee, or the Isle of Yams, being within plain sight of Media's
+      dominions, we were not very long in drawing nigh to its shores.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two long parallel elevations, rising some three arrow-flights into the
+      air, double-ridge the island's entire length, lapping between, a widening
+      vale, so level withal, that at either extremity, the green of its groves
+      blends with the green of the lagoon; and the isle seems divided by a
+      strait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within several paces of the beach, our canoes keeled the bottom, and
+      camel-like mutely hinted that we voyagers must dismount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hereupon, the assembled islanders ran into the water, and with bent
+      shoulders obsequiously desired the honor of transporting us to land. The
+      beach gained, all present wearing robes instantly stripped them to the
+      waist; a naked chest being their salute to kings. Very convenient for the
+      common people, this; their half-clad forms presenting a perpetual and
+      profound salutation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, Peepi, the ruler of Valapee drew near: a boy, hardly ten years
+      old, striding the neck of a burly mute, bearing a long spear erect before
+      him, to which was attached a canopy of five broad banana leaves, new
+      plucked. Thus shaded, little Peepi advanced, steadying himself by the
+      forelock of his bearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides his bright red robe, the young prince wore nothing but the symbol
+      of Valapeean royalty; a string of small, close-fitting, concave shells,
+      coiled and ambushed in his profuse, curly hair; one end falling over his
+      ear, revealing a serpent's head, curiously carved from a nutmeg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite proverbial, the unembarrassed air of young slips of royalty. But
+      there was something so surprisingly precocious in this young Peepi, that
+      at first one hardly knew what to conclude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first compliments over, the company were invited inland to a shady
+      retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we pursued the path, walking between old Mohi the keeper of chronicles
+      and Samoa the Upoluan, Babbalanja besought the former to enlighten a
+      stranger concerning the history of this curious Peepi. Whereupon the
+      chronicler gave us the following account; for all of which he alone is
+      responsible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peepi, it seems, had been proclaimed king before he was born; his sire
+      dying some few weeks previous to that event; and vacating his divan,
+      declared that he left a monarch behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marvels were told of Peepi. Along with the royal dignity, and superadded
+      to the soul possessed in his own proper person, the infant monarch was
+      supposed to have inherited the valiant spirits of some twenty heroes,
+      sages, simpletons, and demi-gods, previously lodged in his sire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most opulent in spiritual gifts was this lord of Valapee; the legatee,
+      moreover, of numerous anonymous souls, bequeathed to him by their late
+      loyal proprietors. By a slavish act of his convocation of chiefs, he also
+      possessed the reversion of all and singular the immortal spirits, whose
+      first grantees might die intestate in Valapee. Servile, yet audacious
+      senators! thus prospectively to administrate away the inalienable rights
+      of posterity. But while yet unborn, the people of Valapee had been
+      deprived of more than they now sought to wrest from their descendants. And
+      former Peepies, infant and adult, had received homage more profound, than
+      Peepi the Present. Witness the demeanor of the chieftains of old, upon
+      every new investiture of the royal serpent. In a fever of loyalty, they
+      were wont to present themselves before the heir to the isle, to go through
+      with the court ceremony of the Pupera; a curious proceeding, so called:
+      inverted endeavors to assume an erect posture: the nasal organ the base.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was to the frequent practice of this ceremony, that most intelligent
+      observers imputed the flattened noses of the elderly chiefs of the island;
+      who, nevertheless, much gloried therein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was these chiefs, also, who still observed the old-fashioned custom of
+      retiring from the presence of royalty with their heads between their
+      thighs; so that while advancing in the contrary direction, their faces
+      might be still deferentially turned toward their lord and master. A fine
+      view of him did they obtain. All objects look well through an arch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to return to Peepi, the inheritor of souls and subjects. It was an
+      article of faith with the people of Valapee, that Peepi not only actually
+      possessed the souls bequeathed to him; but that his own was enriched by
+      their peculiar qualities: The headlong valor of the late Tongatona; the
+      pusillanimous discretion of Blandoo; the cunning of Voyo; the simplicity
+      of Raymonda; the prodigality of Zonoree; the thrift of Titonti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But had all these, and similar opposite qualities, simultaneously acted as
+      motives upon Peepi, certes, he would have been a most pitiable mortal, in
+      a ceaseless eddy of resolves, incapable of a solitary act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But blessed be the gods, it was otherwise. Though it fared little better
+      for his subjects as it was. His assorted souls were uppermost and active
+      in him, one by one. Today, valiant Tongatona ruled the isle, meditating
+      wars and invasions; tomorrow, thrice discreet Blandoo, who, disbanding the
+      levies, turned his attention to the terraces of yams. And so on in
+      rotation to the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whence, though capable of action, Peepi, by reason of these revolving
+      souls in him, was one of the most unreliable of beings. What the
+      open-handed Zonoree promised freely to-day, the parsimonious Titonti
+      withheld to-morrow; and forever Raymonda was annulling the doings of Voyo;
+      and Voyo the doings of Raymonda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What marvel then, that in Valapee all was legislative uproar and
+      confusion; advance and retreat; abrogations and revivals; foundations
+      without superstructures; nothing permanent but the island itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor were there those in the neighboring countries, who failed to reap
+      profit from this everlasting transition state of the affairs of the
+      kingdom. All boons from Peepi were entreated when the prodigal Zonoree was
+      lord of the ascendant. And audacious claims were urged upon the state when
+      the pusillanimous Blandoo shrank from the thought of resisting them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus subject to contrary impulses, over which he had not the faintest
+      control, Peepi was plainly denuded of all moral obligation to virtue. He
+      was no more a free agent, than the heart which beat in his bosom.
+      Wherefore, his complaisant parliament had passed a law, recognizing that
+      curious, but alarming fact; solemnly proclaiming, that King Peepi was
+      minus a conscience. Agreeable to truth. But when they went further, and
+      vowed by statute, that Peepi could do no wrong, they assuredly did
+      violence to the truth; besides, making a sad blunder in their logic. For
+      far from possessing an absolute aversion to evil, by his very nature it
+      was the hardest thing in the world for Peepi to do right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking all these things into consideration, then, no wonder that this
+      wholly irresponsible young prince should be a lad of considerable
+      assurance, and the easiest manners imaginable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0068" id="link2HCH0068"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXVIII &mdash; How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Coiling through the thickets, like the track of a serpent, wound along the
+      path we pursued. And ere long we came to a spacious grove, embowering an
+      oval arbor. Here, we reclined at our ease, and refreshments were served.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little worthy of mention occurred, save this. Happening to catch a glimpse
+      of the white even teeth of Hohora one of our attendants, King Peepi coolly
+      begged of Media the favor, to have those same dentals drawn on the spot,
+      and presented to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now human teeth, extracted, are reckoned among the most valuable ornaments
+      in Mardi. So open wide thy strong box, Hohora, and show thy treasures.
+      What a gallant array! standing shoulder to shoulder, without a hiatus
+      between. A complete set of jewelry, indeed, thought Peepi. But, it seems,
+      not destined for him; Media leaving it to the present proprietor, whether
+      his dentals should change owners or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here, to prepare the way for certain things hereafter to be narrated,
+      something farther needs be said concerning the light in which men's molars
+      are regarded in Mardi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strung together, they are sported for necklaces, or hung in drops from the
+      ear; they are wrought into dice; in lieu of silken locks, are exchanged
+      for love tokens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As in all lands, men smite their breasts, and tear their hair, when
+      transported with grief; so, in some countries, teeth are stricken out
+      under the sway of similar emotions. To a very great extent, this was once
+      practiced in the Hawaiian Islands, ere idol and altar went down. Still
+      living in Oahu, are many old chiefs, who were present at the famous
+      obsequies of their royal old generalissimo, Tammahammaha, when there is no
+      telling how many pounds of ivory were cast upon his grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah! had the regal white elephants of Siam been there, doubtless they had
+      offered up their long, hooked tusks, whereon they impale the leopards,
+      their foes; and the unicorn had surrendered that fixed bayonet in his
+      forehead; and the imperial Cachalot-whale, the long chain of white towers
+      in his jaw; yea, over that grim warrior's grave, the mooses, and elks, and
+      stags, and fallow-deer had stacked their antlers, as soldiers their arms
+      on the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrific shade of tattooed Tammahammaha! if, from a vile dragon's molars,
+      rose mailed men, what heroes shall spring from the cannibal canines once
+      pertaining to warriors themselves!&mdash;Am I the witch of Endor, that I
+      conjure up this ghost? Or, King Saul, that I so quake at the sight? For,
+      lo! roundabout me Tammahammaha's tattooing expands, till all the sky seems
+      a tiger's skin. But now, the spotted phantom sweeps by; as a man-of-war's
+      main-sail, cloud-like, blown far to leeward in a gale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Banquo down, we return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Valapee, prevails not the barbarous Hindoo custom of offering up widows
+      to the shades of their lords; for, bereaved, the widows there marry again.
+      Nor yet prevails the savage Hawaiian custom of offering up teeth to the
+      manes of the dead; for, at the decease of a friend, the people rob not
+      their own mouths to testify their woe. On the contrary, they extract the
+      teeth from the departed, distributing them among the mourners for memorial
+      legacies; as elsewhere, silver spoons are bestowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the high value ascribed to dentals throughout the archipelago of
+      Mardi, and also from their convenient size, they are circulated as money;
+      strings of teeth being regarded by these people very much as belts of
+      wampum among the Winnebagoes of the North; or cowries, among the
+      Bengalese. So, that in Valapee the very beggars are born with a snug
+      investment in their mouths; too soon, however, to be appropriated by their
+      lords; leaving them toothless for the rest of their days, and forcing them
+      to diet on poee-pudding and banana blanc-mange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a currency, teeth are far less clumsy than cocoanuts; which, among
+      certain remote barbarians, circulate for coin; one nut being equivalent,
+      perhaps, to a penny. The voyager who records the fact, chuckles over it
+      hugely; as evincing the simplicity of those heathens; not knowing that he
+      himself was the simpleton; since that currency of theirs was purposely
+      devised by the men, to check the extravagance of their women; cocoanuts,
+      for spending money, being such a burden to carry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It only remains to be added, that the most solemn oath of a native of
+      Valapee is that sworn by his tooth. "By this tooth," said Bondo to
+      Noojoomo, "by this tooth I swear to be avenged upon thee, oh Noojoomo!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0069" id="link2HCH0069"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXIX &mdash; The Company Discourse, And Braid-Beard Rehearses A
+      Legend
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Finding in Valapee no trace of her whom we sought, and but little pleased
+      with the cringing demeanor of the people, and the wayward follies of Peepi
+      their lord, we early withdrew from the isle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we glided away, King Media issued a sociable decree. He declared it his
+      royal pleasure, that throughout the voyage, all stiffness and state
+      etiquette should be suspended: nothing must occur to mar the freedom of
+      the party. To further this charming plan, he doffed his symbols of
+      royalty, put off his crown, laid aside his scepter, and assured us that he
+      would not wear them again, except when we landed; and not invariably,
+      then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are we not all now friends and companions?" he said. "So companions and
+      friends let us be. I unbend my bow; do ye likewise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But are we not to be dignified?" asked Babbalanja.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If dignity be free and natural, be as dignified as you please; but away
+      with rigidities."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Away they go," said Babbalanja; "and, my lord, now that you mind me of
+      it, I have often thought, that it is all folly and vanity for any man to
+      attempt a dignified carriage. Why, my lord,"&mdash;frankly crossing his
+      legs where he lay&mdash;"the king, who receives his ambassadors with a
+      majestic toss of the head, may have just recovered from the tooth- ache.
+      That thought should cant over the spine he bears so bravely."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have a care, sir! there is a king within hearing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pardon, my lord; I was merely availing myself of the immunity bestowed
+      upon the company. Hereafter, permit a subject to rebel against your
+      sociable decrees. I will not be so frank any more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well put, Babbalanja; come nearer; here, cross your legs by mine; you
+      have risen a cubit in my regard. Vee-Vee, bring us that gourd of wine; so,
+      pass it round with the cups. Now, Yoomy, a song!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And a song was sung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus did we sail; pleasantly reclining on the mats stretched out
+      beneath the canopied howdah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, we drew nigh to a rock, called Pella, or The Theft. A high,
+      green crag, toppling over its base, and flinging a cavernous shadow upon
+      the lagoon beneath, bubbling with the moisture that dropped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing under this cliff was like finding yourself, as some sea- hunters
+      unexpectedly have, beneath the open, upper jaw of a whale; which,
+      descending, infallibly entombs you. But familiar with the rock, our
+      paddlers only threw back their heads, to catch the cool, pleasant
+      tricklings from the mosses above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wiping away several glittering beads from his beard, old Mohi turning
+      round where he sat, just outside the canopy, solemnly affirmed, that the
+      drinking of that water had cured many a man of ambition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How so, old man?" demanded Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because of its passing through the ashes of ten kings, of yore buried in
+      a sepulcher, hewn in the heart of the rock."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mighty kings, and famous, doubtless," said Babbalanja, "whose bones were
+      thought worthy of so noble and enduring as urn. Pray, Mohi, their names
+      and terrible deeds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas! their sepulcher only remains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And, no doubt, like many others, they made that sepul for themselves.
+      They sleep sound, my word for it, old man. But I &mdash; very much
+      question, if, were the rock rent, any ashes would be found. Mohi, I deny
+      that those kings ever had any bones to bury."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, Babbalanja," said Media, "since you intimate that they never had
+      ghosts to give up, you ignore them in toto; denying the very fact of their
+      being even defunct."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ten thousand pardons, my lord, no such discourtesy would I do the
+      anonymous memory of the illustrious dead. But whether they ever lived or
+      not, it is all the same with them now. Yet, grant that they lived; then,
+      if death be a deaf-and-dumb death, a triumphal procession over their
+      graves would concern them not. If a birth into brightness, then Mardi must
+      seem to them the most trivial of reminiscences. Or, perhaps, theirs may be
+      an utter lapse of memory concerning sublunary things; and they themselves
+      be not themselves, as the butterfly is not the larva."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Yoomy, "Then, Babbalanja, you account that a fit illustration of the
+      miraculous change to be wrought in man after death?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No; for the analogy has an unsatisfactory end. From its chrysalis state,
+      the silkworm but becomes a moth, that very quickly expires. Its longest
+      existence is as a worm. All vanity, vanity, Yoomy, to seek in nature for
+      positive warranty to these aspirations of ours. Through all her provinces,
+      nature seems to promise immortality to life, but destruction to beings.
+      Or, as old Bardianna has it, if not against us, nature is not for us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Media, rising, "Babbalanja, you have indeed put aside the courtier;
+      talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi- god! To
+      renown, for your theme: a more agreeable topic."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pardon, once again, my lord. And since you will, let us discourse of that
+      subject. First, I lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that in itself all
+      posthumous renown, which is the only renown, is valueless. Be not
+      offended, my lord. To the nobly ambitious, renown hereafter may be
+      something to anticipate. But analyzed, that feverish typhoid feeling of
+      theirs may be nothing more than a flickering fancy, that now, while
+      living, they are recognized as those who will be as famous in their
+      shrouds, as in their girdles."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Yoomy, "But those great and good deeds, Babbalanja, of which the
+      philosophers so often discourse: must it not be sweet to believe that
+      their memory will long survive us; and we ourselves in them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I speak now," said Babbalanja, "of the ravening for fame which even
+      appeased, like thirst slaked in the desert, yields no felicity, but only
+      relief; and which discriminates not in aught that will satisfy its
+      cravings. But let me resume. Not an hour ago, Braid-Beard was telling us
+      that story of prince Ottimo, who inodorous while living, expressed much
+      delight at the prospect of being perfumed and embalmed, when dead. But was
+      not Ottimo the most eccentric of mortals? For few men issue orders for
+      their shrouds, to inspect their quality beforehand. Far more anxious are
+      they about the texture of the sheets in which their living limbs lie. And,
+      my lord, with some rare exceptions, does not all Mardi, by its actions,
+      declare, that it is far better to be notorious now, than famous
+      hereafter?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A base sentiment, my lord," said Yoomy. "Did not poor Bonja, the
+      unappreciated poet, console himself for the neglect of his contemporaries,
+      by inspiriting thoughts of the future?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In plain words by bethinking him of the glorious harvest of bravos his
+      ghost would reap for him," said Babbalanja; "but Banjo,&mdash;Bonjo,&mdash;
+      Binjo,&mdash;I never heard of him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor I," said Mohi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor I," said Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Poor fellow!" cried Babbalanja; "I fear me his harvest is not yet ripe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas!" cried Yoomy; "he died more than a century ago."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But now that you speak of unappreciated poets, Yoomy," said Babbalanja,
+      "Shall I give you a piece of my mind?" "Do," said Mohi, stroking his
+      beard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He, who on all hands passes for a cypher to-day, if at all remembered
+      hereafter, will be sure to pass for the same. For there is more likelihood
+      of being overrated while living, than of being underrated when dead. And
+      to insure your fame, you must die."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A rather discouraging thought for your race. But answer: I assume that
+      King Media is but a mortal like you; now, how may I best perpetuate my
+      name?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long pondered Babbalanja; then said, "Carve it, my lord, deep into a
+      ponderous stone, and sink it, face downward, into the sea; for the unseen
+      foundations of the deep are more enduring than the palpable tops of the
+      mountains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sailing past Pella, we gained a view of its farther side; and seated in a
+      lofty cleft, beheld a lonely fisherman; solitary as a seal on an iceberg;
+      his motionless line in the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What recks he of the ten kings," said Babbalanja.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mohi," said Media, "methinks there is another tradition concerning that
+      rock: let us have it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In old times of genii and giants, there dwelt in barren lands, not very
+      remote from our outer reef, but since submerged, a band of evil- minded,
+      envious goblins, furlongs in stature, and with immeasurable arms; who from
+      time to time cast covetous glances upon our blooming isles. Long they
+      lusted; till at last, they waded through the sea, strode over the reef,
+      and seizing the nearest islet, rolled it over and over, toward an
+      adjoining outlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the task was hard; and day-break surprised them in the midst of their
+      audacious thieving; while in the very act of giving the devoted land
+      another doughty surge and Somerset. Leaving it bottom upward and midway
+      poised, gardens under water, its foundations in air, they precipitately
+      fled; in their great haste, deserting a comrade, vainly struggling to
+      liberate his foot caught beneath the overturned land."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This poor fellow now raised such an outcry, as to awaken the god Upi, or
+      the Archer, stretched out on a long cloud in the East; who forthwith
+      resolved to make an example of the unwilling lingerer. Snatching his bow,
+      he let fly an arrow. But overshooting its mark, it pierced through and
+      through, the lofty promontory of a neighboring island; making an arch in
+      it, which remaineth even unto this day. A second arrow, however,
+      accomplished its errand: the slain giant sinking prone to the bottom."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now," added Mohi, "glance over the gunwale, and you will see his
+      remains petrified into white ribs of coral."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ay, there they are," said Yoomy, looking down into the water where they
+      gleamed. "A fanciful legend, Braid-beard."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very entertaining," said Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Even so," said Babbalanja. "But perhaps we lost time in listening to it;
+      for though we know it, we are none the wiser."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be not a cynic," said Media. "No pastime is lost time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Musing a moment, Babbalanja replied, "My lord, that maxim may be good as
+      it stands; but had you made six words of it, instead of six syllables, you
+      had uttered a better and a deeper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0070" id="link2HCH0070"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXX &mdash; The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle-Song; And A
+      Message Is Received
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From Abroad
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From seaward now came a breeze so blithesome and fresh, that it made us
+      impatient of Babbalanja's philosophy, and Mohi's incredible legends. One
+      and all, we called upon the minstrel Yoomy to give us something in unison
+      with the spirited waves wide-foaming around us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If my lord will permit, we will give Taji the Paddle-Chant of the
+      warriors of King Bello."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By all means," said Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the three canoes were brought side to side; their sails rolled up; and
+      paddles in hand, our paddlers seated themselves sideways on the gunwales;
+      Yoomy, as leader, occupying the place of the foremast, or Bow-Paddler of
+      the royal barge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon the six rows of paddle-blades being uplifted, and every eye on
+      the minstrel, this song was sung, with actions corresponding; the canoes
+      at last shooting through the water, with a violent roll.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          (All.)
+      Thrice waved on high,
+      Our paddles fly:
+  Thrice round the head, thrice dropt to feet:
+      And then well timed,
+      Of one stout mind,
+  All fall, and back the waters heap!
+
+          (Bow-Paddler.)
+      Who lifts this chant?
+      Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+          (All.)
+  The wild sea song, to the billows' throng,
+      Rising, falling,
+      Hoarsely calling,
+  Now high, now low, as fast we go,
+  Fast on our flying foe!
+
+          (Bow-Paddler.)
+      Who lifts this chant?
+      Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+          (All.)
+  Dip, dip, in the brine our paddles dip,
+  Dip, dip, the fins of our swimming ship!
+      How the waters part,
+      As on we dart;
+        Our sharp prows fly,
+        And curl on high,
+  As the upright fin of the rushing shark,
+  Rushing fast and far on his flying mark!
+      Like him we prey;
+      Like him we slay;
+        Swim on the fog,
+        Our prow a blow!
+
+          (Bow-Paddler.)
+      Who lifts this chant?
+      Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+          (All.)
+  Heap back; heap back; the waters back!
+  Pile them high astern, in billows black;
+      Till we leave our wake,
+      In the slope we make;
+      And rush and ride,
+      On the torrent's tide!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Here we were overtaken by a swift gliding canoe, which, bearing down upon
+      us before the wind, lowered its sail when close by: its occupants signing
+      our paddlers to desist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strangers were three hooded damsels the enigmatical Queen Hautia's
+      heralds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their pursuit surprised and perplexed me. Nor was there wanting a vague
+      feeling of alarm to heighten these emotions. But perhaps I was mistaken,
+      and this time they meant not me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seated in the prow, the foremost waved her Iris flag. Cried Yoomy, "Some
+      message! Taji, that Iris points to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then, I first divined, that some meaning must have lurked in those
+      flowers they had twice brought me before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second damsel now flung over to me Circe flowers; then, a faded
+      jonquil, buried in a tuft of wormwood leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third sat in the shallop's stern, and as it glided from us, thrice
+      waved oleanders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What dumb show is this?" cried Media. "But it looks like poetry:
+      minstrel, you should know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Interpret then," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I, then, be your Flora's flute, and Hautia's dragoman? Held aloft,
+      the Iris signified a message. These purple-woven Circe flowers mean that
+      some spell is weaving. That golden, pining jonquil, which you hold, buried
+      in those wormwood leaves, says plainly to you&mdash; Bitter love in
+      absence."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Media, "Well done, Taji, you have killed a queen." "Yet no Queen
+      Hautia have these eyes beheld."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Babbalanja, "The thrice waved oleanders, Yoomy; what meant they?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beware&mdash;beware&mdash;beware."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then that, at least, seems kindly meant," said Babbalanja; "Taji, beware
+      of Hautia."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0071" id="link2HCH0071"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXI &mdash; They Land Upon The Island Of Juam
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Crossing the lagoon, our course now lay along the reef to Juam; a name
+      bestowed upon one of the largest islands hereabout; and also,
+      collectively, upon several wooded isles engulfing it, which together were
+      known as the dominions of one monarch. That monarch was Donjalolo. Just
+      turned of twenty-five, he was accounted not only the handsomest man in his
+      dominions, but throughout the lagoon. His comeliness, however, was so
+      feminine, that he was sometimes called "Fonoo," or the Girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our first view of Juam was imposing. A dark green pile of cliffs, towering
+      some one hundred toises; at top, presenting a range of steep,
+      gable-pointed projections; as if some Titanic hammer and chisel had shaped
+      the mass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sailing nearer, we perceived an extraordinary rolling of the sea; which
+      bursting into the lagoon through an adjoining breach in the reef, surged
+      toward Juam in enormous billows. At last, dashing against the wall of the
+      cliff; they played there in unceasing fountains. But under the brow of a
+      beetling crag, the spray came and went unequally. There, the blue billows
+      seemed swallowed up, and lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Right regally was Juam guarded. For, at this point, the rock was pierced
+      by a cave, into which the great waves chased each other like lions; after
+      a hollow, subterraneous roaring issuing forth with manes disheveled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cautiously evading the dangerous currents here ruffling the lagoon, we
+      rounded the wall of cliff; and shot upon a smooth expanse; on one side,
+      hemmed in by the long, verdent, northern shore of Juam; and across the
+      water, sentineled by its tributary islets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With sonorous Vee-Vee in the shark's mouth, we swept toward the beach,
+      tumultuous with a throng.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our canoes were secured. And surrounded by eager glances, we passed the
+      lower ends of several populous valleys; and crossing a wide, open meadow,
+      gradually ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs. Here, we
+      wended our way down a narrow defile, almost cleaving this quarter of the
+      island to its base. Black crags frowned overhead: among them the shouts of
+      the Islanders reverberated. Yet steeper grew the defile, and more
+      overhanging the crags till at last, the keystone of the arch seemed
+      dropped into its place. We found ourselves in a subterranean tunnel, dimly
+      lighted by a span of white day at the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emerging, what a scene was revealed! All round, embracing a circuit of
+      some three leagues, stood heights inaccessible, here and there, forming
+      buttresses, sheltering deep recesses between. The bosom of the place was
+      vivid with verdure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shining aslant into this wild hollow, the afternoon sun lighted up its
+      eastern side with tints of gold. But opposite, brooded a somber shadow,
+      double-shading the secret places between the salient spurs of the
+      mountains. Thus cut in twain by masses of day and night, it seemed as if
+      some Last Judgment had been enacted in the glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner did we emerge from the defile, than we became sensible of a
+      dull, jarring sound; and Yoomy was almost tempted to turn and flee, when
+      informed that the sea-cavern, whose mouth we had passed, was believed to
+      penetrate deep into the opposite hills; and that the surface of the
+      amphitheater was depressed beneath that of the lagoon. But all over the
+      lowermost hillsides, and sloping into the glen, stood grand old groves;
+      still and stately, as if no insolent waves were throbbing in the
+      mountain's heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was Willamilla, the hereditary abode of the young monarch of Juam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was Yillah immured in this strange retreat? But from those around us
+      naught could we learn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our attention was now directed to the habitations of the glen; comprised
+      in two handsome villages; one to the west, the other to the east; both
+      stretching along the base of the cliffs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Media, "Had we arrived at Willamilla in the morning, we had found
+      Donjalolo and his court in the eastern village; but being afternoon, we
+      must travel farther, and seek him in his western retreat; for that is now
+      in the shade."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wending our way, Media added, that aside from his elevated station as a
+      monarch, Donjalolo was famed for many uncommon traits; but more especially
+      for certain peculiar deprivations, under which he labored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon Braid-Beard unrolled his old chronicles; and regaled us with the
+      history, which will be found in the following chapter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0072" id="link2HCH0072"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXII &mdash; A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Many ages ago, there reigned in Juam a king called Teei. This Teei's
+      succession to the sovereignty was long disputed by his brother Marjora;
+      who at last rallying round him an army, after many vicissitudes, defeated
+      the unfortunate monarch in a stout fight of clubs on the beach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In those days, Willamilla during a certain period of the year was a place
+      set apart for royal games and diversions; and was furnished with suitable
+      accommodations for king and court. From its peculiar position, moreover,
+      it was regarded as the last stronghold of the Juam monarchy: in remote
+      times having twice withstood the most desperate assaults from without. And
+      when Roonoonoo, a famous upstart, sought to subdue all the isles in this
+      part of the Archipelago, it was to Willamilla that the banded kings had
+      repaired to take counsel together; and while there conferring, were
+      surprised at the sudden onslaught of Roonoonoo in person. But in the end,
+      the rebel was captured, he and all his army, and impaled on the tops of
+      the hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, defeated and fleeing for his life, Teei with his surviving followers
+      was driven across the plain toward the mountains. But to cut him off from
+      all escape to inland Willamilla, Marjora dispatched a fleet band of
+      warriors to occupy the entrance of the defile. Nevertheless, Teei the
+      pursued ran faster than his pursuers; first gained the spot; and with his
+      chiefs, fled swiftly down the gorge, closely hunted by Marjora's men. But
+      arriving at the further end, they in vain sought to defend it. And after
+      much desperate fighting, the main body of the foe corning up with great
+      slaughter the fugitives were driven into the glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They ran to the opposite wall of cliff; where turning, they fought at bay,
+      blood for blood, and life for life, till at last, overwhelmed by numbers,
+      they were all put to the point of the spear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With fratricidal hate, singled out by the ferocious Marjora, Teei fell by
+      that brother's hand. When stripping from the body the regal girdle, the
+      victor wound it round his own loins; thus proclaiming himself king over
+      Juam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long torn by this intestine war, the island acquiesced in the new
+      sovereignty. But at length a sacred oracle declared, that since the
+      conqueror had slain his brother in deep Willamilla, so that Teei never
+      more issued from that refuge of death; therefore, the same fate should be
+      Marjora's; for never, thenceforth, from that glen, should he go forth;
+      neither Marjora; nor any son of his girdled loins; nor his son's sons; nor
+      the uttermost scion of his race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But except this denunciation, naught was denounced against the usurper;
+      who, mindful of the tenure by which he reigned, ruled over the island for
+      many moons; at his death bequeathing the girdle to his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In those days, the wildest superstitions concerning the interference of
+      the gods in things temporal, prevailed to a much greater extent than at
+      present. Hence Marjora himself, called sometimes in the traditions of the
+      island, The-Heart-of-Black-Coral, even unscrupulous Marjora had quailed
+      before the oracle. "He bowed his head," say the legends. Nor was it then
+      questioned, by his most devoted adherents, that had he dared to act
+      counter to that edict, he had dropped dead, the very instant he went under
+      the shadow of the defile. This persuasion also guided the conduct of the
+      son of Marjora, and that of his grandson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there at last came to pass a change in the popular fancies concerning
+      this ancient anathema. The penalty denounced against the posterity of the
+      usurper should they issue from the glen, came to be regarded as only
+      applicable to an invested monarch, not to his relatives, or heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A most favorable construction of the ban; for all those related to the
+      king, freely passed in and out of Willamilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the time of the usurpation, there had always been observed a certain
+      ceremony upon investing the heir to the sovereignty with the girdle of
+      Teei. Upon these occasions, the chief priests of the island were present,
+      acting an important part. For the space of as many days, as there had
+      reigned kings of Marjora's dynasty, the inner mouth of the defile remained
+      sealed; the new monarch placing the last stone in the gap. This symbolized
+      his relinquishment forever of all purpose of passing out of the glen. And
+      without this observance, was no king girdled in Juam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was likewise an invariable custom, for the heir to receive the regal
+      investiture immediately upon the decease of his sire. No delay was
+      permitted. And instantly upon being girdled, he proceeded to take part in
+      the ceremony of closing the cave; his predecessor yet remaining uninterred
+      on the purple mat where he died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the history of the island, three instances were recorded; wherein, upon
+      the vacation of the sovereignty, the immediate heir had voluntarily
+      renounced all claim to the succession, rather than surrender the privilege
+      of roving, to which he had been entitled, as a prince of the blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Rani, one of these young princes, in reply to the remonstrances of
+      his friends, "What! shall I be a king, only to be a slave? Teei's girdle
+      would clasp my waist less tightly, than my soul would be banded by the
+      mountains of Willamilla. A subject, I am free. No slave in Juam but its
+      king; for all the tassels round his loins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To guard against a similar resolution in the mind of his only son, the
+      wise sire of Donjalolo, ardently desirous of perpetuating his dignities in
+      a child so well beloved, had from his earliest infancy, restrained the boy
+      from passing out of the glen, to contract in the free air of the
+      Archipelago, tastes and predilections fatal to the inheritance of the
+      girdle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as he grew in years, so impatient became young Donjalolo of the king
+      his father's watchfulness over him, though hitherto a most dutiful son,
+      that at last he was prevailed upon by his youthful companions to appoint a
+      day, on which to go abroad, and visit Mardi. Hearing this determination,
+      the old king sought to vanquish it. But in vain. And early on the morning
+      of the day, that Donjalolo was to set out, he swallowed poison, and died;
+      in order to force his son into the instant assumption of the honors thus
+      suddenly inherited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The event, but not its dreadful circumstances, was communicated to the
+      prince; as with a gay party of young chiefs, he was about to enter the
+      mouth of the defile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My sire dead!" cried Donjalolo. "So sudden, it seems a bolt from Heaven."
+      And bursting into exclamations of grief, he wept upon the bosom of Talara
+      his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But starting from his side:&mdash;"My fate converges to a point. If I but
+      cross that shadow, my kingdom is lost. One lifting of my foot, and the
+      girdle goes to my proud uncle Darfi, who would so joy to be my master.
+      Haughty Dwarf! Oh Oro! would that I had ere this passed thee, fatal
+      cavern; and seen for myself, what outer Mardi is. Say ye true, comrades,
+      that Willamilla is less lovely than the valleys without? that there is
+      bright light in the eyes of the maidens of Mina? and wisdom in the hearts
+      of the old priests of Maramma; that it is pleasant to tread the green
+      earth where you will; and breathe the free ocean air? Would, oh would,
+      that I were but the least of yonder sun-clouds, that look down alike on
+      Willamilla and all places besides, that I might determine aright. Yet why
+      do I pause? did not Rani, and Atama, and Mardonna, my ancestors, each see
+      for himself, free Mardi; and did they not fly the proffered girdle;
+      choosing rather to be free to come and go, than bury themselves forever in
+      this fatal glen? Oh Mardi! Mardi! art thou then so fair to see? Is liberty
+      a thing so glorious? Yet can I be no king, and behold thee! Too late, too
+      late, to view thy charms and then return. My sire! my sire! thou hast
+      wrung my heart with this agony of doubt. Tell me, comrades,&mdash;for ye
+      have seen it,&mdash;is Mardi sweeter to behold, than it is royal to reign
+      over Juam? Silent, are ye? Knowing what ye do, were ye me, would ye be
+      kings? Tell me, Talara.&mdash;No king: no king:&mdash;that were to obey,
+      and not command. And none hath Donjalolo ere obeyed but the king his
+      father. A king, and my voice may be heard in farthest Mardi, though I
+      abide in narrow Willamilla. My sire! my sire! Ye flying clouds, what look
+      ye down upon? Tell me, what ye see abroad? Methinks sweet spices breathe
+      from out the cave."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hail, Donjalolo, King of Juam," now sounded with acclamations from the
+      groves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Starting, the young prince beheld a multitude approaching: warriors with
+      spears, and maidens with flowers; and Kubla, a priest, lifting on high the
+      tasseled girdle of Teei, and waving it toward him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young chiefs fell back. Kubla, advancing, came close to the prince,
+      and unclasping the badge of royalty, exclaimed, "Donjalolo, this instant
+      it is king or subject with thee: wilt thou be girdled monarch?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gazing one moment up the dark defile, then staring vacantly, Donjalolo
+      turned and met the eager gaze of Darfi. Stripping off his mantle, the next
+      instant he was a king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Loud shouted the multitude, and exulted; but after mutely assisting at the
+      closing of the cavern, the new-girdled monarch retired sadly to his
+      dwelling, and was not seen again for many days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0073" id="link2HCH0073"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXIII &mdash; Something More Of The Prince
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Previous to recording our stay in his dominions, it only remains to be
+      related of Donjalolo, that after assuming the girdle, a change came over
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the lifetime of his father, he had been famed for his temperance
+      and discretion. But when Mardi was forever shut out; and he remembered the
+      law of his isle, interdicting abdication to its kings; he gradually fell
+      into desperate courses, to drown the emotions at times distracting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His generous spirit thirsting after some energetic career, found itself
+      narrowed down within the little glen of Willamilla, where ardent impulses
+      seemed idle. But these are hard to die; and repulsed all round, recoil
+      upon themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So with Donjalolo; who, in many a riotous scene, wasted the powers which
+      might have compassed the noblest designs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not many years had elapsed since the death of the king, his father. But
+      the still youthful prince was no longer the bright-eyed and elastic boy
+      who at the dawn of day had sallied out to behold the landscapes of the
+      neighboring isles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not more effeminate Sardanapalus, than he. And, at intervals, he was the
+      victim of unaccountable vagaries; haunted by specters, and beckoned to by
+      the ghosts of his sires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At times, loathing his vicious pursuits, which brought him no solid
+      satisfaction, but ever filled him with final disgust, he would resolve to
+      amend his ways; solacing himself for his bitter captivity, by the society
+      of the wise and discreet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But brief the interval of repentance. Anew, he burst into excesses, a
+      hundred fold more insane than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus vacillating between virtue and vice; to neither constant, and
+      upbraided by both; his mind, like his person in the glen, was continually
+      passing and repassing between opposite extremes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0074" id="link2HCH0074"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXIV &mdash; Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter
+      Donjalolo
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From the mouth of the cavern, a broad shaded way over-arched by fraternal
+      trees embracing in mid-air, conducted us to a cross-path, on either hand
+      leading to the opposite cliffs, shading the twin villages before
+      mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Level as a meadow, was the bosom of the glen. Here, nodding with green
+      orchards of the Bread-fruit and the Palm; there, flashing with golden
+      plantations of the Banana. Emerging from these, we came out upon a grassy
+      mead, skirting a projection of the mountain. And soon we crossed a bridge
+      of boughs, spanning a trench, thickly planted with roots of the Tara, like
+      alligators, or Hollanders, reveling in the soft alluvial. Strolling on,
+      the wild beauty of the mountains excited our attention. The topmost crags
+      poured over with vines; which, undulating in the air, seemed leafy
+      cascades; their sources the upland groves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Midway up the precipice, along a shelf of rock, sprouted the multitudinous
+      roots of an apparently trunkless tree. Shooting from under the shallow
+      soil, they spread all over the rocks below, covering them with an
+      intricate net-work. While far aloft, great boughs&mdash;each a copse&mdash;clambered
+      to the very summit of the mountain; then bending over, struck anew into
+      the soil; forming along the verge an interminable colonnade; all manner of
+      antic architecture standing against the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to Mohi, this tree was truly wonderful; its seed having been
+      dropped from the moon; where were plenty more similar forests, causing the
+      dark spots on its surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here and there, the cool fluid in the veins of the mountains gushed forth
+      in living springs; their waters received in green mossy tanks, half buried
+      in grasses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one place, a considerable stream, bounding far out from a wooded
+      height, ere reaching the ground was dispersed in a wide misty shower,
+      falling so far from the base of the cliff; that walking close underneath,
+      you felt little moisture. Passing this fall of vapors, we spied many
+      Islanders taking a bath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what is yonder swaying of the foliage? And what now issues forth, like
+      a habitation astir? Donjalolo drawing nigh to his guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came in a fair sedan; a bower, resting upon three long, parallel poles,
+      borne by thirty men, gayly attired; five at each pole-end. Decked with
+      dyed tappas, and looped with garlands of newly-plucked flowers, from
+      which, at every step, the fragrant petals were blown; with a sumptuous,
+      elastic motion the gay sedan came on; leaving behind it a long, rosy wake
+      of fluttering leaves and odors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing near, it revealed a slender, enervate youth, of pallid beauty,
+      reclining upon a crimson mat, near the festooned arch of the bower. His
+      anointed head was resting against the bosom of a girl; another stirred the
+      air, with a fan of Pintado plumes. The pupils of his eyes were as floating
+      isles in the sea. In a soft low tone he murmured "Media!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearers paused; and Media advancing; the Island Kings bowed their
+      foreheads together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through tubes ignited at the end, Donjaloln's reclining attendants now
+      blew an aromatic incense around him. These were composed of the
+      stimulating leaves of the "Aina," mixed with the long yellow blades of a
+      sweet-scented upland grass; forming a hollow stem. In general, the
+      agreeable fumes of the "Aina" were created by one's own inhalations; but
+      Donjalolo deeming the solace too dearly purchased by any exertion of the
+      royal lungs, regaled himself through those of his attendants, whose lips
+      were as moss-rose buds after a shower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In silence the young prince now eyed us attentively; meanwhile gently
+      waving his hand, to obtain a better view through the wreaths of vapor. He
+      was about to address us, when chancing to catch a glimpse of Samoa, he
+      suddenly started; averted his glance; and wildly commanded the warrior out
+      of sight. Upon this, his attendants would have soothed him; and Media
+      desired the Upoluan to withdraw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were yet lost in wonder at this scene, Donjalolo, with eyes
+      closed, fell back into the arms of his damsels. Recovering, he fetched a
+      deep sigh, and gazed vacantly around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems, that he had fancied Samoa the noon-day specter of his ancestor
+      Marjora; the usurper having been deprived of an arm in the battle which
+      gained him the girdle. Poor prince: this was one of those crazy conceits,
+      so puzzling to his subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Media now hastened to assure Donjalolo, that Samoa, though no cherub to
+      behold, was good flesh and blood, nevertheless. And soon the king
+      unconcernedly gazed; his monomania having departed as a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But still suffering from the effects of an overnight feast, he presently
+      murmured forth a desire to be left to his women; adding that his people
+      would not fail to provide for the entertainment of his guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curtains of the sedan were now drawn; and soon it disappeared in the
+      groves. Journeying on, ere long we arrived at the western side of the
+      glen; where one of the many little arbors scattered among the trees, was
+      assigned for our abode. Here, we reclined to an agreeable repast. After
+      which, we strolled forth to view the valley at large; more especially the
+      far-famed palaces of the prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0075" id="link2HCH0075"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXV &mdash; Time And Temples
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the oriental Pilgrimage of the pious old Purchas, and in the fine old
+      folio Voyages of Hakluyt, Thevenot, Ramusio, and De Bry, we read of many
+      glorious old Asiatic temples, very long in erecting. And veracious
+      Gaudentia di Lucca hath a wondrous narration of the time consumed in
+      rearing that mighty three-hundred-and-seventy-five- pillared Temple of the
+      Year, somewhere beyond Libya; whereof, the columns did signify days, and
+      all round fronted upon concentric zones of palaces, cross-cut by twelve
+      grand avenues symbolizing the signs of the zodiac, all radiating from the
+      sun-dome in their midst. And in that wild eastern tale of his, Marco Polo
+      tells us, how the Great Mogul began him a pleasure-palace on so imperial a
+      scale, that his grandson had much ado to complete it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no matter for marveling all this: great towers take time to construct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so of all else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that which long endures full-fledged, must have long lain in the germ.
+      And duration is not of the future, but of the past; and eternity is
+      eternal, because it has been, and though a strong new monument be builded
+      to-day, it only is lasting because its blocks are old as the sun. It is
+      not the Pyramids that are ancient, but the eternal granite whereof they
+      are made; which had been equally ancient though yet in the quarry. For to
+      make an eternity, we must build with eternities; whence, the vanity of the
+      cry for any thing alike durable and new; and the folly of the reproach&mdash;Your
+      granite hath come from the old-fashioned hills. For we are not gods and
+      creators; and the controversialists have debated, whether indeed the
+      All-Plastic Power itself can do more than mold. In all the universe is but
+      one original; and the very suns must to their source for their fire; and
+      we Prometheuses must to them for ours; which, when had, only perpetual
+      Vestal tending will keep alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let us back from fire to store. No fine firm fabric ever yet grew like
+      a gourd. Nero's House of Gold was not raised in a day; nor the Mexican
+      House of the Sun; nor the Alhambra; nor the Escurial; nor Titus's
+      Amphitheater; nor the Illinois Mounds; nor Diana's great columns at
+      Ephesus; nor Pompey's proud Pillar; nor the Parthenon; nor the Altar of
+      Belus; nor Stonehenge; nor Solomon's Temple; nor Tadmor's towers; nor
+      Susa's bastions; nor Persepolis' pediments. Round and round, the Moorish
+      turret at Seville was not wound heavenward in the revolution of a day; and
+      from its first founding, five hundred years did circle, ere Strasbourg's
+      great spire lifted its five hundred feet into the air. No: nor were the
+      great grottos of Elephanta hewn out in an hour; nor did the Troglodytes
+      dig Kentucky's Mammoth Cave in a sun; nor that of Trophonius, nor
+      Antiparos; nor the Giant's Causeway. Nor were the subterranean arched
+      sewers of Etruria channeled in a trice; nor the airy arched aqueducts of
+      Nerva thrown over their values in the ides of a month. Nor was Virginia's
+      Natural Bridge worn under in a year; nor, in geology, were the eternal
+      Grampians upheaved in an age. And who shall count the cycles that revolved
+      ere earth's interior sedimentary strata were crystalized into stone. Nor
+      Peak of Piko, nor Teneriffe, were chiseled into obelisks in a decade; nor
+      had Mount Athos been turned into Alexander's statue so soon. And the bower
+      of Artaxerxes took a whole Persian summer to grow; and the Czar's Ice
+      Palace a long Muscovite winter to congéal. No, no: nor was the Pyramid of
+      Cheops masoned in a month; though, once built, the sands left by the
+      deluge might not have submerged such a pile. Nor were the broad boughs of
+      Charles' Oak grown in a spring; though they outlived the royal dynasties
+      of Tudor and Stuart. Nor were the parts of the great Iliad put together in
+      haste; though old Homer's temple shall lift up its dome, when St. Peter's
+      is a legend. Even man himself lives months ere his Maker deems him fit to
+      be born; and ere his proud shaft gains its full stature, twenty-one long
+      Julian years must elapse. And his whole mortal life brings not his
+      immortal soul to maturity; nor will all eternity perfect him. Yea, with
+      uttermost reverence, as to human understanding, increase of dominion seems
+      increase of power; and day by day new planets are being added to
+      elder-born Saturn, even as six thousand years ago our own Earth made one
+      more in this system; so, in incident, not in essence, may the Infinite
+      himself be not less than more infinite now, than when old Aldebaran rolled
+      forth from his hand. And if time was, when this round Earth, which to
+      innumerable mortals has seemed an empire never to be wholly explored;
+      which, in its seas, concealed all the Indies over four thousand five
+      hundred years; if time was, when this great quarry of Assyrias and Romes
+      was not extant; then, time may have been, when the whole material universe
+      lived its Dark Ages; yea, when the Ineffable Silence, proceeding from its
+      unimaginable remoteness, espied it as an isle in the sea. And herein is no
+      derogation. For the Immeasurable's altitude is not heightened by the
+      arches of Mahomet's heavens; and were all space a vacuum, yet would it be
+      a fullness; for to Himself His own universe is He.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus deeper and deeper into Time's endless tunnel, does the winged soul,
+      like a night-hawk, wend her wild way; and finds eternities before and
+      behind; and her last limit is her everlasting beginning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But sent over the broad flooded sphere, even Noah's dove came back, and
+      perched on his hand. So comes back my spirit to me, and folds up her
+      wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, then, though Time be the mightiest of Alarics, yet is he the
+      mightiest mason of all. And a tutor, and a counselor, and a physician, and
+      a scribe, and a poet, and a sage, and a king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yea, and a gardener, as ere long will be shown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But first must we return to the glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0076" id="link2HCH0076"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXVI &mdash; A Pleasant Place For A Lounge
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Whether the hard condition of their kingly state, very naturally demanding
+      some luxurious requital, prevailed upon the monarchs of Juam to house
+      themselves so delightfully as they did; whether buried alive in their
+      glen, they sought to center therein a secret world of enjoyment; however
+      it may have been, throughout the Archipelago this saying was a proverb&mdash;"You
+      are lodged like the king in Willamilla." Hereby was expressed the utmost
+      sumptuousness of a palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A well warranted saying; for of all the bright places, where my soul loves
+      to linger, the haunts of Donjalolo are most delicious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the eastern quarter of the glen was the House of the Morning. This
+      fanciful palace was raised upon a natural mound, many rods square, almost
+      completely filling up a deep recess between deep-green and projecting
+      cliffs, overlooking many abodes distributed in the shadows of the groves
+      beyond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, if it indeed be, that from the time employed in its construction, any
+      just notion may be formed of the stateliness of an edifice, it must needs
+      be determined, that this retreat of Donjalolo could not be otherwise than
+      imposing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Full five hundred moons was the palace in completing; for by some
+      architectural arborist, its quadrangular foundations had been laid in
+      seed-cocoanuts, requiring that period to sprout up into pillars. In front,
+      these were horizontally connected, by elaborately carved beams, of a
+      scarlet hue, inserted into the vital wood; which, swelling out, and over
+      lapping, firmly secured them. The beams supported the rafters, inclining
+      from the rear; while over the aromatic grasses covering the roof, waved
+      the tufted tops of the Palms, green capitals to their dusky shafts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through and through this vibrating verdure, bright birds flitted and sang;
+      the scented and variegated thatch seemed a hanging-garden; and between it
+      and the Palm tops, was leaf-hung an arbor in the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without these columns, stood a second and third colonnade, forming the
+      most beautiful bowers; advancing through which, you fancied that the
+      palace beyond must be chambered in a fountain, or frozen in a crystal.
+      Three sparkling rivulets flowing from the heights were led across its
+      summit, through great trunks half buried in the thatch; and emptying into
+      a sculptured channel, running along the eaves, poured over in one wide
+      sheet, plaited and transparent. Received into a basin beneath, they were
+      thence conducted down the vale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sides of the palace were hedged by Diomi bushes bearing a flower, from
+      its perfume, called Lenora, or Sweet Breath; and within these odorous
+      hedges, were heavy piles of mats, richly dyed and embroidered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here lounging of a glowing noon, the plaited cascade playing, the verdure
+      waving, and the birds melodious, it was hard to say, whether you were an
+      inmate of a garden in the glen, or a grotto in the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But enough for the nonce, of the House of the Morning. Cross we the
+      hollow, to the House of the Afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0077" id="link2HCH0077"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXVII &mdash; The House Of The Afternoon
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For the most part, the House of the Afternoon was but a wing built against
+      a mansion wrought by the hand of Nature herself; a grotto running into the
+      side of the mountain. From high over the mouth of this grotto, sloped a
+      long arbor, supported by great blocks of stone, rudely chiseled into the
+      likeness of idols, each bearing a carved lizard on its chest: a sergeant's
+      guard of the gods condescendingly doing duty as posts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the grotto thus vestibuled, issued hilariously forth the most
+      considerable stream of the glen; which, seemingly overjoyed to find
+      daylight in Willamilla, sprang into the arbor with a cheery, white bound.
+      But its youthful enthusiasm was soon repressed; its waters being caught in
+      a large stone basin, scooped out of the natural rock; whence, staid and
+      decorous, they traversed sundry moats; at last meandering away, to join
+      floods with the streams trained to do service at the other end of the
+      vale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Truant streams: the livelong day wending their loitering path to the
+      subterraneous outlet, flowing into which, they disappeared. But no wonder
+      they loitered; passing such ravishing landscapes. Thus with life: man
+      bounds out of night; runs and babbles in the sun; then returns to his
+      darkness again; though, peradventure, once more to emerge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the grotto was not a mere outlet to the stream. Flowing through a dark
+      flume in the rock, on both sides it left a dry, elevated shelf, to which
+      you ascend from the arbor by three artificially-wrought steps, sideways
+      disposed, to avoid the spray of the rejoicing cataract. Mounting these,
+      and pursuing the edge of the flume, the grotto gradually expands and
+      heightens; your way lighted by rays in the inner distance. At last you
+      come to a lofty subterraneous dome, lit from above by a cleft in the
+      mountain; while full before you, in the opposite wall, from a low, black
+      arch, midway up, and inaccessible, the stream, with a hollow ring and a
+      dash, falls in a long, snowy column into a bottomless pool, whence, after
+      many an eddy and whirl, it entered the flume, and away with a rush. Half
+      hidden from view by an overhanging brow of the rock, the white fall looked
+      like the sheeted ghost of the grotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet gallantly bedecked was the cave, as any old armorial hall hung round
+      with banners and arras. Streaming from the cleft, vines swung in the air;
+      or crawled along the rocks, wherever a tendril could be fixed. High up,
+      their leaves were green; but lower down, they were shriveled; and dyed of
+      many colors; and tattered and torn with much rustling; as old banners
+      again; sore raveled with much triumphing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of this hall in the hill was incarcerated the stone image of
+      one Demi, the tutelar deity of Willamina. All green and oozy like a stone
+      under water, poor Demi looked as if sore harassed with sciatics and
+      lumbagos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was cheered from aloft, by the promise of receiving a garland all
+      blooming on his crown; the Dryads sporting in the woodlands above, forever
+      peeping down the cleft, and essaying to drop him a coronal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the still, panting glen of Willamilla, nested so close by the
+      mountains, and a goodly green mark for the archer in the sun, would have
+      been almost untenable were it not for the grotto. Hereby, it breathed the
+      blessed breezes of Omi; a mountain promontory buttressing the island to
+      the east, receiving the cool stream of the upland Trades; much pleasanter
+      than the currents beneath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At all times, even in the brooding noon-day, a gush of cool air came
+      hand-in-hand with the cool waters, that burst with a shout into the palace
+      of Donjalolo. And as, after first refreshing the king, as in loyalty
+      bound, the stream flowed at large through the glen, and bathed its
+      verdure; so, the blessed breezes of Omi, not only made pleasant the House
+      of the Afternoon; but finding ample outlet in its wide, open front, blew
+      forth upon the bosom of all Willamilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come let us take the air of Omi," was a very common saying in the glen.
+      And the speaker would hie with his comrade toward the grotto; and flinging
+      himself on the turf, pass his hand through his locks, and recline; making
+      a joy and a business of breathing; for truly the breezes of Omi were as
+      air-wine to the lungs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet was not this breeze over-cool; though at times the zephyrs grew
+      boisterous. Especially at the season of high sea, when the strong Trades
+      drawn down the cleft in the mountain, rushed forth from the grotto with
+      wonderful force. Crossing it then, you had much ado to keep your robe on
+      your back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much for the House of the Afternoon. Whither&mdash;after spending the
+      shady morning under the eastern cliffs of the glen&mdash;daily, at a
+      certain hour, Donjalolo in his palanquin was borne; there, finding new
+      shades; and there tarrying till evening; when again he was transported
+      whence he came: thereby anticipating the revolution of the sun. Thus
+      dodging day's luminary through life, the prince hied to and fro in his
+      dominions; on his smooth, spotless brow Sol's rays never shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0078" id="link2HCH0078"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXVIII &mdash; Babbalanja Solus
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of the House of the Afternoon something yet remains to be said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was chiefly distinguished by its pavement, where, according to the
+      strange customs of the isle, were inlaid the reputed skeletons of
+      Donjalolo's sires; each surrounded by a mosaic of corals,&mdash;red,
+      white, and black, intermixed with vitreous stones fallen from the skies in
+      a meteoric shower. These delineated the tattooing of the departed. Near
+      by, were imbedded their arms: mace, bow, and spear, in similar marquetry;
+      and over each skull was the likeness of a scepter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First and conspicuous lay the half-decayed remains of Marjora, the father
+      of these Coral Kings; by his side, the storied, sickle-shaped weapon,
+      wherewith he slew his brother Teei.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Line of kings and row of scepters," said Babbalanja as he gazed.
+      "Donjalolo, come forth and ponder on thy sires. Here they lie, from dread
+      Marjora down to him who fathered thee. Here are their bones, their spears,
+      and their javelins; their scepters, and the very fashion of their
+      tattooing: all that can be got together of what they were. Tell me, oh
+      king, what are thy thoughts? Dotest thou on these thy sires? Art thou more
+      truly royal, that they were kings? Or more a man, that they were men? Is
+      it a fable, or a verity about Marjora and the murdered Teei? But here is
+      the mighty conqueror,&mdash;ask him. Speak to him: son to sire: king to
+      king. Prick him; beg; buffet; entreat; spurn; split the globe, he will not
+      budge. Walk over and over thy whole ancestral line, and they will not
+      start. They are not here. Ay, the dead are not to be found, even in their
+      graves. Nor have they simply departed; for they willed not to go; they
+      died not by choice; whithersoever they have gone, thither have they been
+      dragged; and if so be, they are extinct, their nihilities went not more
+      against their grain, than their forced quitting of Mardi. Either way,
+      something has become of them that they sought not. Truly, had
+      stout-hearted Marjora sworn to live here in Willamilla for ay, and kept
+      the vow, that would have been royalty indeed; but here he lies. Marjora!
+      rise! Juam revolteth! Lo, I stamp upon thy scepter; base menials tread
+      upon thee where thou hest! Up, king, up! What? no reply? Are not these
+      bones thine? Oh, how the living triumph over the dead! Marjora! answer.
+      Art thou? or art thou not? I see thee not; I &mdash; hear thee not; I feel
+      thee not; eyes, ears, hands, are worthless to test thy being; and if thou
+      art, thou art something beyond all human thought to compass. We must have
+      other faculties to know thee by. Why, thou art not even a sightless sound;
+      not the echo of an echo; here are thy bones. Donjalolo, methinks I see
+      thee fallen upon by assassins:&mdash;which of thy fathers riseth to the
+      rescue? I see thee dying:&mdash;which of them telleth thee what cheer
+      beyond the grave? But they have gone to the land unknown. Meet phrase.
+      Where is it? Not one of Oro's priests telleth a straight story concerning
+      it; 'twill be hard finding their paradises. Touching the life of Alma, in
+      Mohi's chronicles, 'tis related, that a man was once raised from the tomb.
+      But rubbed he not his eyes, and stared he not most vacantly? Not one
+      revelation did he make. Ye gods! to have been a bystander there!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At best, 'tis but a hope. But will a longing bring the thing desired?
+      Doth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative. The fire I
+      shrink from, may consume me.&mdash;But dead, and yet alive; alive, yet
+      dead;&mdash;thus say the sages of Maramma. But die we then living? Yet if
+      our dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our unborn sons? For
+      backward or forward, eternity is the same; already have we been the
+      nothing we dread to be. Icy thought! But bring it home,&mdash;it will not
+      stay. What ho, hot heart of mine: to beat thus lustily awhile, to feel in
+      the red rushing blood, and then be ashes,&mdash;can this be so? But peace,
+      peace, thou liar in me, telling me I am immortal&mdash;shall I not be as
+      these bones? To come to this! But the balsam-dropping palms, whose boles
+      run milk, whose plumes wave boastful in the air, they perish in their
+      prime, and bow their blasted trunks. Nothing abideth; the river of
+      yesterday floweth not to-day; the sun's rising is a setting; living is
+      dying; the very mountains melt; and all revolve:&mdash;systems and
+      asteroids; the sun wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a
+      revolution. Ah gods! in all this universal stir, am I to prove one stable
+      thing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dust of
+      beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and filch their
+      skulls. This, great Marjora's arm? No, some old paralytic's. Ye, kings?
+      ye, men? Where are your vouchers? I do reject your brother-hood, ye
+      libelous remains. But no, no; despise them not, oh Babbalanja! Thy own
+      skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through this mortal life; and
+      aye would view it, but for kind nature's screen; thou art death alive; and
+      e'en to what's before thee wilt thou come. Ay, thy children's children
+      will walk over thee: thou, voiceless as a calm."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0079" id="link2HCH0079"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXIX &mdash; The Center Of Many Circumferences
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Like Donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we pace to
+      the House of the Morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to less public
+      apartments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you to open
+      ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of the prince: a
+      square structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, as inscrutable. Down to
+      the very ground, its walls are thatched; but on the farther side a
+      passage-way opens, which you enter. But not yet are you within. Scarce a
+      yard distant, stands an inner thatched wall, blank as the first. Passing
+      along the intervening corridor, lighted by narrow apertures, you reach the
+      opposite side, and a second opening is revealed. This entering, another
+      corridor; lighted as the first, but more dim, and a third blank wall. And
+      thus, three times three, you worm round and round, the twilight lessening
+      as you proceed; until at last, you enter the citadel itself: the innermost
+      arbor of a nest; whereof, each has its roof, distinct from the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heart of the place is but small; illuminated by a range of open
+      sky-lights, downward contracting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Innumerable as the leaves of an endless folio, multitudinous mats cover
+      the floor; whereon reclining by night, like Pharaoh on the top of his
+      patrimonial pile, the inmate looks heavenward, and heavenward only; gazing
+      at the torchlight processions in the skies, when, in state, the suns march
+      to be crowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered the
+      universe-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef- sashed,
+      mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped, self-hugged,
+      indivisible Donjalolo, absolute monarch of Juam:&mdash;the husk-inhusked
+      meat in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; the juice-nested seed in a
+      goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in an effeminate peach; the
+      insphered sphere of spheres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0080" id="link2HCH0080"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXX &mdash; Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      To pretend to relate the manner in which Juam's ruler passed his captive
+      days, without making suitable mention of his harem, would be to paint
+      one's full-length likeness and omit the face. For it was his harem that
+      did much to stamp the character of Donjalolo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous, surely, to
+      have overlooked the princess; much more, then, as it is; and by how-much
+      the more, a plurality exceeds a unit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the person of the
+      king, he had wives thirty in number, corresponding in name to the nights
+      of the moon. For, in Juam, time is not reckoned by days, but by nights;
+      each night of the lunar month having its own designation; which,
+      relatively only, is extended to the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In uniform succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of the king's heart.
+      An arrangement most wise and judicious; precluding much of that jealousy
+      and confusion prevalent in ill-regulated seraglios. For as thirty spouses
+      must be either more desirable, or less desirable than one; so is a harem
+      thirty times more difficult to manage than an establishment with one
+      solitary mistress. But Donjalolo's wives were so nicely drilled, that for
+      the most part, things went on very smoothly. Nor were his brows much
+      furrowed with wrinkles referable to domestic cares and tribulations.
+      Although, as in due time will be seen, from these he was not altogether
+      exempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, according to Braid-Beard, who, among other abstruse political
+      researches, had accurately informed himself concerning the internal
+      administration of Donjalolo's harem, the following was the method pursued
+      therein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the Aquella, or First Night of the month, the queen of that name
+      assumes her diadem, and reigns. So too with Azzolino the Second, and
+      Velluvi the Third Night of the Moon; and so on, even unto the utter
+      eclipse thereof; through Calends, Nones, and Ides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For convenience, the king is furnished with a card, whereon are copied the
+      various ciphers upon the arms of his queens; and parallel thereto, the
+      hieroglyphics significant of the corresponding Nights of the month.
+      Glancing over this, Donjalolo predicts the true time of the rising and
+      setting of all his stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios, which few mortals
+      beheld. For, so deeply were they buried in a grove; so overpowered with
+      verdure; so overrun with vines; and so hazy with the incense of flowers;
+      that they were almost invisible, unless closely approached. Certain it
+      was, that it demanded no small enterprise, diligence, and sagacity, to
+      explore the mysterious wood in search of them. Though a strange, sweet,
+      humming sound, as of the clustering and swarming of warm bees among roses,
+      at last hinted the royal honey at hand. High in air, toward the summit of
+      the cliff, overlooking this side of the glen, a narrow ledge of rocks
+      might have been seen, from which, rumor whispered, was to be caught an
+      angular peep at the tip of the apex of the roof of the nearest seraglio.
+      But this wild report had never been established. Nor, indeed, was it
+      susceptible of a test. For was not that rock inaccessible as the eyrie of
+      young eagles? But to guard against the possibility of any visual
+      profanation, Donjalolo had authorized an edict, forever tabooing that rock
+      to foot of man or pinion of fowl. Birds and bipeds both trembled and
+      obeyed; taking a wide circuit to avoid the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors leading from the
+      palace. The seraglio to the right was denominated "Ravi" (Before), that to
+      the left "Zono" (After). The meaning of which was, that upon the
+      termination of her reign the queen wended her way to the Zono; there
+      tarrying with her predecessors till the Ravi was emptied; when the entire
+      Moon of wives, swallow-like, migrated back whence they came; and the
+      procession was gone over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with their respective
+      ciphers. In the Ravi, the mat of the queen-apparent, or next in
+      succession, was spread by the portal. In the Zono, the newly- widowed
+      queen reposed furthest from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned. Notwithstanding
+      these excellent arrangements, the mature result of ages of progressive
+      improvement in the economy of the royal seraglios in Willamilla, it must
+      needs be related, that at times the order of precedence became confused,
+      and was very hard to restore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to the no small
+      delight of the remainder; but to their equal vexation her place would soon
+      after be supplied by some beautiful stranger; who assuming the
+      denomination of the vacated Night of the Moon, thenceforth commenced her
+      monthly revolutions in the king's infallible calendar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone, thin of leg,
+      and puny of frame; whose grateful task it was, to tarry in the garden of
+      Donjalolo's delights, without ever touching the roses. Along with
+      innumerable other duties, they were perpetually kept coming and going upon
+      ten thousand errands; for they had it in strict charge to obey the
+      slightest behests of the damsels; and with all imaginable expedition to
+      run, fly, swim, or dissolve into impalpable air, at the shortest possible
+      notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So laborious their avocations, that none could discharge them for more
+      than a twelvemonth, at the end of that period giving up the ghost out of
+      pure exhaustion of the locomotive apparatus. It was this constant drain
+      upon the stock of masculine old age in the glen, that so bethinned its
+      small population of gray-beards and hoary-heads. And any old man hitherto
+      exempted, who happened to receive a summons to repair to the palace, and
+      there wait the pleasure of the king: this unfortunate, at once suspecting
+      his doom, put his arbor in order; oiled and suppled his joints; took a
+      long farewell of his friends; selected his burial-place; and going
+      resigned to his fate, in due time expired like the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance, he might
+      possibly have derived some little consolation from the thought, that
+      though a slave to the whims of thirty princesses, he was nevertheless one
+      of their guardians, and as such, he might ingeniously have concluded,
+      their superior. But small consolation this. For the damsels were as blithe
+      as larks, more playful than kittens; never looking sad and sentimental,
+      projecting clandestine escapes. But supplied with the thirtieth part of
+      all that Aspasia could desire; glorying in being the spouses of a king;
+      nor in the remotest degree anxious about eventual dowers; they were
+      care-free, content, and rejoicing, as the rays of the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of your fate, one drop
+      of the balm of consolation. For, commissioned to watch over those who
+      forever kept you on the trot, affording you no time to hunt up
+      peccadilloes; was not this circumstance an aggravation of hard times? a
+      sharpening and edge-giving to the steel in your souls?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But much yet remains unsaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident to these
+      attenuated old warders, they were intensely hated by the damsels.
+      Inasmuch, as it was archly opined, for what ulterior purposes they were
+      retained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless old bronze
+      dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old men ever and anon cried out
+      mightily, by reason of sore pinches and scratches received in the dark:
+      And tri-trebly-tri-triply girt about as he was, Donjalolo himself started
+      from his slumbers, raced round and round through his ten thousand
+      corridors; at last bursting all dizzy among his twenty-nine queens, to see
+      what under the seventh-heavens was the matter. When, lo and behold! there
+      lay the innocents all sound asleep; the dragons moaning over their
+      mysterious bruises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight and the torment
+      of the days and nights of Donjalolo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in one special matter was he either eminently miserable, or otherwise:
+      for all his multiplicity of wives, he had never an heir. Not his, the
+      proud paternal glance of the Grand Turk Solyman, looking round upon a
+      hundred sons, all bone of his bone, and squinting with his squint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0081" id="link2HCH0081"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXI &mdash; Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One
+      Karkeke In The Land
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of Shades
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At our morning repast on the second day of our stay in the hollow, our
+      party indulged in much lively discourse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Samoa," said I, "those isles of yours, of whose beauty you so often make
+      vauntful mention, can those isles, good Samoa, furnish a valley in all
+      respects equal to Willamilla?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Disdainful answer was made, that Willamilla might be endurable enough for
+      a sojourn, but as a permanent abode, any glen of his own natal isle was
+      unspeakably superior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the great valley of Savaii," cried Samoa, "for every leaf grown here
+      in Willamilla, grows a stately tree; and for every tree here waving, in
+      Savaii flourishes a goodly warrior."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immeasurable was the disgust of the Upoluan for the enervated subjects of
+      Donjalolo; and for Donjalolo himself; though it was shrewdly divined, that
+      his annoying reception at the hands of the royalty of Juam, had something
+      to do with his disdain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Jarl, no similar question was put; for he was sadly deficient in a
+      taste for the picturesque. But he cursorily observed, that in his
+      blue-water opinion, Willamilla was next to uninhabitable, all view of the
+      sea being intercepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here it may be well to relate a comical blunder on the part of honest
+      Jarl; concerning which, Samoa, the savage, often afterward twitted him; as
+      indicating a rusticity, and want of polish in his breeding. It rather
+      originated, however, in his not heeding the conventionalities of the
+      strange people among whom he was thrown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The anecdote is not an epic; but here it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reclining in our arbor, we breakfasted upon a marble slab; so
+frost-white, and flowingly traced with blue veins, that it seemed a little lake
+      sheeted over with ice: Diana's virgin bosom congéaled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before each guest was a richly carved bowl and gourd, fruit and wine
+      freighted also the empty hemisphere of a small nut, the purpose of which
+      was a problem. Now, King Jarl scorned to admit the slightest degree of
+      under-breeding in the matter of polite feeding. So nothing was a problem
+      to him. At once reminded of the morsel of Arvaroot in his mouth, a
+      substitute for another sort of sedative then unattainable, he was
+      instantly illuminated concerning the purpose of the nut; and very
+      complacently introduced each to the other; in the innocence of his
+      ignorance making no doubt that he had acquitted himself with discretion;
+      the little hemisphere plainly being intended as a place of temporary
+      deposit for the Arva of the guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company were astounded: Samoa more than all. King Jarl, meanwhile,
+      looking at all present with the utmost serenity. At length, one of the
+      horrified attendants, using two sticks for a forceps, disappeared with the
+      obnoxious nut, Upon which, the meal proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This attendant was not seen again for many days; which gave rise to the
+      supposition, that journeying to the sea-side, he had embarked for some
+      distant strand; there, to bury out of sight the abomination with which he
+      was freighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this, his egregious misadventure, calculated to do discredit to our
+      party, and bring Media himself into contempt, Babbalanja had no scruples
+      in taking Jarl roundly to task. He assured him, that it argued but little
+      brains to evince a desire to be thought familiar with all things; that
+      however desirable as incidental attainments, conventionalities, in
+      themselves, were the very least of arbitrary trifles; the knowledge of
+      them, innate with no man. "Moreover Jarl," he added, "in essence,
+      conventionalities are but mimickings, at which monkeys succeed best.
+      Hence, when you find yourself at a loss in these matters, wait patiently,
+      and mark what the other monkeys do: and then follow suit. And by so doing,
+      you will gain a vast reputation as an accomplished ape. Above all things,
+      follow not the silly example of the young spark Karkeke, of whom Mohi was
+      telling me. Dying, and entering the other world with a mincing gait, and
+      there finding certain customs quite strange and new; such as friendly
+      shades passing through each other by way of a salutation;&mdash; Karkeke,
+      nevertheless, resolved to show no sign of embarrassment. Accosted by a
+      phantom, with wings folded pensively, plumes interlocked across its chest,
+      he off head; and stood obsequiously before it. Staring at him for an
+      instant, the spirit cut him dead; murmuring to itself, 'Ah, some
+      terrestrial bumpkin, I fancy,' and passed on with its celestial nose in
+      the highly rarified air. But silly Karkeke undertaking to replace his
+      head, found that it would no more stay on; but forever tumbled off; even
+      in the act of nodding a salute; which calamity kept putting him out of
+      countenance. And thus through all eternity is he punished for his folly,
+      in having pretended to be wise, wherein he was ignorant. Head under arm,
+      he wanders about, the scorn and ridicule of the other world."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our repast concluded, messengers arrived from the prince, courteously
+      inviting our presence at the House of the Morning. Thither we went;
+      journeying in sedans, sent across the hollow, for that purpose, by
+      Donjalolo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0082" id="link2HCH0082"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXII &mdash; How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding
+      Isles; With The Result
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ere recounting what was beheld on entering the House of the Morning, some
+      previous information is needful. Though so many of Donjalolo's days were
+      consumed by sloth and luxury, there came to him certain intervals of
+      thoughtfulness, when all his curiosity concerning the things of outer
+      Mardi revived with augmented intensity. In these moods, he would send
+      abroad deputations, inviting to Willamilla the kings of the neighboring
+      islands; together with the most celebrated priests, bards, story-tellers,
+      magicians, and wise men; that he might hear them converse of those things,
+      which he could not behold for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, he bethought him, that the various narrations he had heard,
+      could not have been otherwise than unavoidably faulty; by reason that they
+      had been principally obtained from the inhabitants of the countries
+      described; who, very naturally, must have been inclined to partiality or
+      uncandidness in their statements. Wherefore he had very lately dispatched
+      to the isles special agents of his own; honest of heart, keen of eye, and
+      shrewd of understanding; to seek out every thing that promised to
+      illuminate him concerning the places they visited, and also to collect
+      various specimens of interesting objects; so that at last he might avail
+      himself of the researches of others, and see with their eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though two observers were sent to every one of the neighboring lands;
+      yet each was to act independently; make his own inquiries; form his own
+      conclusions; and return with his own specimens; wholly regardless of the
+      proceedings of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It so came to pass, that on the very day of our arrival in the glen, these
+      pilgrims returned from their travels. And Donjalolo had set apart the
+      following morning to giving them a grand public reception. And it was to
+      this, that our party had been invited, as related in the chapter
+      preceding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the great Palm-hall of the House of the Morning, we were assigned
+      distinguished mats, to the right of the prince; his chiefs, attendants,
+      and subjects assembled in the open colonnades without.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When all was in readiness, in marched the company of savans and travelers;
+      and humbly standing in a semi-circle before the king, their numerous
+      hampers were deposited at their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Donjalolo was now in high spirits, thinking of the rich store of reliable
+      information about to be furnished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Zuma," said he, addressing the foremost of the company, "you and Varnopi
+      were directed to explore the island of Rafona. Proceed now, and relate all
+      you know of that place. Your narration heard, we will list to Varnopi."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a profound inclination the traveler obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon Donjalolo interrupted him. "What say you, Zuma, about the secret
+      cavern, and the treasures therein? A very different account, this, from
+      all I have heard hitherto; but perhaps yours is the true version. Go on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But very soon, poor Zuma was again interrupted by exclamations of
+      surprise. Nay, even to the very end of his mountings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when he had done, Donjalolo observed, that if from any cause Zuma was
+      in error or obscure, Varnopi would not fail to set him right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Varnopi was called upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not long had Varnopi proceeded, when Donjalolo changed color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" he exclaimed, "will ye contradict each other before our very face.
+      Oh Oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! Fifty accounts have I
+      had of Rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here, these two varlets,
+      sent expressly to behold and report, these two lying knaves, speak
+      crookedly both. How is it? Are the lenses in their eyes diverse-hued, that
+      objects seem different to both; for undeniable is it, that the things they
+      thus clashingly speak of are to be known for the same; though represented
+      with unlike colors and qualities. But dumb things can not lie nor err.
+      Unpack thy hampers, Zuma. Here, bring them close: now: what is this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," tremblingly replied Zuma, "is a specimen of the famous reef- bar
+      on the west side of the island of Rafona; your highness perceives its deep
+      red dyes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Donjalolo, "Varnopi, hast thou a piece of this coral, also?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have, your highness," said Varnopi; "here it is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking it from his hand, Donjalolo gazed at its bleached, white hue; then
+      dashing it to the pavement, "Oh mighty Oro! Truth dwells in her fountains;
+      where every one must drink for himself. For me, vain all hope of ever
+      knowing Mardi! Away! Better know nothing, than be deceived. Break up!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Donjalolo rose, and retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All present now broke out in a storm of vociferation; some siding with
+      Zuma; others with Varnopi; each of whom, in turn, was declared the man to
+      be relied upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marking all this, Babbalanja, who had been silently looking on, leaning
+      against one of the palm pillars, quietly observed to Media:&mdash; "My
+      lord, I have seen this same reef at Rafona. In various places, it is of
+      various hues. As for Zuma and Varnopi, both are wrong, and both are
+      right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0083" id="link2HCH0083"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXIII &mdash; They Visit The Tributary Islets
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In Willamilla, no Yillah being found, on the third day we took leave of
+      Donjalolo; who lavished upon us many caresses and, somewhat reluctantly on
+      Media's part, we quitted the vale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One by one, we now visited the outer villages of Juam; and crossing the
+      waters, wandered several days among its tributary isles. There we saw the
+      viceroys of him who reigned in the hollow: chieftains of whom Donjalolo
+      was proud; so honest, humble, and faithful; so bent upon ameliorating the
+      condition of those under their rule. For, be it said, Donjalolo was a
+      charitable prince; in his serious intervals, ever seeking the welfare of
+      his subjects, though after an imperial view of his own. But alas, in that
+      sunny donjon among the mountains, where he dwelt, how could Donjalolo be
+      sure, that the things he decreed were executed in regions forever remote
+      from his view. Ah! very bland, very innocent, very pious, the faces his
+      viceroys presented during their monthly visits to Willamilla. But as cruel
+      their visage, when, returned to their islets, they abandoned themselves to
+      all the license of tyrants; like Verres reveling down the rights of the
+      Sicilians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like Carmelites, they came to Donjalolo, barefooted; but in their homes,
+      their proud latchets were tied by their slaves. Before their king-belted
+      prince, they stood rope-girdled like self-abased monks of St. Francis; but
+      with those ropes, before their palaces, they hung Innocence and Truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As still seeking Yillah, and still disappointed, we roved through the
+      lands which these chieftains ruled, Babbalanja exclaimed&mdash;"Let us
+      depart; idle our search, in isles that have viceroys for kings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At early dawn, about embarking for a distant land, there came to us
+      certain messengers of Donjalolo, saying that their lord the king,
+      repenting of so soon parting company with Media and Taji, besought them to
+      return with all haste; for that very morning, in Willamilla, a regal
+      banquet was preparing; to which many neighboring kings had been invited,
+      most of whom had already arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Declaring that there was no alternative but compliance, Media acceded; and
+      with the king's messengers we returned to the glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0084" id="link2HCH0084"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXIV &mdash; Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five-And-Twenty
+      Kings, And A Royal Time
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      They Have
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was afternoon when we emerged from the defile. And informed that our
+      host was receiving his guests in the House of the Afternoon, thither we
+      directed our steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soft in our face, blew the blessed breezes of Omi, stirring the leaves
+      overhead; while, here and there, through the trees, showed the
+      idol-bearers of the royal retreat, hand in hand, linked with festoons of
+      flowers. Still beyond, on a level, sparkled the nodding crowns of the
+      kings, like the constellation Corona-Borealis, the horizon just gained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Close by his noon-tide friend, the cascade at the mouth of the grotto,
+      reposed on his crimson mat, Donjalolo:&mdash;arrayed in a vestment of the
+      finest white tappa of Mardi, figured all over with bright yellow lizards,
+      so curiously stained in the gauze, that he seemed overrun, as with golden
+      mice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marjora's girdle girdled his loins, tasseled with the congregated teeth of
+      his sires. A jeweled turban-tiara, milk-white, surmounted his brow, over
+      which waved a copse of Pintado plumes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what sways in his hand? A scepter, similar to those likenesses of
+      scepters, imbedded among the corals at his feet. A polished thigh- bone;
+      by Braid-Beard declared once Teei's the Murdered. For to emphasize his
+      intention utterly to rule, Marjora himself had selected this emblem of
+      dominion over mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even this last despite done to dead Teei had once been transcended. In
+      the usurper's time, prevailed the belief, that the saliva of kings must
+      never touch ground; and Mohi's Chronicles made mention, that during the
+      life time of Marjora, Teei's skull had been devoted to the basest of
+      purposes: Marjora's, the hate no turf could bury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, traditions like these ever seem dubious. There be many who deny the
+      hump, moral and physical, of Gloster Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still advancing unperceived, in social hilarity we descried their
+      Highnesses, chatting together like the most plebeian of mortals; full as
+      merry as the monks of old. But marking our approach, all changed. A pair
+      of potentates, who had been playfully trifling, hurriedly adjusted their
+      diadems, threw themselves into attitudes, looking stately as statues.
+      Phidias turned not out his Jupiter so soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In various-dyed robes the five-and-twenty kings were arrayed; and various
+      their features, as the rows of lips, eyes and ears in John Caspar
+      Lavater's physiognomical charts. Nevertheless, to a king, all their noses
+      were aquiline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins, like
+      those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and
+      wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was
+      deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard. They
+      were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat and lean,
+      cunning and simple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With animated courtesy our host received us; assigning a neighboring bower
+      for Babbalanja and the rest; and among so many right-royal, demi-divine
+      guests, how could the demi-gods Media and Taji be otherwise than at home?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unwonted sprightliness of Donjalolo surprised us. But he was in one of
+      those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his failures in
+      efforts to amend his life. And the bootless issue of his late mission to
+      outer Mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry. Nor had he lately
+      shunned a wild wine, called Morando.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated freely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the Morando much. A nutty, pungent
+      flavor it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the Philippine
+      isles. And a marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving the
+      crystalization of the brain; leaving nothing but precious little drops of
+      good humor, beading round the bowl of the cranium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars, and
+      stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended hangings of
+      crimson tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the pavement they
+      rustled in the breeze from the grot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a porphyry
+      hue, deep-hollowed out of a tree. Outside, were innumerable grotesque
+      conceits; conspicuous among which, for a border, was an endless string of
+      the royal lizards circumnavigating the basin in inverted chase of their
+      tails.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peculiar to the groves of Willamilla, the yellow lizard formed part of the
+      arms of Juam. And when Donjalolo's messenger went abroad, they carried its
+      effigy, as the emblem of their royal master; themselves being known, as
+      the Gentlemen of the Golden Lizard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The porphyry-hued basin planted full in our midst, the attendants
+      forthwith filled the same with the living waters from the cascade; a
+      proceeding, for which some of the company were at a loss to account,
+      unless his highness, our host, with all the coolness of royalty, purposed
+      cooling himself still further, by taking a bath in presence of his guests.
+      A conjecture, most premature; for directly, the basin being filled to
+      within a few inches of the lizards, the attendants fell to launching
+      therein divers goodly sized trenchers, all laden with choice viands:&mdash;wild
+      boar meat; humps of grampuses; embrowned bread-fruit, roasted in
+      odoriferous fires of sandal wood, but suffered to cool; gold fish, dressed
+      with the fragrant juices of berries; citron sauce; rolls of the baked
+      paste of yams; juicy bananas, steeped in a saccharine oil; marmalade of
+      plantains; jellies of guava; confections of the treacle of palm sap; and
+      many other dainties; besides numerous stained calabashes of Morando, and
+      other beverages, fixed in carved floats to make them buoyant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guests assigned seats, by the woven handles attached to his purple
+      mat, the prince, our host, was now gently moved by his servitors to the
+      head of the porphyry-hued basin. Where, flanked by lofty crowned-heads,
+      white-tiaraed, and radiant with royalty, he sat; like snow-turbaned Mont
+      Blanc, at sunrise presiding over the head waters of the Rhone; to right
+      and left, looming the gilded summits of the Simplon, the Gothard, the
+      Jungfrau, the Great St. Bernard, and the Grand Glockner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet turbid from the launching of its freight, Lake Como tossed to and fro
+      its navies of good cheer, the shadows of the king-peaks wildly flitting
+      thereupon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no frigid wine and fruit cooler, Lake Como; as at first it did seem;
+      but a tropical dining table, its surface a slab of light blue St. Pons
+      marble in a state of fluidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, many a crown was doffed; scepters laid aside; girdles slackened; and
+      among those verdant viands the bearded kings like goats did browse; or
+      tusking their wild boar's meat, like mastiffs ate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And like unto some well-fought fight, beginning calmly, but pressing
+      forward to a fiery rush, this well-fought feast did now wax warm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few royal epicures, however, there were: epicures intent upon
+      concoctions, admixtures, and masterly compoundings; who comported
+      themselves with all due deliberation and dignity; hurrying themselves into
+      no reckless deglutition of the dainties. Ah! admirable conceit, Lake Como:
+      superseding attendants. For, from hand to hand the trenchers sailed; no
+      sooner gaining one port, than dispatched over sea to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well suited they were for the occasion; sailing high out of water, to
+      resist the convivial swell at times ruffling the sociable sea; and sharp
+      at both ends, still better adapting them to easy navigation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon, the Morando, in triumphant decanters, went round, reeling like
+      barks before a breeze. But their voyages were brief; and ere long, in
+      certain havens, the accumulation of empty vessels threatened to bridge the
+      lake with pontoons. In those directions, Trade winds were setting. But
+      full soon, cut out were all unladen and unprofitable gourds; and replaced
+      by jolly-bellied calabashes, for a time sailing deep, yawing heavily to
+      the push.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, the whole flotilla of trenchers&mdash;wrecks and all&mdash;were
+      sent swimming to the further end of Lake Como; and thence removed, gave
+      place to ruddy hillocks of fruit, and floating islands of flowers. Chief
+      among the former, a quince-like, golden sphere, that filled the air with
+      such fragrance, you thought you were tasting its flavor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor did the wine cease flowing. That day the Juam grape did bleed; that
+      day the tendril ringlets of the vines, did all uncurl and grape by grape,
+      in sheer dismay, the sun ripe clusters dropped. Grape-glad were
+      five-and-twenty kings: five-and-twenty kings were merry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morando's vintage had no end; nor other liquids, in the royal cellar
+      stored, somewhere secret in the grot. Oh! where's the endless Niger's
+      source? Search ye here, or search ye there; on, on, through ravine, vega,
+      vale&mdash;no head waters will ye find. But why need gain the hidden
+      spring, when its lavish stream flows by? At three-fold mouths that
+      Delta-grot discharged; rivers golden, white, and red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But who may sing for aye? Down I come, and light upon the old and prosy
+      plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among other decanters set afloat, was a pompous, lordly-looking demijohn,
+      but old and reverend withal, that sailed about, consequential as an
+      autocrat going to be crowned, or a treasure- freighted argosie bound home
+      before the wind. It looked solemn, however, though it reeled;
+      peradventure, far gone with its own potent contents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! russet shores of Rhine and Rhone! oh, mellow memories of ripe old
+      vintages! oh, cobwebs in the Pyramids! oh, dust on Pharaoh's tomb!&mdash;
+      all, all recur, as I bethink me of that glorious gourd, its contents
+      cogent as Tokay, itself as old as Mohi's legends; more venerable to look
+      at than his beard. Whence came it? Buried in vases, so saith the label,
+      with the heart of old Marjora, now dead one hundred thousand moons.
+      Exhumed at last, it looked no wine, but was shrunk into a subtile syrup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This special calabash was distinguished by numerous trappings, caparisoned
+      like the sacred bay steed led before the Great Khan of Tartary. A most
+      curious and betasseled network encased it; and the royal lizard was
+      jealously twisted about its neck, like a hand on a throat containing some
+      invaluable secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Hail, Marzilla! King's Own Royal Particular! A vinous Percy! Dating
+      back to the Conquest! Distilled of yore from purple berries growing in the
+      purple valley of Ardair! Thrice hail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the imperial Marzilla was not for all; gods only could partake; the
+      Kings and demigods of the isles; excluding left-handed descendants of sad
+      rakes of immortals, in old times breaking heads and hearts in Mardi,
+      bequeathing bars-sinister to many mortals, who now in vain might urge a
+      claim to a cup-full of right regal Marzilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Royal Particular was pressed upon me, by the now jovial Donjalolo.
+      With his own sceptered hand charging my flagon to the brim, he declared
+      his despotic pleasure, that I should quaff it off to the last lingering
+      globule. No hard calamity, truly; for the drinking of this wine was as the
+      singing of a mighty ode, or frenzied lyric to the soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Drink, Taji," cried Donjalolo, "drink deep. In this wine a king's heart
+      is dissolved. Drink long; in this wine lurk the seeds of the life
+      everlasting. Drink deep; drink long: thou drinkest wisdom and valor at
+      every draught. Drink forever, oh Taji, for thou drinkest that which will
+      enable thee to stand up and speak out before mighty Oro himself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Borabolla," he added, turning round upon a domed old king at his left,
+      "Was it not the god Xipho, who begged of my great-great- grandsire a
+      draught of this same wine, saying he was about to beget a hero?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Even so. And thy glorious Marzilla produced thrice valiant Ononna, who
+      slew the giants of the reef."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ha, ha, hear'st that, oh Taji?" And Donjalolo drained another cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amazing! the flexibility of the royal elbow, and the rigidity of the royal
+      spine! More especially as we had been impressed with a notion of their
+      debility. But, sometimes these seemingly enervated young blades approve
+      themselves steadier of limb, than veteran revelers of very long standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Discharge the basin, and refill it with wine," cried Donjalolo. "Break
+      all empty gourds! Drink, kings, and dash your cups at every draught."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he started from his purple mat; and with one foot planted
+      unknowingly upon the skull of Marjora; while all the skeletons grinned at
+      him from the pavement; Donjalolo, holding on high his blood-red goblet,
+      burst forth with the following invocation:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all;
+    Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call!
+    Fill fast, and fill frill; 'gainst the goblet ne'er sin;
+    Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:&mdash;
+      Flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim!
+
+    Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his cares?
+    Who sighs to be wise, when wine in him flares?
+    Water sinks down below, in currents full slow;
+    But wine mounts on high with its genial glow:&mdash;
+      Welling up, till the brain overflow!
+
+    As the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul,
+    Others golden, with music, revolve round the pole;
+
+    So let our cups, radiant with many hued wines,
+    Round and round in groups circle, our Zodiac's Signs:&mdash;
+      Round reeling, and ringing their chimes!
+
+    Then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment brings;
+    It bounds through the veins; there, jubilant sings.
+    Let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never grows dim;
+    Drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded rim:&mdash;
+      Fill up, every cup, to the brim!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Caught by all present, the chorus resounded again and again. The beaded
+      wine danced on many a beard; the cataract lifted higher its voice; the
+      grotto sent back a shout; the ghosts of the Coral Monarchs seemed starting
+      from their insulted bones. But ha, ha, ha, roared forth the
+      five-and-twenty kings&mdash;alive, not dead&mdash;holding both hands to
+      their girdles, and baying out their laughter from abysses; like Nimrod's
+      hounds over some fallen elk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mad and crazy revelers, how ye drank and roared! but kings no more:
+      vestures loosed; and scepters rolling on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Glorious agrarian, thou wine! bringing all hearts on a level, and at last
+      all legs to the earth; even those of kings, who, to do them justice, have
+      been much maligned for imputed qualities not theirs. For whoso has touched
+      flagons with monarchs, bear they their back bones never so stiffly on the
+      throne, well know the rascals, to be at bottom royal good fellows; capable
+      of a vinous frankness exceeding that of base-born men. Was not Alexander a
+      boon companion? And daft Cambyses? and what of old Rowley, as good a judge
+      of wine and other matters, as ever sipped claret or kisses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If ever Taji joins a club, be it a Beef-Steak Club of Kings!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Donjalolo emptied yet another cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mirth now blew a gale; like a ship's shrouds in a Typhoon, every
+      tendon vibrated; the breezes of Omi came forth with a rush; the hangings
+      shook; the goblets danced fandangos; and Donjalolo, clapping his hands,
+      called before him his dancing women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forth came from the grotto a reed-like burst of song, making all start,
+      and look that way to behold such enchanting strains. Sounds heralding
+      sights! Swimming in the air, emerged the nymphs, lustrous arms interlocked
+      like Indian jugglers' glittering snakes. Round the cascade they thronged;
+      then paused in its spray. Of a sudden, seemed to spring from its midst, a
+      young form of foam, that danced into the soul like a thought. At last,
+      sideways floating off, it subsided into the grotto, a wave. Evening
+      drawing on apace, the crimson draperies were lifted, and festooned to the
+      arms of the idol-pillars, admitting the rosy light of the even.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yielding to the re-action of the banquet, the kings now reclined; and two
+      mute damsels entered: one with a gourd of scented waters; the other with
+      napkins. Bending over Donjalolo's steaming head, the first let fall a
+      shower of aromatic drops, slowly aborbed by her companion. Thus, in turn,
+      all were served; nothing heard but deep breathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a marble vase they now kindled some incense: a handful of spices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after, came three of the king's beautiful smokers; who, lighting
+      their tubes at this odorous fire, blew over the company the sedative fumes
+      of the Aina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Steeped in languor, I strove against it long; essayed to struggle out of
+      the enchanted mist. But a syren hand seemed ever upon me, pressing me
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-revealed, as in a dream, and the last sight that I saw, was
+      Donjalolo:&mdash;eyes closed, face pale, locks moist, borne slowly to his
+      sedan, to cross the hollow, and wake in the seclusion of his harem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0085" id="link2HCH0085"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXV &mdash; After Dinner
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As in dreams I behold thee again, Willamila! as in dreams, once again I
+      stroll through thy cool shady groves, oh fairest of the vallies of Mardi!
+      the thought of that mad merry feasting steals over my soul till I faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prostrate here and there over the bones of Donjalolo's sires, the royal
+      bacchanals lay slumbering till noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Which are the deadest?" said Babbalanja, peeping in, "the live kings, or
+      the dead ones?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the former were drooping flowers sought to be revived by watering. At
+      intervals the sedulous attendants went to and fro, besprinkling their
+      heads with the scented contents of their vases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, one by one, the five-and-twenty kings lifted their ambrosial
+      curls; and shaking the dew therefrom, like eagles opened their right royal
+      eyes, and dilated their aquiline nostrils, full upon the golden rays of
+      the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But why absented himself, Donjalolo? Had he cavalierly left them to
+      survive the banquet by themselves? But this apparent incivility was soon
+      explained by heralds, announcing to their prone majesties, that through
+      the over solicitude of his slaves, their lord the king had been borne to
+      his harem, without being a party to the act. But to make amends, in his
+      sedan, Donjalolo was even now drawing nigh. Not, however, again to make
+      merry; but socially to sleep in company with his guests; for, together
+      they had all got high, and together they must all lie low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So at it they went: each king to his bones, and slumbered like heroes till
+      evening; when, availing themselves of the cool moonlight approaching, the
+      royal guests bade adieu to their host; and summoning their followers,
+      quitted the glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early next day, having determined to depart for our canoes, we proceeded
+      to the House of the Morning, to take leave of Donjalolo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An amazing change, one night of solitude had wrought! Pale and languid, we
+      found him reclining: one hand on his throbbing temples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near an overturned vessel of wine, the royal girdle lay tossed at his
+      feet. He had waved off his frightened attendants, who crouched out of
+      sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We advanced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do ye too leave me? Ready enough are ye to partake of my banquetings,
+      which, to such as ye, are but mad incidents in one round of more tranquil
+      diversions. But heed me not, Media;&mdash;I am mad. Oh, ye gods! am I
+      forever a captive?&mdash;Ay, free king of Odo, when you list, condescend
+      to visit the poor slave in Willamilla. I account them but charity, your
+      visits; would fain allure ye by sumptuous fare. Go, leave me; go, and be
+      rovers again throughout blooming Mardi. For, me, I am here for aye.&mdash;Bring
+      me wine, slaves! quick! that I may pledge my guests fitly. Alas, Media, at
+      the bottom of this cup are no sparkles as at top. Oh, treacherous,
+      treacherous friend! full of smiles and daggers. Yet for such as me, oh
+      wine, thou art e'en a prop, though it pierce the side; for man must lean.
+      Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all. King
+      Media, let us drink. More cups!&mdash;And now, farewell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Falling back, he averted his face; and silently we quitted the palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0086" id="link2HCH0086"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXVI &mdash; Of Those Scamps The Plujii
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The beach gained, we embarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In good time our party recovered from the seriousness into which we had
+      been thrown; and a rather long passage being now before us, we whiled away
+      the hours as best we might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among many entertaining, narrations, old Braid-Beard, crossing his calves,
+      and peaking his beard, regaled us with some account of certain invisible
+      spirits, ycleped the Plujii, arrant little knaves as ever gulped
+      moonshine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were spoken of as inhabiting the island of Quelquo, in a remote
+      corner of the lagoon; the innocent people of which island were sadly
+      fretted and put out by their diabolical proceedings. Not to be wondered
+      at; since, dwelling as they did in the air, and completely inaccessible,
+      these spirits were peculiarly provocative of ire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Detestable Plujii! With malice aforethought, they brought about high winds
+      that destroyed the banana plantations, and tumbled over the heads of its
+      occupants many a bamboo dwelling. They cracked the calabashes; soured the
+      "poee;" induced the colic; begat the spleen; and almost rent people in
+      twain with stitches in the side. In short, from whatever evil, the cause
+      of which the Islanders could not directly impute to their gods, or in
+      their own opinion was not referable to themselves,&mdash;of that very
+      thing must the invisible Plujii be guilty. With horrible dreams, and
+      blood-thirsty gnats, they invaded the most innocent slumbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All things they bedeviled. A man with a wry neck ascribed it to the
+      Plujii; he with a bad memory railed against the Plujii; and the boy,
+      bruising his finger, also cursed those abominable spirits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor, to some minds, at least, was there wanting strong presumptive
+      evidence, that at times, with invisible fingers, the above mentioned
+      Plujii did leave direct and tangible traces of their presence; pinching
+      and pounding the unfortunate Islanders; pulling their hair; plucking their
+      ears, and tweaking their beards and their noses. And thus perpetually
+      vexing, incensing, tormenting, and exasperating their helpless victims,
+      the atrocious Plujii reveled in their malicious dominion over the souls
+      and bodies of the people of Quelquo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What it was, that induced them to enact such a part, Oro only knew; and
+      never but once, it seems, did old Mohi endeavor to find out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once upon a time, visiting Quelquo, he chanced to encounter an old woman
+      almost doubled together, both hands upon her abdomen; in that manner
+      running about distracted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My good woman," said he, "what under the firmament is the matter?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Plujii! the Plujii!" affectionately caressing the field of their
+      operations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why do they torment you?" he soothingly inquired. "How should I
+      &mdash; know? and what good would it do me if I did?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And on she ran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this part of his narration, Mohi was interrupted by Media; who, much to
+      the surprise of all present, observed, that, unbeknown to him
+      (Braid-Beard), he happened to have been on that very island, at that very
+      time, and saw that identical old lady in the very midst of those abdominal
+      tribulations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That she was really in great distress," he went on to say, "was plainly
+      to be seen; but that in that particular instance, your Plujii had any hand
+      in tormenting her, I had some boisterous doubts. For, hearing that an hour
+      or two previous she had been partaking of some twenty unripe bananas, I
+      rather fancied that that circumstance might have had something to do with
+      her sufferings. But however it was, all the herb-leeches on the island
+      would not have altered her own opinions on the subject."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Braid-Beard; "a post-mortem examination would not have
+      satisfied her ghost."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Curious to relate," he continued, "the people of that island never abuse
+      the Plujii, notwithstanding all they suffer at their hands, unless under
+      direct provocation; and a settled matter of faith is it, that at such
+      times all bitter words and hasty objurgations are entirely overlooked,
+      nay, pardoned on the spot, by the unseen genii against whom they are
+      directed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Magnanimous Plujii!" cried Media. "But, Babbalanja, do you, who run a
+      tilt at all things, suffer this silly conceit to be uttered with impunity
+      in your presence? Why so silent?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have been thinking, my lord," said Babbalanja, "that though the people
+      of that island may at times err, in imputing their calamities to the
+      Plujii, that, nevertheless, upon the whole, they indulge in a reasonable
+      belief. For, Plujii or no Plujii, it is undeniable, that in ten thousand
+      ways, as if by a malicious agency, we mortals are woefully put out and
+      tormented; and that, too, by things in themselves so exceedingly trivial,
+      that it would seem almost impiety to ascribe them to the august gods. No;
+      there must exist some greatly inferior spirits; so insignificant,
+      comparatively, as to be overlooked by the supernal powers; and through
+      them it must be, that we are thus grievously annoyed. At any rate; such a
+      theory would supply a hiatus in my system of meta-physics."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, peace to the Plujii," said Media; "they trouble not me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0087" id="link2HCH0087"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXVII &mdash; Nora-Bamma
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Still onward gliding, the lagoon a calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hours pass; and full before us, round and green, a Moslem turban by us
+      floats&mdash;Nora-Bamma, Isle of Nods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Noon-tide rolls its flood. Vibrates the air, and trembles. And by illusion
+      optical, thin-draped in azure haze, drift here and there the brilliant
+      lands: swans, peacock-plumaged, sailing through the sky. Down to earth
+      hath heaven come; hard telling sun-clouds from the isles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And high in air nods Nora-Bamma. Nid-nods its tufted summit like three
+      ostrich plumes; its beetling crags, bent poppies, shadows, willowy shores,
+      all nod; its streams are murmuring down the hills; its wavelets hush the
+      shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who dwells in Nora-Bamma? Dreamers, hypochondriacs, somnambulists; who,
+      from the cark and care of outer Mardi fleeing, in the poppy's jaded odors,
+      seek oblivion for the past, and ecstasies to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Open-eyed, they sleep and dream; on their roof-trees, grapes unheeded
+      drop. In Nora-Bamma, whispers are as shouts; and at a zephyr's breath,
+      from the woodlands shake the leaves, as of humming-birds, a flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this spake Braid-Beard, of the isle. How that none ere touched its
+      strand, without rendering instant tribute of a nap; how that those who
+      thither voyaged, in golden quest of golden gourds, fast dropped asleep,
+      ere one was plucked; waking not till night; how that you must needs rub
+      hard your eyes, would you wander through the isle; and how that silent
+      specters would be met, haunting twilight groves, and dreamy meads; hither
+      gliding, thither fading, end or purpose none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True or false, so much for Mohi's Nora Bamma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as we floated on, it looked the place described. We yawned, and
+      yawned, as crews of vessels may; as in warm Indian seas, their winnowing
+      sails all swoon, when by them glides some opium argosie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0088" id="link2HCH0088"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXVIII &mdash; In A Calm, Hautia's Heralds Approach
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "How still!" cried Babbalanja. "This calm is like unto Oro's everlasting
+      serenity, and like unto man's last despair."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the silence was broken by a strange, distant, intermitted melody
+      in the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gazing over the side, we saw naught but a far-darting ray in its depths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Yoomy, before buried in a reverie, burst forth with a verse, sudden
+      as a jet from a Geyser.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    Like the fish of the bright and twittering fin,
+      Bright fish! diving deep as high soars the lark,
+    So, far, far, far, doth the maiden swim,
+      Wild song, wild light, in still ocean's dark.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "What maiden, minstrel?" cried Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "None of these," answered Yoomy, pointing out a shallop gliding near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The damsels three:&mdash;Taji, they pursue you yet." That still canoe
+      drew nigh, the Iris in its prow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gliding slowly by, one damsel flung a Venus-car, the leaves yet fresh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Yoomy&mdash;"Fly to love."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second maiden flung a pallid blossom, buried in hemlock leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Yoomy, starting&mdash;"I have wrought a death."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came showering Venus-cars, and glorious moss-roses numberless, and
+      odorous handfuls of Verbena.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Yoomy&mdash;"Yet fly, oh fly to me: all rosy joys and sweets are
+      mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the damsels floated on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Was ever queen more enigmatical?" cried Media&mdash;"Love,&mdash;death,&mdash;joy,
+      &mdash;fly to me? But what says Taji?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That I turn not back for Hautia; whoe'er she be, that wild witch I
+      &mdash; contemn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then spread our pinions wide! a breeze! up sails! ply paddles all! Come,
+      Flora's flute, float forth a song."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To pieces picking the thorny roses culled from Hautia's gifts, and holding
+      up their blighted cores, thus plumed and turbaned Yoomy sang, leaning
+      against the mast:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    Oh! royal is the rose,
+      But barbed with many a dart;
+    Beware, beware the rose,
+      'Tis cankered at the heart.
+
+      Sweet, sweet the sunny down,
+    Oh! lily, lily, lily down!
+      Sweet, sweet, Verbena's bloom!
+    Oh! pleasant, gentle, musky bloom!
+
+    Dread, dread the sunny down;
+      Lo! lily-hooded asp;
+    Blooms, blooms no more Verbena;
+      White-withered in your clasp.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0089" id="link2HCH0089"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LXXXIX &mdash; Braid-Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of
+      Rogues
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Judge not things by their names. This, the maxim illustrated respecting
+      the isle toward which we were sailing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ohonoo was its designation, in other words the Land of Rogues. So what but
+      a nest of villains and pirates could one fancy it to be: a downright
+      Tortuga, swarming with "Brethren of the coast,"&mdash;such as Montbars,
+      L'Ollonais, Bartolomeo, Peter of Dieppe, and desperadoes of that kidney.
+      But not so. The men of Ohonoo were as honest as any in Mardi. They had a
+      suspicious appellative for their island, true; but not thus seemed it to
+      them. For, upon nothing did they so much plume themselves as upon this
+      very name. Why? Its origin went back to old times; and being venerable
+      they gloried therein; though they disclaimed its present applicability to
+      any of their race; showing, that words are but algebraic signs, conveying
+      no meaning except what you please. And to be called one thing, is
+      oftentimes to be another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how came the Ohonoose by their name?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Listen, and Braid-Beard, our Herodotus, will tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long and long ago, there were banished to Ohonoo all the bucaniers,
+      flibustiers, thieves, and malefactors of the neighboring islands; who,
+      becoming at last quite a numerous community, resolved to make a stand for
+      their dignity, and number one among the nations of Mardi. And even as
+      before they had been weeded out of the surrounding countries; so now, they
+      went to weeding out themselves; banishing all objectionable persons to
+      still another island.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These events happened at a period so remote, that at present it was
+      uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second
+      exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their
+      comparative honesty. If the latter, then must the residue have been a
+      precious enough set of scoundrels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However it was, the commonwealth of knaves now mustered together their
+      gray-beards, and wise-pates, and knowing-ones, of which last there was a
+      plenty, chose a king to rule over them, and went to political housekeeping
+      for themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in the fullness of time, this people became numerous and mighty. And
+      the more numerous and mighty they waxed, by so much the more did they take
+      pride and glory in their origin, frequently reverting to it with manifold
+      boastings. The proud device of their monarch was a hand with the
+      forefinger crooked, emblematic of the peculatory propensities of his
+      ancestors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And all this, at greater length, said Mohi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would seem, then, my lord," said Babbalanja, reclining, "as if these
+      men of Ohonoo had canonized the derelictions of their progenitors, though
+      the same traits are deemed scandalous among themselves. But it is time
+      that makes the difference. The knave of a thousand years ago seems a fine
+      old fellow full of spirit and fun, little malice in his soul; whereas, the
+      knave of to-day seems a sour- visaged wight, with nothing to redeem him.
+      Many great scoundrels of our Chronicler's chronicles are heroes to us:&mdash;witness,
+      Marjora the usurper. Ay, time truly works wonders. It sublimates wine; it
+      sublimates fame; nay, is the creator thereof; it enriches and darkens our
+      spears of the Palm; enriches and enlightens the mind; it ripens cherries
+      and young lips; festoons old ruins, and ivies old heads; imparts a relish
+      to old yams, and a pungency to the Ponderings of old Bardianna; of fables
+      distills truths; and finally, smooths, levels, glosses, softens, melts,
+      and meliorates all things. Why, my lord, round Mardi itself is all the
+      better for its antiquity, and the more to be revered; to the cozy-minded,
+      more comfortable to dwell in. Ah! if ever it lay in embryo like a green
+      seed in the pod, what a damp, shapeless thing it must have been, and how
+      unpleasant from the traces of its recent creation. The first man, quoth
+      old Bardianna, must have felt like one going into a new habitation, where
+      the bamboos are green. Is there not a legend in Maramma, that his family
+      were long troubled with influenzas and catarrhs?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh Time, Time, Time!" cried Yoomy&mdash;"it is Time, old midsummer Time,
+      that has made the old world what it is. Time hoared the old mountains, and
+      balded their old summits, and spread the old prairies, and built the old
+      forests, and molded the old vales. It is Time that has worn glorious old
+      channels for the glorious old rivers, and rounded the old lakes, and
+      deepened the old sea! It is Time&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ay, full time to cease," cried Media. "What have you to do with
+      cogitations not in verse, minstrel? Leave prose to Babbalanja, who is
+      prosy enough."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Even so," said Babbalanja, "Yoomy, you have overstepped your province. My
+      lord Media well knows, that your business is to make the metal in you
+      jingle in tags, not ring in the ingot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0090" id="link2HCH0090"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XC -- Rare Sport At Ohonoo
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Approached from the northward, Ohonoo, midway cloven down to the sea, one
+      half a level plain; the other, three mountain terraces&mdash;Ohonoo looks
+      like the first steps of a gigantic way to the sun. And such, if
+      Braid-Beard spoke truth, it had formerly been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ere Mardi was made," said that true old chronicler, "Vivo, one of the
+      genii, built a ladder of mountains whereby to go up and go down. And of
+      this ladder, the island of Ohonoo was the base. But wandering here and
+      there, incognito in a vapor, so much wickedness did Vivo spy out, that in
+      high dudgeon he hurried up his ladder, knocking the mountains from under
+      him as he went. These here and there fell into the lagoon, forming many
+      isles, now green and luxuriant; which, with those sprouting from seeds
+      dropped by a bird from the moon, comprise all the groups in the reef."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely, oh, surely, if I live till Mardi be forgotten by Mardi, I &mdash;
+      shall not forget the sight that greeted us, as we drew nigh the shores of
+      this same island of Ohonoo; for was not all Ohonoo bathing in the surf of
+      the sea?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let the picture be painted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where eastward the ocean rolls surging against the outer reef of Mardi,
+      there, facing a flood-gate in the barrier, stands cloven Ohonoo; her
+      plains sloping outward to the sea, her mountains a bulwark behind. As at
+      Juam, where the wild billows from seaward roll in upon its cliffs; much
+      more at Ohonoo, in billowy battalions charge they hotly into the lagoon,
+      and fall on the isle like an army from the deep. But charge they never so
+      boldly, and charge they forever, old Ohonoo gallantly throws them back
+      till all before her is one scud and rack. So charged the bright billows of
+      cuirassiers at Waterloo: so hurled them off the long line of living walls,
+      whose base was as the sea-beach, wreck-strown, in a gale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without the break in the reef wide banks of coral shelve off, creating the
+      bar, where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in water-bolts, that
+      shake the whole reef, till its very spray trembles. And then is it, that
+      the swimmers of Ohonoo most delight to gambol in the surf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this sport, a surf-board is indispensable: some five feet in length;
+      the width of a man's body; convex on both sides; highly polished; and
+      rounded at the ends. It is held in high estimation; invariably oiled after
+      use; and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling of the owner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ranged on the beach, the bathers, by hundreds dash in; and diving under
+      the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the
+      comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here, throwing
+      themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that
+      suits. Snatching them up, it hurries them landward, volume and speed both
+      increasing, till it races along a watery wall, like the smooth, awful
+      verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll, looking down from it as from a
+      precipice, the bathers halloo; every limb in motion to preserve their
+      place on the very crest of the wave. Should they fall behind, the
+      squadrons that follow would whelm them; dismounted, and thrown forward, as
+      certainly would they be run over by the steed they ride. 'Tis like
+      charging at the head of cavalry: you must on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank; now half striding it;
+      and anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in the scud,
+      coming on like a man in the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts like
+      a bomb. Adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out; and like
+      seals at the Orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Landing in smooth water, some distance from the scene, we strolled
+      forward; and meeting a group resting, inquired for Uhia, their king. He
+      was pointed out in the foam. But presently drawing nigh, he embraced
+      Media, bidding all welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bathing over, and evening at hand, Uhia and his subjects repaired to
+      their canoes; and we to ours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Landing at another quarter of the island, we journeyed up a valley called
+      Monlova, and were soon housed in a very pleasant retreat of our host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon supper was spread. But though the viands were rare, and the red wine
+      went round and round like a foaming bay horse in the ring; yet we marked,
+      that despite the stimulus of his day's good sport, and the stimulus of his
+      brave good cheer, Uhia our host was moody and still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Babbalanja "My lord, he fills wine cups for others to quaff."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whispered King Media, "Though Uhia be sad, be we merry, merry men."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And merry some were, and merrily went to their mats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0091" id="link2HCH0091"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCI &mdash; Of King Uhia And His Subjects
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As beseemed him, Uhia was royally lodged. Ample his roof. Beneath it a
+      hundred attendants nightly laying their heads. But long since, he had
+      disbanded his damsels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Springing from syren embrace&mdash;"They shall sap and mine me no more" he
+      cried "my destiny commands me. I will don my manhood. By Keevi! no more
+      will I clasp a waist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From that time forth," said Braid-Beard, "young Uhia spread like the
+      tufted top of the Palm; his thigh grew brawny as the limb of the Banian;
+      his arm waxed strong as the back bone of the shark; yea, his voice grew
+      sonorous as a conch."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now he bent his whole soul to the accomplishment of the destiny
+      believed to be his. Nothing less than bodily to remove Ohonoo to the
+      center of the lagoon, in fulfillment of an old prophecy running thus&mdash;
+      When a certain island shall stir from its foundations and stand in the
+      middle of the still water, then shall the ruler of that island be ruler of
+      all Mardi."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The task was hard, but how glorious the reward! So at it he went, and all
+      Ohonoo helped him. Not by hands, but by calling in the magicians. Thus
+      far, nevertheless, in vain. But Uhia had hopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, informed of all this, said Babbalanja to Media, "My lord, if the
+      continual looking-forward to something greater, be better than an
+      acquiescence in things present; then, wild as it is, this belief of Uhia's
+      he should hug to his heart, as erewhile his wives. But my lord, this faith
+      it is, that robs his days of peace; his nights of sweet unconsciousness.
+      For holding himself foreordained to the dominion of the entire
+      Archipelago, he upbraids the gods for laggards, and curses himself as
+      deprived of his rights; nay, as having had wrested from him, what he never
+      possessed. Discontent dwarfs his horizon till he spans it with his hand.
+      'Most miserable of demi-gods,' he cries, 'here am I cooped up in this
+      insignificant islet, only one hundred leagues by fifty, when scores of
+      broad empires own me not for their lord.' Yet Uhia himself is envied.
+      'Ah!' cries Karrolono, one of his chieftains, master of a snug little
+      glen, 'Here am I cabined in this paltry cell among the mountains, when
+      that great King Uhia is lord of the whole island, and every cubic mile of
+      matter therein.' But this same Karrolono is envied. 'Hard, oh beggarly lot
+      is mine,' cries Donno, one of his retainers. 'Here am I &mdash; fixed and
+      screwed down to this paltry plantation, when my lord Karrolono owns the
+      whole glen, ten long parasangs from cliff to sea.' But Donno too is
+      envied. 'Alas, cursed fate!' cries his servitor Flavona. 'Here am I made
+      to trudge, sweat, and labor all day, when Donno my master does nothing but
+      command.' But others envy Flavona; and those who envy him are envied in
+      turn; even down to poor bed- ridden Manta, who dying of want, groans
+      forth, 'Abandoned wretch that I am! here I miserably perish, while so many
+      beggars gad about and live!' But surely; none envy Manta! Yes; great Uhia
+      himself. 'Ah!' cries the king. 'Here am I vexed and tormented by ambition;
+      no peace night nor day; my temples chafed sore by this cursed crown that I
+      &mdash; wear; while that ignoble wight Manta, gives up the ghost with none
+      to molest him.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In vain we wandered up and down in this isle, and peered into its
+      innermost recesses: no Yillah was there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0092" id="link2HCH0092"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCII &mdash; The God Keevi And The Precipice Op Mondo
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One object of interest in Ohonoo was the original image of Keevi the god
+      of Thieves; hence, from time immemorial, the tutelar deity of the isle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His shrine was a natural niche in a cliff, walling in the valley of
+      Monlova And here stood Keevi, with his five eyes, ten hands, and three
+      pair of legs, equipped at all points for the vocation over which he
+      presided. Of mighty girth, his arms terminated in hands, every finger a
+      limb, spreading in multiplied digits: palms twice five, and fifty fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to the legend, Keevi fell from a golden cloud, burying himself
+      to the thighs in the earth, tearing up the soil all round. Three
+      meditative mortals, strolling by at the time, had a narrow escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A wonderful recital; but none of us voyagers durst flout it. Did they not
+      show us the identical spot where the idol fell? We descended into the
+      hollow, now verdant. Questionless, Keevi himself would have vouched for
+      the truth of the miracle, had he not been unfortunately dumb. But by far
+      the most cogent, and pointed argument advanced in support of this story,
+      is a spear which the priests of Keevi brought forth, for Babbalanja to
+      view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let me look at it closer," said Babbalanja.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And turning it over and over and curiously inspecting it, "Wonderful
+      spear," he cried. "Doubtless, my reverends, this self-same spear must have
+      persuaded many recusants!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nay, the most stubborn," they answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And all afterward quoted as additional authority for the truth of the
+      legend?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Assuredly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the sea to the shrine of this god, the fine valley of Monlova ascends
+      with a gentle gradation, hardly perceptible; but upon turning round toward
+      the water, one is surprised to find himself high elevated above its
+      surface. Pass on, and the same silent ascent deceives you; and the valley
+      contracts; and on both sides the cliffs advance; till at last you come to
+      a narrow space, shouldered by buttresses of rock. Beyond, through this
+      cleft, all is blue sky. If the Trades blow high, and you came unawares
+      upon the spot, you would think Keevi himself pushing you forward with all
+      his hands; so powerful is the current of air rushing through this elevated
+      defile. But expostulate not with the tornado that blows you along; sail
+      on; but soft; look down; the land breaks off in one sheer descent of a
+      thousand feet, right down to the wide plain below. So sudden and profound
+      this precipice, that you seem to look off from one world to another. In a
+      dreamy, sunny day, the spangled plain beneath assumes an uncertain
+      fleeting aspect. Had you a deep-sea-lead you would almost be tempted to
+      sound the ocean-haze at your feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, mortal! is the precipice of Mondo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this brink, spear in hand, sprang fifty rebel warriors, driven back
+      into the vale by a superior force. Finding no spot to stand at bay, with a
+      fierce shout they took the fatal leap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Mohi, "Their souls ascended, ere their bodies touched."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This tragical event took place many generations gone by, and now a dizzy,
+      devious way conducts one, firm of foot, from the verge to the plain. But
+      none ever ascended. So perilous, indeed, is the descent itself, that the
+      islanders venture not the feat, without invoking supernatural aid.
+      Flanking the precipice beneath beetling rocks, stand the guardian deities
+      of Mondo; and on altars before them, are placed the propitiatory offerings
+      of the traveler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the right of the brink of the precipice, and far over it, projects a
+      narrow ledge. The test of legitimacy in the Ohonoo monarchs is to stand
+      hereon, arms folded, and javelins darting by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there in his youth Uhia stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How felt you, cousin?" asked Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Like the King of Ohonoo," he replied. "As I shall again feel; when King
+      of all Mardi."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0093" id="link2HCH0093"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCIII &mdash; Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And
+      Yoomy Relates A
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Legend
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Embarking from Ohonoo, we at length found ourselves gliding by the
+      pleasant shores of Tupia, an islet which according to Braid-Beard had for
+      ages remained uninhabited by man. Much curiosity being expressed to know
+      more of the isle, Mohi was about to turn over his chronicles, when, with
+      modesty, the minstrel Yoomy interposed; saying, that if my Lord Media
+      permitted, he himself would relate the legend. From its nature, deeming
+      the same pertaining to his province as poet; though, as yet, it had not
+      been versified. But he added, that true pearl shells rang musically,
+      though not strung upon a cord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this presumptuous interference, Mohi looked highly offended; and
+      nervously twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about frippery
+      young poetasters being too full of silly imaginings to tell a plain tale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Yoomy, in reply, adjusting his turban, "Old Mohi, let us not clash. I
+      honor your calling; but, with submission, your chronicles are more wild
+      than my cantos. I deal in pure conceits of my own; which have a
+      shapeliness and a unity, however unsubstantial; but you, Braid-Beard, deal
+      in mangled realities. In all your chapters, you yourself grope in the
+      dark. Much truth is not in thee, historian. Besides, Mohi: my songs
+      perpetuate many things which you sage scribes entirely overlook. Have you
+      not oftentimes come to me, and my ever dewy ballads for information, in
+      which you and your musty old chronicles were deficient?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In much that is precious, Mohi, we poets are the true historians; we
+      embalm; you corrode."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Mohi, with some ire, was about to make answer, when, flinging over
+      his shoulder a new fold of his mantle, Babbalanja spoke thus: "Peace,
+      rivals. As Bardianna has it, like all who dispute upon pretensions of
+      their own, you are each nearest the right, when you speak of the other;
+      and furthest therefrom, when you speak of yourselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Mohi and Yoomy in a breath, "Who sought your opinion, philosopher?
+      you filcher from old Bardianna, and monger of maxims!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You, who have so long marked the vices of Mardi, that you flatter
+      yourself you have none of your own," added Braid-Beard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You, who only seem wise, because of the contrasting follies of others,
+      and not of any great wisdom in yourself," continued the minstrel, with
+      unwonted asperity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now here," said Babballanja, "am I charged upon by a bearded old ram, and
+      a lamb. One butting with his carious and brittle old frontlet; the other
+      pushing with its silly head before its horns are sprouted. But this comes
+      of being impartial. Had I espoused the cause of Yoomy versus Mohi, or that
+      of Mohi versus Yoomy, I had been sure to have had at least one voice in my
+      favor. The impartialist insulteth all sides, saith old Bardianna; but
+      smite with but one hand, and the other shall be kissed.&mdash;Oh
+      incomparable Bardianna!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will no one lay that troubled old ghost," exclaimed Media, devoutly.
+      "Proceed with thy legend, Yoomy; and see to it, that it be brief; for I
+      mistrust me, these legends do but test the patience of the hearers. But
+      draw a long breath, and begin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A long bow," muttered Mohi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Yoomy began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is now about ten hundred thousand moons&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Great Oro! How long since, say you?" cried Mohi, making Gothic arches of
+      his brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking at him disdainfully, but vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy began over
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is now above ten hundred thousand moons, since there died the last of
+      a marvelous race, once inhabiting the very shores by which we are sailing.
+      They were a very diminutive people, only a few inches high&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stop, minstrel," cried Mohi; "how many pennyweights did they weigh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Continued Yoomy, unheedingly, "They were covered all over with a soft,
+      silky down, like that on the rind of the Avee; and there grew upon their
+      heads a green, lance-leaved vine, of a most delicate texture. For
+      convenience, the manikins reduced their tendrils, sporting, nothing but
+      coronals. Whereas, priding themselves upon the redundancy of their
+      tresses, the little maidens assiduously watered them with the early dew of
+      the morning; so that all wreathed and festooned with verdure, they moved
+      about in arbors, trailing after them trains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can hear no more," exclaimed Mohi, stopping his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Continued Yoomy, "The damsels lured to their bowers, certain red- plumaged
+      insect-birds, and taught them to nestle therein, and warble; which, with
+      the pleasant vibrating of the leaves, when the little maidens moved,
+      produced a strange blending of sweet, singing sounds. The little maidens
+      embraced not with their arms, but with their viny locks; whose tendrils
+      instinctively twined about their lovers, till both were lost in the
+      bower."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what then?" asked Mohi, who, notwithstanding the fingers in his ears,
+      somehow contrived to listen; "What then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At a certain age, but while yet the maidens were very young, their vines
+      bore blossoms. Ah! fatal symptoms. For soon as they burst, the maidens
+      died in their arbors; and were buried in the valleys; and their vines
+      spread forth; and the flowers bloomed; but the maidens themselves were no
+      more. And now disdaining the earth, the vines shot upward: climbing to the
+      topmost boughs of the trees; and flowering in the sunshine forever and
+      aye."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yoomy here paused for a space; but presently continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The little eyes of the people of Tupia were very strange to behold: full
+      of stars, that shone from within, like the Pleiades, deep- bosomed in
+      blue. And like the stars, they were intolerant of sunlight; and slumbering
+      through the day, the people of Tupia only went abroad by night. But it was
+      chiefly when the moon was at full, that they were mostly in spirits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then the little manikins would dive down into the sea, and rove about in
+      the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. Or, racing round, make a
+      mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:&mdash;plucking the reverend
+      mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells; worrying the
+      sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the touchy torpedos.
+      Sometimes they went prying about with the starfish, that have an eye at
+      the end of each ray; and often with coral files in their hands stole upon
+      slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their weapons. In short, these stout
+      little manikins were passionately fond of the sea, and swore by wave and
+      billow, that sooner or later they would embark thereon in nautilus shells,
+      and spend the rest of their roving days thousands of inches from Tupia.
+      Too true, they were shameless little rakes. Oft would they return to their
+      sweethearts, sporting musky girdles of sea-kelp, tasseled with green
+      little pouches of grass, brimful of seed-pearls; and jingling their coin
+      in the ears of the damsels, throw out inuendoes about the beautiful and
+      bountiful mermaids: how wealthy and amorous they were, and how they
+      delighted in the company of the brave gallants of Tupia. Ah! at such
+      heartless bravadoes, how mourned the poor little nymphs. Deep into their
+      arbors they went; and their little hearts burst like rose-buds, and filled
+      the whole air with an odorous grief. But when their lovers were gentle and
+      true, no happier maidens haunted the lilies than they. By some mystical
+      process they wrought minute balls of light: touchy, mercurial globules,
+      very hard to handle; and with these, at pitch and toss, they played in the
+      groves. Or mischievously inclined, they toiled all night long at braiding
+      the moon-beams together, and entangling the plaited end to a bough; so
+      that at night, the poor planet had much ado to set."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Yoomy once more was mute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pause you to invent as you go on?" said old Mohi, elevating his chin,
+      till his beard was horizontal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yoomy resumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Little or nothing more, my masters, is extant of the legend; only it must
+      be mentioned, that these little people were very tasteful in their
+      personal adornings; the manikins wearing girdles of fragrant leaves, and
+      necklaces of aromatic seeds; and the little damsels, not content with
+      their vines, and their verdure, sporting pearls in their ears; bracelets
+      of wee little porpoise teeth; and oftentimes dancing with their mates in
+      the moonlit glades, coquettishly fanned themselves with the transparent
+      wings of the flying fish."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, I appeal to you, royal Media; to you, noble Taji; to you,
+      Babbalanja;" said the chronicler, with an impressive gesture, "whether
+      this seems a credible history: Yoomy has invented."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But perhaps he has entertained, old Mohi," said Babbalanja.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He has not spoken the truth," persisted the chronicler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mohi," said Babbalanja, "truth is in things, and not in words: truth is
+      voiceless; so at least saith old Bardianna. And I, Babbalanja, assert,
+      that what are vulgarly called fictions are as much realities as the gross
+      mattock of Dididi, the digger of trenches; for things visible are but
+      conceits of the eye: things imaginative, conceits of the fancy. If duped
+      by one, we are equally duped by the other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Clear as this water," said Yoomy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Opaque as this paddle," said Mohi, "But, come now, thou oracle, if all
+      things are deceptive, tell us what is truth?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The old interrogatory; did they not ask it when the world began? But ask
+      it no more. As old Bardianna hath it, that question is more final than any
+      answer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0094" id="link2HCH0094"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCIV &mdash; Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly
+      Island Of His,
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mondoldo; And Of The Fish-Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing near Mondoldo, our next place of destination, we were greeted by
+      six fine canoes, gayly tricked out with streamers, and all alive with the
+      gestures of their occupants. King Borabolla and court were hastening to
+      welcome our approach; Media, unbeknown to all, having notified him at the
+      Banquet of the Five-and-Twenty Kings, of our intention to visit his
+      dominions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon, side by side, these canoes floated with ours; each barge of Odo
+      courteously flanked by those of Mondoldo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long were we in identifying Borabolla: the portly, pleasant old
+      monarch, seated cross-legged upon a dais, projecting over the bow of the
+      largest canoe of the six, close-grappling to the side of the Sea Elephant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was he not a goodly round sight to behold? Round all over; round of eye
+      and of head; and like the jolly round Earth, roundest and biggest about
+      the Equator. A girdle of red was his Equinoctial Line, giving a
+      compactness to his plumpness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This old Borabolla permitted naught to come between his head and the sun;
+      not even gray hairs. Bald as a gourd, right down on his brazen skull, the
+      rays of the luminary converged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was all hilarity; full of allusions to the feast at Willamilla, where
+      he had done royal execution. Rare old Borabolla! thou wert made for dining
+      out; thy ample mouth an inlet for good cheer, and a sally-port for good
+      humor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bustling about on his dais, he now gave orders for the occupants of our
+      canoes to be summarily emptied into his own; saying, that in that manner
+      only did he allow guests to touch the beach of Mondoldo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, with no little trouble&mdash;for the waves were grown somewhat riotous&mdash;we
+      proceeded to comply; bethinking ourselves all the while, how annoying is
+      sometimes an over-strained act of hospitality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were now but little less than a mile from the shore. But what of that?
+      There was plenty of time, thought Borabolla, for a hasty lunch, and the
+      getting of a subsequent appetite ere we effected a landing. So viands were
+      produced; to which the guests were invited to pay heedful attention; or
+      take the consequences, and famish till the long voyage in prospect was
+      ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the water shoaled (approaching land is like nearing truth in
+      metaphysics), and ere we yet touched the beach, Borabolla declared, that
+      we were already landed. Which paradoxical assertion implied, that the
+      hospitality of Mondoldo was such, that in all directions it radiated far
+      out upon the lagoon, embracing a great circle; so that no canoe could sail
+      by the island, without its occupants being so long its guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In most hospitable vicinity to the water, was a fine large structure,
+      inclosed by a stockade; both rather dilapidated; as if the cost of
+      entertaining its guests, prevented outlays for repairing the place. But it
+      was one of Borabolla's maxims, that generally your tumble-down old
+      homesteads yield the most entertainment; their very dilapidation
+      betokening their having seen good service in hospitality; whereas,
+      spruce-looking, finical portals, have a phiz full of meaning; for niggards
+      are oftentimes neat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, after what has been said, who so silly as to fancy, that because
+      Borabolla's mansion was inclosed by a stockade, that the same was intended
+      as a defense against guests? By no means. In the palisade was a mighty
+      breach, not an entrance-way, wide enough to admit six Daniel Lamberts
+      abreast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look," cried Borabolla, as landing we stepped toward the place. "Look
+      Media! look all. These gates, you here see, lashed back with osiers, have
+      been so lashed during my life-time; and just where they stand, shall they
+      rot; ay, they shall perish wide open."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why have them at all?" inquired Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! there you have old Borabolla," cried the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Babbalanja, "a fence whose gate is ever kept open, seems
+      unnecessary, I grant; nevertheless, it gives a notable hint, otherwise not
+      so aptly conveyed; for is not the open gate the sign of the open heart?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right, right," cried Borabolla; "so enter both, cousin Media;" and with
+      one hand smiting his chest, with the other he waved us on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure within seemed only
+      a roof; for nothing but a slender pillar here and there, supported it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is my mode of building," said Borabolla; "I will have no outside to
+      my palaces. Walls are superfluous. And to a high-minded guest, the
+      entering a narrow doorway is like passing under a yoke; every time he goes
+      in, or comes out, it reminds him, that he is being entertained at the cost
+      of another. So storm in all round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we looked up to endless
+      rows of brown calabashes, and trenchers suspended along the rafters;
+      promissory of ample cheer as regiments of old hams in a baronial
+      refectory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were replenished with both meat and drink; the trenchers readily
+      accessible by means of cords; but the gourds containing arrack, suspended
+      neck downward, were within easy reach where they swung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a cautious young
+      bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making, Taji stood on his guard. And
+      when Borabolla urged him to empty a gourd or two, by way of making room in
+      him for the incidental repast about to be served, Taji civilly declined;
+      not wishing to cumber the floor, before the cloth was laid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of the unities of
+      time and place, went freely about, from gourd to gourd, concocting in him
+      a punch. At which, Samoa expressed much surprise, that he should be so
+      unobservant as not to know, that in Mardi, guests might be pressed to
+      demean themselves, without its being expected that so they would do. A
+      true toss-pot himself, he bode his time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second lunch over, Borabolla placed both hands to the ground, and
+      giving the sigh of the fat man, after three vigorous efforts, succeeded in
+      gaining his pins; which pins of his, were but small for his body; insomuch
+      that they hugely staggered about, under the fine old load they carried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture, was to
+      put himself in motion, and conduct us to his fish-ponds, famous throughout
+      the Archipelago as the hobby of the king of Mondoldo. Furthermore, as the
+      great repast of the day, yet to take place, was to be a grand piscatory
+      one, our host was all anxiety, that we should have a glimpse of our fish,
+      while yet alive and hearty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors were preparing to
+      accompany us with trenchers of edibles. It begat the notion, that our trip
+      to the fish-ponds was to prove a long journey. But they were not three
+      hundred yards distant; though Borabolla being a veteran traveler, never
+      stirred from his abode without his battalion of butlers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ponds were four in number, close bordering the water, embracing about
+      an acre each, and situated in a low fen, draining several valleys. The
+      excavated soil was thrown up in dykes, made tight by being beaten all
+      over, while in a soft state, with the heavy, flat ends of Palm stalks.
+      Lying side by side, by three connecting trenches, these ponds could be
+      made to communicate at pleasure; while two additional canals afforded
+      means of letting in upon them the salt waters of the lagoon on one hand,
+      or those of an inland stream on the other. And by a third canal with four
+      branches, together or separately, they could be partially drained. Thus,
+      the waters could be mixed to suit any gills; and the young fish taken from
+      the sea, passed through a stated process of freshening; so that by the
+      time they graduated, the salt was well out of them, like the brains out of
+      some diplomaed collegians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fresh-water fish are only to be obtained in Mondoldo by the artificial
+      process above mentioned; as the streams and brooks abound not in trout or
+      other Waltonian prey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taken all floundering from the sea, Borabolla's fish, passing through
+      their regular training for the table, and daily tended by their keepers,
+      in course of time became quite tame and communicative. To prove which,
+      calling his Head Ranger, the king bade him administer the customary supply
+      of edibles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, mouthfuls were thrown into the ponds. Whereupon, the fish
+      darted in a shoal toward the margin; some leaping out of the water in
+      their eagerness. Crouching on the bank, the Ranger now called several by
+      name, patted their scales, carrying on some heathenish nursery-talk, like
+      St. Anthony, in ancient Coptic, instilling virtuous principles into his
+      finny flock on the sea shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But alas, for the hair-shirted old dominie's backsliding disciples. For,
+      of all nature's animated kingdoms, fish are the most unchristian,
+      inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures. At least, so seem
+      they to strangers; though at bottom, somehow, they must be all right. And
+      truly it is not to be wondered at, that the very reverend Anthony strove
+      after the conversion of fish. For, whoso shall Christianize, and by so
+      doing, humanize the sharks, will do a greater good, by the saving of human
+      life in all time to come, than though he made catechumens of the
+      head-hunting Dyaks of Borneo, or the blood-bibbing Battas of Sumatra. And
+      are these Dyaks and Battas one whit better than tiger-sharks? Nay, are
+      they so good? Were a Batta your intimate friend, you would often mistake
+      an orang-outang for him; and have orang-outangs immortal souls? True, the
+      Battas believe in a hereafter; but of what sort? Full of Blue-Beards and
+      bloody bones. So, also, the sharks; who hold that Paradise is one vast
+      Pacific, ploughed by navies of mortals, whom an endless gale forever drops
+      into their maws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not wholly a surmise. For, does it not appear a little unreasonable to
+      imagine, that there is any creature, fish, flesh, or fowl, so little in
+      love with life, as not to cherish hopes of a future state? Why does man
+      believe in it? One reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he desires it. Who
+      shall say, then, that the leviathan this day harpooned on the coast of
+      Japan, goes not straight to his ancestor, who rolled all Jonah, as a sweet
+      morsel, under his tongue?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best hold themselves
+      in a state of philosophical suspense. Say they&mdash;"That catastrophe
+      took place in the Mediterranean; and the only whales frequenting the
+      Mediterranean, are of a sort having not a swallow large enough to pass a
+      man entire; for those Mediterranean whales feed upon small things, as
+      horses upon oats." But hence, the sailors draw a rash inference. Are not
+      the Straits of Gibralter wide enough to admit a sperm-whale, even though
+      none have sailed through, since Nineveh and the gourd in its suburbs dried
+      up?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature eighty feet long
+      without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist before dinner, is not
+      inconsiderately to be consigned to annihilation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0095" id="link2HCH0095"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCV &mdash; That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of
+      His Face
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "A very good palace, this, coz, for you and me," said waddling old
+      Borabolla to Media, as, returned from our excursion, he slowly lowered
+      himself down to his mat, sighing like a grampus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this, he again made known the vastness of his hospitality, which led
+      him for the nonce to parcel out his kingdom with his guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But apart from these extravagant expressions of good feeling, Borabolla
+      was the prince of good fellows. His great tun of a person was
+      indispensable to the housing of his bullock-heart; under which, any lean
+      wight would have sunk. But alas! unlike Media and Taji, Borabolla, though
+      a crowned king, was accounted no demi-god; his obesity excluding him from
+      that honor. Indeed, in some quarters of Mardi, certain pagans maintain,
+      that no fat man can be even immortal. A dogma! truly, which should be
+      thrown to the dogs. For fat men are the salt and savor of the earth; full
+      of good humor, high spirits, fun, and all manner of jollity. Their breath
+      clears the atmosphere: their exhalations air the world. Of men, they are
+      the good measures; brimmed, heaped, pressed down, piled up, and running
+      over. They are as ships from Teneriffe; swimming deep, full of old wine,
+      and twenty steps down into their holds. Soft and susceptible, all round
+      they are easy of entreaty. Wherefore, for all their rotundity, they are
+      too often circumnavigated by hatchet-faced knaves. Ah! a fat uncle, with a
+      fat paunch, and a fat purse, is a joy and a delight to all nephews; to
+      philosophers, a subject of endless speculation, as to how many droves of
+      oxen and Lake Eries of wine might have run through his great mill during
+      the full term of his mortal career. Fat men not immortal! This very
+      instant, old Lambert is rubbing his jolly abdomen in Paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, to the fact of his not being rated a demi-god, was perhaps ascribable
+      the circumstance, that Borabolla comported himself with less dignity, than
+      was the wont of their Mardian majesties. And truth to say, to have seen
+      him regaling himself with one of his favorite cuttle-fish, its long snaky
+      arms and feelers instinctively twining round his head as he ate; few
+      intelligent observers would have opined that the individual before them
+      was the sovereign lord of Mondoldo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what of the banquet of fish? Shall we tell how the old king ungirdled
+      himself thereto; how as the feast waxed toward its close, with one sad
+      exception, he still remained sunny-sided all round; his disc of a face
+      joyous as the South Side of Madeira in the hilarious season of grapes?
+      Shall we tell how we all grew glad and frank; and how the din of the
+      dinner was heard far into night?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Media ate slowly, Borabolla took him to task, bidding him dispatch
+      his viands more speedily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon said Media "But Borabolla, my round fellow, that would abridge
+      the pleasure."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, my dear demi-god; do like me: eat fast and eat long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the feast, a huge skin of wine was brought in. The portly
+      peltry of a goat; its horns embattling its effigy head; its mouth the
+      nozzle; and its long beard flowed to its jet-black hoofs. With many
+      ceremonial salams, the attendants bore it along, placing it at one end of
+      the convivial mats, full in front of Borabolla; where seated upon its
+      haunches it made one of the party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brimming a ram's horn, the mellowest of bugles, Borabolla bowed to his
+      silent guest, and thus spoke&mdash;"In this wine, which yet smells of the
+      grape, I pledge you my reverend old toper, my lord Capricornus; you alone
+      have enough; and here's full skins to the rest!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How jolly he is," whispered Media to Babbalanja.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ay, his lungs laugh loud; but is laughing, rejoicing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Help! help!" cried Borabolla "lay me down! lay me down! good gods, what a
+      twinge!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The goblet fell from his hand; the purple flew from his wine to his face;
+      and Borabolla fell back into the arms of his servitors. "That gout! that
+      gout!" he groaned. "Lord! lord! no more cursed wine will I &mdash; drink!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then at ten paces distant, a clumsy attendant let fall a trencher&mdash;
+      "Take it off my foot, you knave!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Afar off another entered gallanting a calabash&mdash;"Look out for my toe,
+      you hound!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During all this, the attendants tenderly nursed him. And in good time,
+      with its thousand fangs, the gout-fiend departed for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reprieved, the old king brightened up; by degrees becoming jolly as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come! let us be merry again," he cried, "what shall we eat? and what
+      shall we drink? that infernal gout is gone; come, what will your worships
+      have?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So at it once more we went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of our feast, little more remains to be related than this;&mdash;that
+      out of it, grew a wondrous kindness between Borabolla and Jarl. Strange to
+      tell, from the first our fat host had regarded my Viking with a most
+      friendly eye. Still stranger to add, this feeling was returned. But though
+      they thus fancied each other, they were very unlike; Borabolla and Jarl.
+      Nevertheless, thus is it ever. And as the convex fits not into the convex,
+      but into the concave; so do men fit into their opposites; and so fitted
+      Borabolla's arched paunch into Jarl's, hollowed out to receive it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how now? Borabolla was jolly and loud: Jarl demure and silent;
+      Borabolla a king: Jarl only a Viking;&mdash;how came they together? Very
+      plain, to repeat:&mdash;because they were heterogeneous; and hence the
+      affinity. But as the affinity between those chemical opposites chlorine
+      and hydrogen, is promoted by caloric; so the affinity between Borabolla
+      and Jarl was promoted by the warmth of the wine that they drank at this
+      feast. For of all blessed fluids, the juice of the grape is the greatest
+      foe to cohesion. True, it tightens the girdle; but then it loosens the
+      tongue, and opens the heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In sum, Borabolla loved Jarl; and Jarl, pleased with this sociable
+      monarch, for all his garrulity, esteemed him the most sensible old
+      gentleman and king he had as yet seen in Mardi. For this reason, perhaps;
+      that his talkativeness favored that silence in listeners, which was my
+      Viking's delight in himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Repeatedly during the banquet, our host besought Taji to allow his
+      henchman to remain on the island, after the rest of our party should
+      depart; and he faithfully promised to surrender Jarl, whenever we should
+      return to claim him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though I harbored no distrust of Borabolla's friendly intentions, I
+      could not so readily consent to his request; for with Jarl for my one only
+      companion, had I not both famished and feasted? was he not my only link to
+      things past?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Things past!&mdash;Ah Yillah! for all its mirth, and though we hunted
+      wide, we found thee not in Mondoldo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0096" id="link2HCH0096"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCVI &mdash; Samoa A Surgeon
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The second day of our stay in Mondoldo was signalized by a noteworthy
+      exhibition of the surgical skill of Samoa; who had often boasted, that
+      though well versed in the science of breaking men's heads, he was equally
+      an adept in mending their crockery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Overnight, Borabolla had directed his corps of sea-divers to repair early
+      on the morrow, to a noted section of the great Mardian reef, for the
+      purpose of procuring for our regalement some of the fine Hawk's-bill
+      turtle, whose secret retreats were among the cells and galleries of that
+      submerged wall of coral, from whose foamy coping no plummet dropped ever
+      yet touched bottom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These turtles were only to be obtained by diving far down under the
+      surface; and then swimming along horizontally, and peering into the coral
+      honeycomb; snatching at a flipper when seen, as at a pinion in a range of
+      billing dove-cotes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the king's divers were thus employed, one of them, Karhownoo by name,
+      perceived a Devil-shark, so called, swimming wistfully toward him from out
+      his summer grotto in the reef. No way petrified by the sight, and pursuing
+      the usual method adopted by these divers in such emergencies, Karhownoo,
+      splashing the water, instantly swam toward the stranger. But the shark,
+      undaunted, advanced: a thing so unusual, and fearful, that, in an agony of
+      fright, the diver shot up for the surface. Heedless, he looked not up as
+      he went; and when within a few inches of the open air, dashed his head
+      against a projection of the reef. He would have sank into the live tomb
+      beneath, were it not that three of his companions, standing on the brink,
+      perceived his peril, and dragged him into safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing the poor fellow was insensible, they endeavored, ineffectually, to
+      revive him; and at last, placing him in their canoe, made all haste for
+      the shore. Here a crowd soon gathered, and the diver was borne to a
+      habitation, close adjoining Borabolla's; whence, hearing of the disaster,
+      we sallied out to render assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon entering the hut, the benevolent old king commanded it to be cleared;
+      and then proceeded to examine the sufferer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The skull proved to be very badly fractured; in one place, splintered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let me mend it," said Samoa, with ardor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And being told of his experience in such matters, Borabolla surrendered
+      the patient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a gourd of water, and a tappa cloth, the one-armed Upoluan carefully
+      washed the wound; and then calling for a sharp splinter of bamboo, and a
+      thin, semi-transparent cup of cocoa-nut shell, he went about the
+      operation: nothing less than the "Tomoti" (head-mending), in other words
+      the trepan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The patient still continuing insensible, the fragments were disengaged by
+      help of a bamboo scalpel; when a piece of the drinking cup&mdash;previously
+      dipped in the milk of a cocoanut&mdash;was nicely fitted into the vacancy,
+      the skin as nicely adjusted over it, and the operation was complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, while all present were crying out in admiration of Samoa's
+      artistic skill, and Samoa himself stood complacently regarding his
+      workmanship, Babbalanja suggested, that it might be well to ascertain
+      whether the patient survived. When, upon sounding his heart, the diver was
+      found to be dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bystanders loudly lamented; but declared the surgeon a man of
+      marvelous science.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning to Borabolla's, much conversation ensued, concerning the sad
+      scene we had witnessed, which presently branched into a learned discussion
+      upon matters of surgery at large.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, Samoa regaled the company with a story; for the truth of which
+      no one but him can vouch, for no one but him was by, at the time; though
+      there is testimony to show that it involves nothing at variance with the
+      customs of certain barbarous tribes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Read on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0097" id="link2HCH0097"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCVII &mdash; Faith And Knowledge
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A thing incredible is about to be related; but a thing may be incredible
+      and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true. And many
+      infidels but disbelieve the least incredible things; and many bigots
+      reject the most obvious. But let us hold fast to all we have; and stop all
+      leaks in our faith; lest an opening, but of a hand's breadth, should sink
+      our seventy-fours. The wide Atlantic can rush in at one port-hole; and if
+      we surrender a plank, we surrender the fleet. Panoplied in all the armor
+      of St. Paul, morion, hauberk, and greaves, let us fight the Turks inch by
+      inch, and yield them naught but our corpse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let us not turn round upon friends, confounding them with foes. For
+      dissenters only assent to more than we. Though Milton was a heretic to the
+      creed of Athanasius, his faith exceeded that of Athanasius himself; and
+      the faith of Athanasius that of Thomas, the disciple, who with his own
+      eyes beheld the mark of the nails. Whence it comes that though we be all
+      Christians now, the best of us had perhaps been otherwise in the days of
+      Thomas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity:
+      Gabriel rejects more than we, but out-believes us all. The greatest
+      marvels are first truths; and first truths the last unto which we attain.
+      Things nearest are furthest off. Though your ear be next-door to your
+      brain, it is forever removed from your sight. Man has a more comprehensive
+      view of the moon, than the man in the moon himself. We know the moon is
+      round; he only infers it. It is because we ourselves are in ourselves,
+      that we know ourselves not. And it is only of our easy faith, that we are
+      not infidels throughout; and only of our lack of faith, that we believe
+      what we do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers. Do you believe
+      that you lived three thousand years ago? That you were at the taking of
+      Tyre, were overwhelmed in Gomorrah? No. But for me, I was at the subsiding
+      of the Deluge, and helped swab the ground, and build the first house. With
+      the Israelites, I fainted in the wilderness; was in court, when Solomon
+      outdid all the judges before him. I, it was, who suppressed the lost work
+      of Manetho, on the Egyptian theology, as containing mysteries not to be
+      revealed to posterity, and things at war with the canonical scriptures; I,
+      who originated the conspiracy against that purple murderer, Domitian; I,
+      who in the senate moved, that great and good Aurelian be emperor. I
+      instigated the abdication of Diocletian, and Charles the Fifth; I touched
+      Isabella's heart, that she hearkened to Columbus. I am he, that from the
+      king's minions hid the Charter in the old oak at Hartford; I &mdash;
+      harbored Goffe and Whalley: I am the leader of the Mohawk masks, who in
+      the Old Commonwealth's harbor, overboard threw the East India Company's
+      Souchong; I am the Vailed Persian Prophet; I, the man in the iron mask; I,
+      Junius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0098" id="link2HCH0098"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCVIII &mdash; The Tale Of A Traveler
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a traveler.
+      But stay-at-homes say travelers lie. Yet a voyage to Ethiopia would cure
+      them of that; for few skeptics are travelers; fewer travelers liars,
+      though the proverb respecting them lies. It is false, as some say, that
+      Bruce was cousin-german to Baron Munchausen; but true, as Bruce said, that
+      the Abysinnians cut live steaks from their cattle. It was, in good part,
+      his villainous transcribers, who made monstrosities of Mandeville's
+      travels. And though all liars go to Gehenna; yet, assuming that Mandeville
+      died before Dante; still, though Dante took the census of Hell, we find
+      not Sir John, under the likeness of a roasted neat's tongue, in that
+      infernalest of infernos, The Inferno.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let not the truth be postponed. To the stand, Samoa, and through your
+      interpreter, speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once upon a time, during his endless sea-rovings, the Upoluan was called
+      upon to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a desperate fight
+      of slings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as the
+      cranium itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being over,
+      part of its live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan accomplished
+      with cocoanut shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man died not, but lived. But from being a warrior of great sense and
+      spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing many of
+      the characteristics of his swinish grafting. He survived the operation
+      more than a year; at the end of that period, however, going mad, and dying
+      in his delirium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some
+      present. But Babbalanja held out to the last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yet, if this story be true," said he, "and since it is well settled, that
+      our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why human
+      reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium the
+      contents of a man's. I have long thought, that men, pigs, and plants, are
+      but curious physiological experiments; and that science would at last
+      enable philosophers to produce new species of beings, by somehow mixing,
+      and concocting the essential ingredients of various creatures; and so
+      forming new combinations. My friend Atahalpa, the astrologer and
+      alchymist, has long had a jar, in which he has been endeavoring to hatch a
+      fairy, the ingredients being compounded according to a receipt of his
+      own."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But little they heeded Babbalanja. It was the traveler's tale that most
+      arrested attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tough the thews, and tough the tales of Samoa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0099" id="link2HCH0099"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XCIX &mdash; "Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee"
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the afternoon of the day of the diver's decease, preparations were
+      making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying them by
+      torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in Odo, so was the custom
+      here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally arrayed,
+      beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying&mdash;"A man is dead;
+      let no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh Oro!&mdash;Let no canoes put to
+      sea till the burial. This night, oh Oro!&mdash;Let no food be cooked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire; with
+      castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    Be merry, oh men of Mondoldo,
+      A maiden this night is to wed:
+    Be merry, oh damsels of Mardi,&mdash;
+      Flowers, flowers for the bridal bed.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we repaired
+      to the arbor, whither the body had been removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed,
+      between its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so that
+      blood flowed, and spotted their vesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the wife of
+      the diver, she exclaimed, "Yes; great is the pain, but greater my
+      affliction."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another, the deaf sire of the dead, went staggering about, and groping;
+      saying, that he was now quite blind; for some months previous he had lost
+      one eye in the death of his eldest son and now the other was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am childless," he cried; "henceforth call me Roi Mori," that is,
+      Twice-Blind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the relatives were thus violently lamenting, the rest of the company
+      occasionally scratched themselves with their shells; but very slightly,
+      and mostly on the soles of their feet; from long exposure, quite callous.
+      This was interrupted, however, when the real mourners averted their eyes;
+      though at no time was there any deviation in the length of their faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on all sides, lamentations afresh broke forth, upon the appearance of
+      a person who had been called in to assist in solemnizing the obsequies,
+      and also to console the afflicted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In rotundity, he was another Borabolla. He puffed and panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he approached the corpse, a sobbing silence ensued; when holding the
+      hand of the dead, between his, the stranger thus spoke:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mourn not, oh friends of Karhownoo, that this your brother lives not. His
+      wounded head pains him no more; he would not feel it, did a javelin pierce
+      him. Yea; Karhownoo is exempt from all the ills and evils of this
+      miserable Mardi!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hereupon, the Twice-Blind, who being deaf, heard not what was said, tore
+      his gray hair, and cried, "Alas! alas! my boy; thou wert the merriest man
+      in Mardi, and now thy pranks are over!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the other proceeded&mdash;"Mourn not, I say, oh friends of Karhownoo;
+      the dead whom ye deplore is happier than the living; is not his spirit in
+      the aerial isles?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "True! true!" responded the raving wife, mingling her blood with her
+      tears, "my own poor hapless Karhownoo is thrice happy in Paradise!" And
+      anew she wailed, and lacerated her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rave not, I say."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she only raved the more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the good stranger departed; saying, he must hie to a wedding,
+      waiting his presence in an arbor adjoining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Understanding that the removal of the body would not take place till
+      midnight, we thought to behold the mode of marrying in Mondoldo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing near the place, we were greeted by merry voices, and much singing,
+      which greatly increased when the good stranger was perceived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gayly arrayed in fine robes, with plumes on their heads, the bride and
+      groom stood in the middle of a joyous throng, in readiness for the nuptial
+      bond to be tied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Standing before them, the stranger was given a cord, so bedecked with
+      flowers, as to disguise its stout fibers; and taking: the bride's hands,
+      he bound them together to a ritual chant; about her neck, in festoons,
+      disposing the flowery ends of the cord. Then turning to the groom, he was
+      given another, also beflowered; but attached thereto was a great stone,
+      very much carved, and stained; indeed, so every way disguised, that a
+      person not knowing what it was, and lifting it, would be greatly amazed at
+      its weight. This cord being attached to the waist of the groom, he leaned
+      over toward the bride, by reason of the burden of the drop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All present now united in a chant, and danced about the happy pair, who
+      meanwhile looked ill at ease; the one being so bound by the hands, and the
+      other solely weighed down by his stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pause ensuing, the good stranger, turning them back to back, thus spoke:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By thy flowery gyves, oh bride, I make thee a wife; and by thy burdensome
+      stone, oh groom, I make thee a husband. Live and be happy, both; for the
+      wise and good Oro hath placed us in Mardi to be glad. Doth not all nature
+      rejoice in her green groves and her flowers? and woo and wed not the fowls
+      of the air, trilling their bliss in their bowers? Live then, and be happy,
+      oh bride and groom; for Oro is offended with the unhappy, since he meant
+      them to be gay."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the ceremony ended with a joyful feast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not all nuptials in Mardi were like these. Others were wedded with
+      different rites; without the stone and flowery gyves. These were they who
+      plighted their troth with tears not smiles, and made responses in the
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning from the house of the merry to the house of the mournful, we
+      lingered till midnight to witness the issuing forth of the body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By torch light, numerous canoes, with paddlers standing by, were drawn up
+      on the beach, to accommodate those who purposed following the poor diver
+      to his home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remains embarked, some confusion ensued concerning the occupancy of
+      the rest of the shallops. At last the procession glided off, our party
+      included. Two by two, forming a long line of torches trailing round the
+      isle, the canoes all headed toward the opening in the reef.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time, a decorous silence was preserved; but presently, some
+      whispering was heard; perhaps melancholy discoursing touching the close of
+      the diver's career. But we were shocked to discover, that poor Karhownoo
+      was not much in their thoughts; they were conversing about the next
+      bread-fruit harvest, and the recent arrival of King Media and party at
+      Mondoldo. From far in advance, however, were heard the lamentations of the
+      true mourners, the relatives of the diver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing the reef, and sailing a little distance therefrom, the canoes were
+      disposed in a circle; the one bearing the corpse in the center. Certain
+      ceremonies over, the body was committed to the waves; the white foam
+      lighting up the last, long plunge of the diver, to see sights more strange
+      than ever he saw in the brooding cells of the Turtle Reef.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, while in the still midnight, all present were gazing down into
+      the ocean, watching the white wake of the corpse, ever and anon
+      illuminated by sparkles, an unknown voice was heard, and all started and
+      vacantly stared, as this wild song was sung:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    We drop our dead in the sea,
+      The bottomless, bottomless sea;
+    Each bubble a hollow sigh,
+      As it sinks forever and aye.
+
+    We drop our dead in the sea,&mdash;
+      The dead reek not of aught;
+    We drop our dead in the sea,&mdash;
+      The sea ne'er gives it a thought.
+
+    Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink,
+      Far down in the bottomless sea,
+    Where the unknown forms do prowl,
+      Down, down in the bottomless sea.
+
+    'Tis night above, and night all round,
+      And night will it be with thee;
+    As thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye,
+      Deeper down in the bottomless sea.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The mysterious voice died away; no sign of the corpse was now seen; and
+      mute with amaze, the company long listed to the low moan of the billows
+      and the sad sough of the breeze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, without speaking, the obsequies were concluded by sliding into
+      the ocean a carved tablet of Palmetto, to mark the place of the burial.
+      But a wave-crest received it, and fast it floated away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning to the isle, long silence prevailed. But at length, as if the
+      scene in which they had just taken part, afresh reminded them of the
+      mournful event which had called them together, the company again recurred
+      to it; some present, sadly and incidentally alluding to Borabolla's
+      banquet of turtle, thereby postponed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0100" id="link2HCH0100"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER C -- The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Next morning, when much to the chagrin of Borabolla we were preparing to
+      quit his isle, came tidings to the palace, of a wonderful event, occurring
+      in one of the "Motoos," or little islets of the great reef; which "Motoo"
+      was included in the dominions of the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men who brought these tidings were highly excited; and no sooner did
+      they make known what they knew, than all Mondoldo was in a tumult of
+      marveling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their story was this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going at day break to the Motoo to fish, they perceived a strange proa
+      beached on its seaward shore; and presently were hailed by voices; and saw
+      among the palm trees, three specter-like men, who were not of Mardi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first amazement of the fishermen over, in reply to their eager
+      questions, the strangers related, that they were the survivors of a
+      company of men, natives of some unknown island to the northeast; whence
+      they had embarked for another country, distant three days' sail to the
+      southward of theirs. But falling in with a terrible adventure, in which
+      their sire had been slain, they altered their course to pursue the
+      fugitive who murdered him; one and all vowing, never more to see home,
+      until their father's fate was avenged. The murderer's proa outsailing
+      theirs, soon ran out of sight; yet after him they blindly steered by day
+      and by night: steering by the blood- red star in Bootes. Soon, a violent
+      gale overtook them; driving them to and fro; leaving them they knew not
+      where. But still struggling against strange currents, at times
+      counteracting their sailing, they drifted on their way; nigh to famishing
+      for water; and no shore in sight. In long calms, in vain they held up
+      their dry gourds to heaven, and cried "send us a breeze, sweet gods!" The
+      calm still brooded; and ere it was gone, all but three gasped; and dead
+      from thirst, were plunged into the sea. The breeze which followed the
+      calm, soon brought them in sight of a low, uninhabited isle; where
+      tarrying many days, they laid in good store of cocoanuts and water, and
+      again embarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next land they saw was Mardi; and they landed on the Motoo, still
+      intent on revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This recital filled Taji with horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who could these avengers be, but the sons of him I had slain. I had
+      thought them far hence, and myself forgotten; and now, like adders, they
+      started up in my path, as I hunted for Yillah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I dissembled my thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without waiting to hear more, Borabolla, all curiosity to behold the
+      strangers, instantly dispatched to the Motoo one of his fleetest canoes,
+      with orders to return with the voyagers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ere long they came in sight; and perceiving that strange pros in tow of
+      the king's, Samoa cried out: "Lo! Taji, the canoe that was going to
+      Tedaidee!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too true; the same double-keeled craft, now sorely broken, the fatal dais
+      in wild disarray: the canoe, the canoe of Aleema! And with it came the
+      spearmen three, who, when the Chamois was fleeing from their bow, had
+      poised their javelins. But so wan their aspect now, their faces looked
+      like skulls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came over me the wild dream of Yillah; and, for a space, like a
+      madman, I raved. It seemed as if the mysterious damsel must still be
+      there; the rescue yet to be achieved. In my delirium I rushed upon the
+      skeletons, as they landed&mdash;"Hide not the maiden!" But interposing,
+      Media led me aside; when my transports abated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, instantly, the strangers knew who I was; and, brandishing their
+      javelins, they rushed upon me, as I had on them, with a yell. But deeming
+      us all mad, the crowd held us apart; when, writhing in the arms that
+      restrained them, the pale specters foamed out their curses again and
+      again: "Oh murderer! white curses upon thee! Bleached be thy soul with our
+      hate! Living, our brethren cursed thee; and dying, dry-lipped, they cursed
+      thee again. They died not through famishing for water, but for revenge
+      upon thee! Thy blood, their thirst would have slaked!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I lay fainting against the hard-throbbing heart of Samoa, while they
+      showered their yells through the air. Once more, in my thoughts, the green
+      corpse of the priest drifted by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the people of Mondoldo, a violent commotion now raged. They were
+      amazed at Taji's recognition by the strangers, and at the deadly ferocity
+      they betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rallying upon this, and perceiving that by divulging all they knew, these
+      sons of Aleema might stir up the Islanders against me, I &mdash; resolved
+      to anticipate their story; and, turning to Borabolla, said&mdash; "In
+      these strangers, oh, king! you behold the survivors of a band we
+      encountered on our voyage. From them I rescued a maiden, called Yillah,
+      whom they were carrying captive. Little more of their history do I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Their maledictions?" exclaimed Borabolla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are they not delirious with suffering?" I cried. "They know not what they
+      say."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, moved by all this, he commanded them to be guarded, and conducted
+      within his palisade; and having supplied them with cheer, entered into
+      earnest discourse. Yet all the while, the pale strangers on me fixed their
+      eyes; deep, dry, crater-like hollows, lurid with flames, reflected from
+      the fear-frozen glacier, my soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though their hatred appalled, spite of that spell, again the sweet
+      dream of Yillah stole over me, with all the mysterious things by her
+      narrated, but left unexplained. And now, before me were those who might
+      reveal the lost maiden's whole history, previous to the fatal affray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus impelled, I besought them to disclose what they knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, "Where now is your Yillah?" they cried. "Is the murderer wedded and
+      merry? Bring forth the maiden!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, though they tore out my heart's core, I told them not of my loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, anxious, to learn the history of Yillah, all present commanded them
+      to divulge it; and breathlessly I heard what follows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of Yillah, we know only this:&mdash;that many moons ago, a mighty canoe,
+      full of beings, white, like this murderer Taji, touched at our island of
+      Amma. Received with wonder, they were worshiped as gods; were feasted all
+      over the land. Their chief was a tower to behold; and with him, was a
+      being, whose cheeks were of the color of the red coral; her eye, tender as
+      the blue of the sky. Every day our people brought her offerings of fruit
+      and flowers; which last she would not retain for herself; but hung them
+      round the neck of her child, Yillah; then only an infant in her mother's
+      arms; a bud, nestling close to a flower, full-blown. All went well between
+      our people and the gods, till at last they slew three of our countrymen,
+      charged with stealing from their great canoe. Our warriors retired to the
+      hills, brooding over revenge. Three days went by; when by night,
+      descending to the plain, in silence they embarked; gained the great
+      vessel, and slaughtered every soul but Yillah. The bud was torn from the
+      flower; and, by our father Aleema, was carried to the Valley of Ardair;
+      there set apart as a sacred offering for Apo, our deity. Many moons
+      passed; and there arose a tumult, hostile to our sire's longer holding
+      custody of Yillah; when, foreseeing that the holy glen would ere long be
+      burst open, he embarked the maiden in yonder canoe, to accelerate her
+      sacrifice at the great shrine of Apo, in Tedaidee.&mdash;The rest thou
+      knowest, murderer!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yillah! Yillah!" now hunted again that sound through my soul. "Oh,
+      Yillah! too late, too late have I learned what thou art!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apprised of the disappearance of their former captive, the meager
+      strangers exulted; declaring that Apo had taken her to himself. For me,
+      ere long, my blood they would quaff from my skull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though I shrunk from their horrible threats, I dissembled anew; and
+      turning, again swore that they raved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ay!" they retorted, "we rave and raven for you; and your white heart will
+      we have!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perceiving the violence of their rage, and persuaded from what I &mdash;
+      said, that much suffering at sea must have maddened them; Borabolla
+      thought fit to confine them for the present; so that they could not molest
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0101" id="link2HCH0101"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER CI &mdash; The Iris
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      That evening, in the groves, came to me three gliding forms:&mdash;Hautia's
+      heralds: the Iris mixed with nettles. Said Yoomy, "A cruel message!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the right hand, the second syren presented glossy, green wax- myrtle
+      berries, those that burn like tapers; the third, a lily of the valley,
+      crushed in its own broad leaf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This done, they earnestly eyed Yoomy; who, after much pondering, said&mdash;"I
+      speak for Hautia; who by these berries says, I will enlighten you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, give me then that light! say, where is Yillah?" and I rushed upon the
+      heralds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But eluding me, they looked reproachfully at Yoomy; and seemed offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then, I am wrong," said Yoomy. "It is thus:&mdash;Taji, you have been
+      enlightened, but the lily you seek is crushed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then fell my heart, and the phantoms nodded; flinging upon me bilberries,
+      like rose pearls, which bruised against my skin, left stains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waving oleanders, they retreated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Harm! treachery! beware!" cried Yoomy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they glided through the wood: one showering dead leaves along the
+      path I trod, the others gayly waving bunches of spring-crocuses, yellow,
+      white, and purple; and thus they vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Yoomy, "Sad your path, but merry Hautia's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then merry may she be, whoe'er she is; and though woe be mine, I &mdash;
+      turn not from that to Hautia; nor ever will I woo her, though she woo me
+      till I die;&mdash;though Yillah never bless my eyes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0102" id="link2HCH0102"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER CII &mdash; They Depart From Mondoldo
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Night passed; and next morning we made preparations for leaving Mondoldo
+      that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But fearing anew, lest after our departure, the men of Amma might stir up
+      against me the people of the isle, I determined to yield to the earnest
+      solicitations of Borabolla, and leave Jarl behind, for a remembrance of
+      Taji; if necessary, to vindicate his name. Apprised hereof, my follower
+      was loth to acquiesce. His guiltless spirit feared not the strangers: less
+      selfish considerations prevailed. He was willing to remain on the island
+      for a time, but not without me. Yet, setting forth my reasons; and
+      assuring him, that our tour would not be long in completing, when we would
+      not fail to return, previous to sailing for Odo, he at last, but
+      reluctantly, assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Mondoldo, we also parted with Samoa. Whether it was, that he feared the
+      avengers, whom he may have thought would follow on my track; or whether
+      the islands of Mardi answered not in attractiveness to the picture his
+      fancy had painted; or whether the restraint put upon him by the
+      domineering presence of King Media, was too irksome withal; or whether,
+      indeed, he relished not those disquisitions with which Babbalanja regaled
+      us: however it may have been, certain it was, that Samoa was impatient of
+      the voyage. He besought permission to return to Odo, there to await my
+      return; and a canoe of Mondoldo being about to proceed in that direction,
+      permission was granted; and departing for the other side of the island,
+      from thence he embarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long after, dark tidings came, that at early dawn he had been found dead
+      in the canoe: three arrows in his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yoomy was at a loss to account for the departure of Samoa; who, while
+      ashore, had expressed much desire to roam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Media, however, declared that he must be returning to some inamorata.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Babbalanja averred, that the Upoluan was not the first man, who had
+      turned back, after beginning a voyage like our own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this, after musing, Yoomy assented. Indeed, I had noticed, that already
+      the Warbler had abated those sanguine assurances of success, with which he
+      had departed from Odo. The futility of our search thus far, seemed ominous
+      to him, of the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the eve of embarking, we were accompanied to the beach by Borabolla;
+      who, with his own hand, suspended from the shark's mouth of Media's canoe,
+      three red-ripe bunches of plantains, a farewell gift to his guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though he spoke not a word, Jarl was long in taking leave. His eyes seemed
+      to say, I will see you no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length we pushed from the strand; Borabolla waving his adieus with a
+      green leaf of banana; our comrade ruefully eyeing the receding canoes; and
+      the multitude loudly invoking for us a prosperous voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to my horror, there suddenly dashed through the crowd, the three
+      specter sons of Aleema, escaped from their prison. With clenched hands,
+      they stood in the water, and cursed me anew. And with that curse in our
+      sails, we swept off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0103" id="link2HCH0103"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER CIII &mdash; As They Sail
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As the canoes now glided across the lagoon, I gave myself up to reverie;
+      and revolving over all that the men of Amma had rehearsed of the history
+      of Yillah, I one by one unriddled the mysteries, before so baffling. Now,
+      all was made plain: no secret remaining, but the subsequent event of her
+      disappearance. Yes, Hautia! enlightened I had been but where was Yillah?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I recalled that last interview with Hautia's messengers, so full of
+      enigmas; and wondered, whether Yoomy had interpreted aright. Unseen, and
+      unsolicited; still pursuing me with omens, with taunts, and with wooings,
+      mysterious Hautia appalled me. Vaguely I began to fear her. And the
+      thought, that perhaps again and again, her heralds would haunt me, filled
+      me with a nameless dread, which I almost shrank from acknowledging.
+      Inwardly I prayed, that never more they might appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While full of these thoughts, Media interrupted them by saying, that the
+      minstrel was about to begin one of his chants, a thing of his own
+      composing; and therefore, as he himself said, all critics must be lenient;
+      for Yoomy, at times, not always, was a timid youth, distrustful of his own
+      sweet genius for poesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The words were about a curious hereafter, believed in by some people in
+      Mardi: a sort of nocturnal Paradise, where the sun and its heat are
+      excluded: one long, lunar day, with twinkling stars to keep company.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+THE SONG
+    Far off in the sea is Marlena,
+    A land of shades and streams,
+    A land of many delights.
+    Dark and bold, thy shores,
+    Marlena; But green, and timorous, thy soft knolls,
+    Crouching behind the woodlands.
+    All shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs,
+    Like eyes in the earth looking at you.
+    How charming thy haunts Marlena!&mdash;
+    Oh, the waters that flow through Onimoo:
+    Oh, the leaves that rustle through Ponoo:
+    Oh, the roses that blossom in Tarma:
+    Come, and see the valley of Vina:
+    How sweet, how sweet, the Isles from Hind:
+    'Tis aye afternoon of the full, full moon,
+    And ever the season of fruit,
+    And ever the hour of flowers,
+    And never the time of rains and gales,
+    All in and about Marlena.
+    Soft sigh the boughs in the stilly air,
+    Soft lap the beach the billows there;
+    And in the woods or by the streams,
+    You needs must nod in the Land of Dreams.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "Yoomy," said old Mohi with a yawn, "you composed that song, then, did
+      you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did," said Yoomy, placing his turban a little to one side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then, minstrel, you shall sing me to sleep every night, especially with
+      that song of Marlena; it is soporific as the airs of Nora-Bamma."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mean you, old man, that my lines, setting forth the luxurious repose to
+      be enjoyed hereafter, are composed with such skill, that the description
+      begets the reality; or would you ironically suggest, that the song is a
+      sleepy thing itself?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An important discrimination," said Media; "which mean you, Mohi?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, are you not a silly boy," said Babbalanja, "when from the ambiguity
+      of his speech, you could so easily have derived something flattering, thus
+      to seek to extract unpleasantness from it? Be wise, Yoomy; and hereafter,
+      whenever a remark like that seems equivocal, be sure to wrest commendation
+      from it, though you torture it to the quick."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And most sure am I, that I would ever do so; but often I so incline to a
+      distrust of my powers, that I am far more keenly alive to censure, than to
+      praise; and always deem it the more sincere of the two; and no praise so
+      much elates me, as censure depresses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0104" id="link2HCH0104"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER CIV &mdash; Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And,
+      In His Own
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Person, Proves It
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A truce!" cried Media, "here comes a gallant before the wind.&mdash;
+      Look, Taji!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning, we descried a sharp-prowed canoe, dashing on, under the pressure
+      of an immense triangular sail, whose outer edges were streaming with long,
+      crimson pennons. Flying before it, were several small craft, belonging to
+      the poorer sort of Islanders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Out of his way there, ye laggards," cried Media, "or that mad prince,
+      Tribonnora, will ride over ye with a rush!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And who is Tribonnora," said Babbalanja, "that he thus bravely diverts
+      himself, running down innocent paddlers?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A harum-scarum young chief," replied Media, "heir to three islands; he
+      likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He must be possessed by a devil," said Mohi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Babbalanja, "Then he is only like all of us." "What say you?" cried
+      Media.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, as old Bardianna in the Nine hundred and ninety ninth book of his
+      immortal Ponderings saith, that all men&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As I live, my lord, he has swamped three canoes," cried Mohi, pointing
+      off the beam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But just then a fiery fin-back whale, having broken into the paddock of
+      the lagoon, threw up a high fountain of foam, almost under Tribonnora's
+      nose; who, quickly turning about his canoe, cur-like slunk off; his
+      steering-paddle between his legs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Comments over; "Babbalanja, you were going to quote," said Media.
+      "Proceed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, my lord. Says old Bardianna, 'All men are possessed by devils;
+      but as these devils are sent into men, and kept in them, for an additional
+      punishment; not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in a bridewell; so, it
+      may be more just to say, that the devils themselves are possessed by men,
+      not men by them.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Faith!" cried Media, "though sometimes a bore, your old Bardianna is a
+      trump."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have long been of that mind, my lord. But let me go on. Says Bardianna,
+      'Devils are divers;&mdash;strong devils, and weak devils; knowing devils,
+      and silly devils; mad devils, and mild devils; devils, merely devils;
+      devils, themselves bedeviled; devils, doubly bedeviled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And in the devil's name, what sort of a devil is yours?" cried Mohi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of him anon; interrupt me not, old man. Thus, then, my lord, as devils
+      are divers, divers are the devils in men. Whence, the wide difference we
+      see. But after all, the main difference is this:&mdash;that one man's
+      devil is only more of a devil than another's; and be bedeviled as much as
+      you will; yet, may you perform the most bedeviled of actions with
+      impunity, so long as you only bedevil yourself. For it is only when your
+      deviltry injures another, that the other devils conspire to confine yours
+      for a mad one. That is to say, if you be easily handled. For there are
+      many bedeviled Bedlamites in Mardi, doing an infinity of mischief, who are
+      too brawny in the arms to be tied."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A very devilish doctrine that," cried Mohi. "I don't believe it."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "My lord," said Babbalanja, "here's collateral proof;&mdash;the sage
+lawgiver Yamjamma, who flourished long before Bardianna, roundly
+asserts, that all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good
+is happiness; happiness the object of living; and evil is not good."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "If the sage Yamjamma said that," said old Mohi, "the sage Yamjamma might
+      have bettered the saying; it's not quite so plain as it might be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended by
+      mortals. Like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings. But old Bardianna was
+      of another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to the point like a
+      javelin; especially when he laid it down for a universal maxim, that minus
+      exceptions, all men are bedeviled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, then," said Media, "you include yourself among the number."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Most assuredly; and so did old Bardianna; who somewhere says, that being
+      thoroughly bedeviled himself, he was so much the better qualified to
+      discourse upon the deviltries of his neighbors. But in another place he
+      seems to contradict himself, by asserting, that he is not so sensible of
+      his own deviltry as of other people's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold!" cried Media, "who have we here?" and he pointed ahead of our prow
+      to three men in the water, urging themselves along, each with a paddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We made haste to overtake them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who are you?" said Media, "where from, and where bound?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From Variora," they answered, "and bound to Mondoldo." "And did that
+      devil Tribonnora swamp your canoe?" asked Media, offering to help them
+      into ours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We had no such useless incumbrance to lose," they replied, resting on
+      their backs, and panting with their exertions. "If we had had a canoe, we
+      would have had to paddle it along with us; whereas we have only our bodies
+      to paddle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are a parcel of loons," exclaimed Media. "But go your ways, if you
+      are satisfied with your locomotion, well and good."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, it is an extreme case, I grant," said Babbalanja, "but those poor
+      devils there, help to establish old Bardianna's position. They belong to
+      that species of our bedeviled race, called simpletons; but their devils
+      harming none but themselves, are permitted to be at large with the fish.
+      Whereas, Tribonnora's devil, who daily runs down canoes, drowning their
+      occupants, belongs to the species of out and out devils; but being high in
+      station, and strongly backed by kith and kin, Tribonnora can not be
+      mastered, and put in a strait jacket. For myself, I think my devil is some
+      where between these two extremes; at any rate, he belongs to that class of
+      devils who harm not other devils."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am not so sure of that," retorted Media. "Methinks this doctrine of
+      yours, about all mankind being bedeviled, will work a deal of mischief;
+      seeing that by implication it absolves you mortals from moral
+      accountability. Further-more; as your doctrine is exceedingly evil, by
+      Yamjamma's theory it follows, that you must be proportionably bedeviled;
+      and since it harms others, your devil is of the number of those whom it is
+      best to limbo; and since he is one of those that can be limboed, limboed
+      he shall be in you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so saying, he humorously commanded his attendants to lay hands upon
+      the bedeviled philosopher, and place a bandage upon his mouth, that he
+      might no more disseminate his devilish doctrine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Against this, Babbalanja demurred, protesting that he was no orang-outang, to be so rudely handled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Better and better," said Media, "you but illustrate Bardianna's theory;
+      that men are not sensible of their being bedeviled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus tantalized, Babbalanja displayed few signs of philosophy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon, said Media, "Assuredly his devil is foaming; behold his mouth!"
+      And he commanded him to be bound hand and foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, seeing all resistance ineffectual, Babbalanja submitted; but
+      not without many objurgations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, however, they released him; when Media inquired, how he
+      relished the application of his theory; and whether he was still' of old
+      Bardianna's mind?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To which, haughtily adjusting his robe, Babbalanja replied, "The strong
+      arm, my lord, is no argument, though it overcomes all logic."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      END OF VOL. I.
+    </h3>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <pre>
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I. -- (of 2), by Herman Melville
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER, ***
+
+***** This file should be named 13720-h.htm or 13720-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/7/2/13720/
+
+Etext produced by Geoff Palmer
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/old/13720.txt b/old/old/13720.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3670917
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/13720.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11231 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of
+2) by Herman Melville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2)
+
+Author: Herman Melville
+
+Release Date: October 12, 2004 [EBook #13720]
+
+Last updated: July 25, 2020
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER,
+***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geoff Palmer
+
+
+
+
+MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER
+
+BY HERMAN MELVILLE
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES
+
+VOL. I
+
+
+1864
+
+
+DEDICATED TO My Brother, ALLAN MELVILLE.
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the Pacific,
+which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought
+occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian adventure, and
+publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction might not, possibly,
+be received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of my previous
+experience.
+
+This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in Mardi. New
+York, January, 1849.
+
+
+
+
+MARDI.
+
+CONTENTS VOL. I
+
+CHAPTER 1. Foot in Stirrup 2. A Calm 3. A King for a Comrade 4. A Chat
+in the Clouds 5. Seats secured and Portmanteaus packed 6. Eight Bells 7.
+A Pause 8. They push off, Velis et Bemis 9. The Watery World is all
+before Them 10. They arrange their Canopies and Lounges, and try to make
+Things comfortable 11. Jarl afflicted with the Lockjaw 12. More about
+being in an open Boat 13. Of the Chondropterygii, and other uncouth
+Hordes infesting the South Seas 14. Jarl's Misgivings 15. A Stitch in
+time saves Nine 16. They are Becalmed 17. In high Spirits they push on
+for the Terra Incognita 18. My Lord Shark and his Pages 19. Who goes
+there? 20. Noises and Portents 21. Man ho! 22. What befel the Brigantine
+at the Pearl Shell Islands 23. Sailing from the Island they pillage the
+Cabin 24. Dedicated to the College of Physicians and Surgeons 25. Peril
+a Peace-maker 26. Containing a Pennyweight of Philosophy 27. In which
+the past History of the Parki is concluded 28. Suspicions laid, and
+something about the Calmuc 29. What they lighted upon in further
+searching the Craft, and the Resolution they came to 30. Hints for a
+full length of Samoa 31. Rovings Alow and Aloft 32. Xiphius Platypterus
+33. Otard 34. How they steered on their Way 35. Ah, Annatoo! 36. The
+Parki gives up the Ghost 37. Once more they take to the Chamois 38. The
+Sea on Fire 39. They fall in with Strangers 40. Sire and Sons 41. A Fray
+42. Remorse 43. The Tent entered 44. Away! 45. Reminiscences 46. The
+Chamois with a roving Commission 47. Yillah, Jarl, and Samoa 48.
+Something under the Surface 49. Yillah 50. Yillah in Ardair 51. The
+Dream begins to fade 52. World ho! 53. The Chamois Ashore 54. A
+Gentleman from the Sun 55. Tiffin in a Temple 56. King Media a Host 57.
+Taji takes Counsel with himself 58. Mardi by Night and Yillah by Day 59.
+Their Morning Meal 60. Belshazzar on the Bench 61. An Incognito 62. Taji
+retires from the World 63. Odo and its Lord 64. Yillah a Phantom 65.
+Taji makes three Acquaintances 66. With a fair Wind at Sunrise they sail
+67. Little King Peepi 68. How Teeth were regarded in Valapee 69. The
+Company discourse, and Braid-Beard rehearses a Legend 70. The Minstrel
+leads of with a Paddle-Song; and a Message is received from Abroad 71.
+They land upon the Island of Juam 72. A Book from the Chronicles of Mohi
+73. Something more of the Prince 74. Advancing deeper into the Vale,
+they encounter Donjalolo 75. Time and Temples 76. A pleasant Place for a
+Lounge 77. The House of the Afternoon 78. Babbalanja solus 79. The
+Center of many Circumferences 80. Donjalolo in the Bosom of his Family
+81. Wherein Babbalanja relates the Adventure of one Karkeke in the Land
+of Shades 82. How Donjalolo, sent Agents to the surrounding Isles; with
+the Result 83. They visit the Tributary Islets 84. Taji sits down to
+Dinner with five-and-twenty Kings, and a royal Time they have 85. After
+Dinner 86. Of those Scamps the Plujii 87. Nora-Bamma 88. In a Calm,
+Hautia's Heralds approach 89. Braid-Beard rehearses the Origin of the
+Isle of Rogues 90. Rare Sport at Ohonoo 91. Of King Uhia and his
+Subjects 92. The God Keevi and the Precipice of Mondo 93. Babbalanja
+steps in between Mohi and Yoomy; and Yoomy relates a Legend 94. Of that
+jolly old Lord, Borabolla; and that jolly Island of his, Mondoldo; and
+of the Fish-ponds, and the Hereafters of Fish 95. That jolly old Lord
+Borabolla laughs on both Sides of his Face 96. Samoa a Surgeon 97. Faith
+and Knowledge 98. The Tale of a Traveler 99. "Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee."
+100. The Pursuer himself is pursued 101. The Iris 102. They depart from
+Mondoldo 103. As they sail 104. Wherein Babbalanja broaches a diabolical
+Theory, and in his own Person proves it
+
+
+
+MARDI
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I Foot In Stirrup
+
+
+We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor
+swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the
+breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out
+spreads the canvas--alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many
+a stun' sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea
+with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.
+
+But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
+
+We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from
+the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn's island,
+where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped
+ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for
+the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
+
+And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the
+Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there
+met.
+
+Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish
+bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm whale,
+at certain seasons abounds.
+
+But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the sea-gull, straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of the trade
+winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai are
+fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so. First,
+in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste to the south; and
+there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they stand for the main:
+then, making their easting, up helm, and away down the coast, toward the
+Line.
+
+This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a
+weary one it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous;
+thank fate, never since.
+
+But bravo! in two weeks' time, an event. Out of the gray of the morning,
+and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of the sea;
+standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft, and creamy
+breakers frothing round its base.--We turned aside, and, at length, when
+day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass, we spied two or three
+hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a
+signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. Well knowing, however,
+that there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of
+runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to comply with
+their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred in not
+sending a boat off with his card.
+
+A few days more and we "took the trades." Like favors snappishly
+conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp
+squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat
+old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward.
+
+In good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few
+leagues west of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing across
+the Line, to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey. For some of
+their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in Peru, run in
+veins through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and week after week,
+weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal intersection of the
+self-same Line; till we were almost ready to swear that we felt the ship
+strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary locality.
+
+At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way
+straight along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right,
+and peering left, but seeing naught.
+
+It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of
+that bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to
+the adventures herein recounted.
+
+But hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. The
+sailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped
+at the islands included. Nevertheless, they were not precisely to my
+mind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle
+sympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then
+overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. Under other and
+livelier auspices the tarry knaves might have developed qualities more
+attractive. Had we sprung a leak, been "stove" by a whale, or been
+blessed with some despot of a captain against whom to stir up some
+spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might have proved limber lads,
+and men of mettle. But as it was, there was naught to strike fire from
+their steel.
+
+There were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board very
+hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood upon no
+quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do him
+justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular; was
+sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand at the helm. But
+what of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy? Not a bit. His
+library was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and Hamilton Moore.
+
+And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation
+from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of
+long-drawn yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of Black-eyed Susan sung
+by our full forecastle choir? Staler than stale ale.
+
+Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly
+dull. Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have borne;
+but in every other respect. The days went slowly round and round,
+endless and uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time-pieces; How
+many centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the
+ship's dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred forever be the
+Arcturion's fore-hatch--alas! sea-moss is over it now--and rusty forever
+the bolts that held together that old sea hearth-stone, about which we
+so often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost and leaden hours, I will rail at
+ye while life lasts.
+
+Well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel's stories
+were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed
+into each other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad's songs were sung
+till the echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the
+sails. My poor patience was clean gone.
+
+But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line in
+high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.
+
+But whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of sun-strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far
+worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory
+concerning the damned and the comets;--hurried from equinoctial heats to
+arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our
+skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation, he
+was bent upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor'-West Coast and in
+the Bay of Kamschatska.
+
+To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this
+juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say:
+that Right whaling on the Nor'-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the
+sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest logs
+on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks
+to the knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling, I say, compared to
+a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in southern and more genial
+seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank Greenland icebergs to
+zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the lively quarry bounds before you
+through leafy glades.
+
+Now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to
+measure the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit
+contravention of the agreement between us. That agreement needs not to
+be detailed. And having shipped but for a single cruise, I had embarked
+aboard his craft as one might put foot in stirrup for a day's following
+of the hounds. And here, Heaven help me, he was going to carry me off to
+the Pole! And on such a vile errand too! For there was something
+degrading in it. Your true whaleman glories in keeping his harpoon
+unspotted by blood of aught but Cachalot. By my halidome, it touched the
+knighthood of a tar. Sperm and spermaceti! It was unendurable.
+
+"Captain," said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the wheel
+one day, "It's very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory. I
+shipped to go elsewhere."
+
+"Yes, and so did I," was his reply. "But it can't be helped. Sperm
+whales are not to be had. We've been out now three years, and something
+or other must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and her hold a
+gulf to look into. But cheer up my boy; once in the Bay of Kamschatka,
+and we'll be all afloat with what we want, though it be none of the
+best."
+
+Worse and worse! The oleaginous prospect extended into an immensity of
+Macassar. "Sir," said I, "I did not ship for it; put me ashore
+somewhere, I beseech." He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a
+moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain,
+to the prejudice of the more kindly nature of the man.
+
+But not so. Taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand on the
+wheel, and said, "Right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must. Putting
+you ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till this ship is
+full to the combings of her hatchways. However, you may leave her if you
+can." And so saying he entered his cabin, like Julius Caesar into his
+tent.
+
+He may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear
+like a bravado. It savored of the turnkey's compliments to the prisoner
+in Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.
+
+"Leave the ship if I can!" Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore
+was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For
+on board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows,
+whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open
+boat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a long yarn
+about being the only survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to the water's
+edge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they were keepers
+of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some ugly craft
+still afloat and hearty, and stolen away from her, off soundings. Among
+seamen in the Pacific such adventures not seldom occur. Nor are they
+accounted great wonders. They are but incidents, not events, in the
+career of the brethren of the order of South Sea rovers. For what
+matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a good whale-boat be
+under foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas before? And herein
+lies the difference between the Atlantic and Pacific:--that once within
+the Tropics, the bold sailor who has a mind to quit his ship round Cape
+Horn, waits not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty harbor.
+
+Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I resolved
+to weigh well the chances. It's worth noticing, this way we all have of
+pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a
+bagatelle.
+
+My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or
+wrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to split no hairs
+on this point, let me say, that were I placed in the same situation
+again, I would repeat the thing I did then. The captain well knew that
+he was going to detain me unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was
+he himself who threw out the very hint, which I merely adopted, with
+many thanks to him.
+
+In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my
+allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day,
+serene and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and away, away,
+illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were was perhaps the
+most unfrequented and least known portion of these seas. Westward,
+however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid down upon the
+charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land. But soon these
+regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged for cold,
+fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging.
+
+I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship,
+silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
+
+In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon
+high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and
+minarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast
+Alhambra. Vistas seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all
+over the towers of this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds.
+Watching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and
+was lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in with it; for directly,
+as in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows laving a beach
+of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the
+lulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together.
+
+Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up
+aloft. But coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so, that
+thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a
+frenzy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II A Calm
+
+
+Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of
+the ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in
+me my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this
+phenomenon of the sea. Those impressions may merit a page.
+
+To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his abdomen,
+but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal
+fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him.
+
+At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of
+existence where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself in
+his coat, to see whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to test
+the reality of the glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by way of
+experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. If a reader of
+books, Priestley on Necessity occurs to him; and he believes in that old
+Sir Anthony Absolute to the very last chapter. His faith in Malte Brun,
+however, begins to fail; for the geography, which from boyhood he had
+implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating all
+over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. That over against
+America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm, and he grows madly
+skeptical.
+
+To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what
+they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the
+earth's surface.
+
+The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar;
+for no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be
+lighted upon in the watery waste.
+
+At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain's competency to
+navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted
+into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull,
+introductory to a positive vacuity.
+
+Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning his
+soul.
+
+The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and
+portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the
+esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him,
+like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The
+hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to
+speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum.
+
+But more than all else is the consciousness of his utter helplessness.
+Succor or sympathy there is none. Penitence for embarking avails not.
+The final satisfaction of despairing may not be his with a relish. Vain
+the idea of idling out the calm. He may sleep if he can, or purposely
+delude himself into a crazy fancy, that he is merely at leisure. All
+this he may compass; but he may not lounge; for to lounge is to be idle;
+to be idle implies an absence of any thing to do; whereas there is a
+calm to be endured: enough to attend to, Heaven knows.
+
+His physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes a
+fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. Even his
+undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of volition,
+become as naught. For of what use? He wills to go: to get away from the
+calm: as ashore he would avoid the plague. But he can not; and how
+foolish to revolve expedients. It is more hopeless than a bad marriage
+in a land where there is no Doctors' Commons. He has taken the ship to
+wife, for better or for worse, for calm or for gale; and she is not to
+be shuffled off.  With yards akimbo, she says unto him scornfully, as
+the old beldam said to the little dwarf:--"Help yourself"
+
+And all this, and more than this, is a calm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III A King For A Comrade
+
+
+At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than sixty
+degrees to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a desirable
+longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic destination: around
+us one wide sea.
+
+But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and south
+an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but little
+known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go almost every
+where. Beginning at the southerly termination of this great chain, it
+comprises the islands loosely known as Ellice's group; then, the
+Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and Mulgrave clusters. These islands
+had been represented to me as mostly of coral formation, low and
+fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. The language of the
+people was said to be very similar to that or the Navigator's islands,
+from which, their ancestors are supposed to have emigrated.
+
+And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of the
+islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all; and that
+our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a reliable Trade-wind. The distance, though great, was merely an extension of water; so
+much blankness to be sailed over; and in a craft, too, that properly
+managed has been known to outlive great ships in a gale. For this much
+is true of a whale-boat, the cunningest thing in its way ever fabricated
+by man.
+
+Upon one of the Kingsmill islands, then, I determined to plant my foot,
+come what come would. And I was equally determined that one of the
+ship's boats should float me thither. But I had no idea of being without
+a companion. It would be a weary watch to keep all by myself, with
+naught but the horizon in sight.
+
+Now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one
+could tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and
+defective. "Man and boy," said honest Jarl, "I have lived ever since I
+can remember." And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To
+ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it is
+so hard to die, ere the world itself is departed.
+
+Jarl hailed from the isle of Skye, one of the constellated Hebrides.
+Hence, they often called him the Skyeman. And though he was far from
+being piratical of soul, he was yet an old Norseman to behold. His hands
+were brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm roaring
+round the old peak of Mull; and his long yellow hair waved round his
+head like a sunset. My life for it, Jarl, thy ancestors were Vikings,
+who many a time sailed over the salt German sea and the Baltic; who
+wedded their Brynhildas in Jutland; and are now quaffing mead in the
+halls of Valhalla, and beating time with their cans to the hymns of the
+Scalds. Ah! how the old Sagas run through me!
+
+Yet Jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless
+mariner on the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he
+led. But so it has been, and forever will be. What yeoman shall swear
+that he is not descended from Alfred? what dunce, that he is not sprung
+of old Homer? King Noah, God bless him! fathered us all. Then hold up
+your heads, oh ye Helots, blood potential flows through your veins. All
+of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels
+for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of God did verily wed
+with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve. Thus all
+generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the
+hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones and
+principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout space; the
+nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one and all,
+brothers in essence--oh, be we then brothers indeed! All things form but
+one whole; the universe a Judea, and God Jehovah its head. Then no more
+let us start with affright. In a theocracy, what is to fear? Let us
+compose ourselves to death as fagged horsemen sleep in the saddle. Let
+us welcome even ghosts when they rise. Away with our stares and
+grimaces. The New Zealander's tattooing is not a prodigy; nor the
+Chinaman's ways an enigma. No custom is strange; no creed is absurd; no
+foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. In heaven, at last, our
+good, old, white-haired father Adam will greet all alike, and sociality
+forever prevail. Christian shall join hands between Gentile and Jew;
+grim Dante forget his Infernos, and shake sides with fat Rabelais; and
+monk Luther, over a flagon of old nectar, talk over old times with Pope
+Leo. Then, shall we sit by the sages, who of yore gave laws to the Medes
+and Persians in the sun; by the cavalry captains in Perseus, who cried,
+"To horse!" when waked by their Last Trump sounding to the charge; by
+the old hunters, who eternities ago, hunted the moose in Orion; by the
+minstrels, who sang in the Milky Way when Jesus our Saviour was born.
+Then shall we list to no shallow gossip of Magellans and Drakes; but
+give ear to the voyagers who have circumnavigated the Ecliptic; who
+rounded the Polar Star as Cape Horn. Then shall the Stagirite and Kant
+be forgotten, and another folio than theirs be turned over for wisdom;
+even the folio now spread with horoscopes as yet undeciphered, the
+heaven of heavens on high.
+
+Now, in old Jarl's lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal tar
+is too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with seamen
+of all tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo-Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and Danes,
+wear away in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink your
+clan; down goes your nation; you speak a world's language, jovially
+jabbering in the Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.
+
+True to his calling, the Skyeman was very illiterate; witless of
+Salamanca, Heidelberg, or Brazen-Nose; in Delhi, had never turned over
+the books of the Brahmins. For geography, in which sailors should be
+adepts, since they are forever turning over and over the great globe of
+globes, poor Jarl was deplorably lacking. According to his view of the
+matter, this terraqueous world had been formed in the manner of a tart;
+the land being a mere marginal crust, within which rolled the watery
+world proper. Such seemed my good Viking's theory of cosmography. As for
+other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full as much as Chrysostom.
+
+Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the secret
+operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings of
+Spinoza's.
+
+Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and
+but seldom will speak for himself.
+
+Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for he
+loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.
+
+It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive a
+very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an
+attachment so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless originating
+in that heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as they grow aged;
+impelling them to fasten upon some chance object of regard. But however
+it was, my Viking, thy unbidden affection was the noblest homage ever
+paid me. And frankly, I am more inclined to think well of myself, as in
+some way deserving thy devotion, than from the rounded compliments of
+more cultivated minds.
+
+Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they
+are. No school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of one
+man with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You wear your
+character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain all endeavors to
+assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you possess. Incognitos,
+however desirable, are out of the question. And thus aboard of all ships
+in which I have sailed, I have invariably been known by a sort of
+thawing-room title. Not,--let me hurry to say,--that I put hand in tar
+bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a
+Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better than my vocation; and
+mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a hand, as
+the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine upbraid me
+with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of
+main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that ever howled.
+
+Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly
+was. It was because of something in me that could not be hidden;
+stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise
+incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions to
+Belles-Lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.
+
+But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Arcturion's
+crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a "nob."
+But Jarl seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one of the
+House of Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles Edward the
+Pretender, who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a vagrant. At any
+rate, his loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my laundress and
+tailor; a most expert one, too; and when at meal-times my turn came
+round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered
+for me among the "kids" in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity.
+Many's the good lump of "duff" for which I was indebted to my good
+Viking's good care of me. And like Sesostris I was served by a monarch.
+Yet in some degree the obligation was mutual. For be it known that, in
+sea-parlance, we were _chummies._
+
+Now this _chummying_ among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting
+between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership of chests
+and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual championship
+of the absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses remind me of sundry
+lazy, ne'er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable chummies; chummies,
+who at meal times were last at the "kids," when their unfortunate
+partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who affected awkwardness at
+the needle, and conscientious scruples about dabbling in the suds; so
+that chummy the simple was made to do all the work of the firm, while
+chummy the cunning played the sleeping partner in his hammock. Out upon
+such chummies!
+
+But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning.
+Never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan
+charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the frightful
+gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which thou calledst
+"ducks;"--Didst thou not expressly declare, that all these things, and
+more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint thimble, fashioned
+from the ivory tusk of a whale? Nay; could I even wrest from thy willful
+hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it steaming in an unsavory
+pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated cask? Full well thou knowest,
+Jarl, that these things are true; and I am bound to say it, to disclaim
+any lurking desire to reap advantage from thy great good nature.
+
+Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and my
+Viking alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV A Chat In The Clouds
+
+
+The Skyeman seemed so earnest and upright a seaman, that to tell the
+plain truth, in spite of his love for me, I had many misgivings as to
+his readiness to unite in an undertaking which apparently savored of a
+moral dereliction. But all things considered, I deemed my own resolution
+quite venial; and as for inducing another to join me, it seemed a
+precaution so indispensable, as to outweigh all other considerations.
+
+Therefore I resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special
+purpose paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air, he
+happened to be perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on the
+lookout for whales never seen.
+
+Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a
+time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the
+Channel in a balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have a
+fellow feeling for the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up there,
+smoking our dwarfish "dudeens," any sea-gull passing by might have taken
+us for Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing their after-dinner Bagdads, bound to Calais, via Heaven, from Dover. Honest Jarl, I
+acquainted with all: my conversation with the captain, the hint implied
+in his last words, my firm resolve to quit the ship in one of her boats,
+and the facility with which I thought the thing could be done. Then I
+threw out many inducements, in the shape of pleasant anticipations of
+bearing right down before the wind upon the sunny isles under our lee.
+
+He listened attentively; but so long remained silent that I almost
+fancied there was something in Jarl which would prove too much for me
+and my eloquence.
+
+At last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he had
+never known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case the
+runaways had never afterwards been heard of. He entreated me to renounce
+my determination, not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to the ship,
+and go home in her like a man. Verily, my Viking talked to me like my
+uncle.
+
+But to all this I turned a deaf ear; affirming that my mind was made up;
+and that as he refused to accompany me, and I fancied no one else for a
+comrade, I would go stark alone rather than not at all. Upon this,
+seeing my resolution immovable, he bluntly swore that he would follow me
+through thick and thin.
+
+Thanks, Jarl! thou wert one of those devoted fellows who will wrestle
+hard to convince one loved of error; but failing, forthwith change their
+wrestling to a sympathetic hug.
+
+But now his elderly prudence came into play. Casting his eye over the
+boundless expanse below, he inquired how far off were the islands in
+question.
+
+"A thousand miles and no less."
+
+"With a fair trade breeze, then, and a boat sail, that is a good twelve
+days' passage, but calms and currents may make it a month, perhaps
+more." So saying, he shook his old head, and his yellow hair streamed.
+
+But trying my best to chase away these misgivings, he at last gave them
+over. He assured me I might count upon him to his uttermost keel.
+
+My Viking secured, I felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered how
+the enterprise might best be accomplished.
+
+There was no time to be lost. Every hour was carrying us farther and
+farther from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our route
+to the westward. So, with all possible dispatch, I matured my plans, and
+communicated them to Jarl, who gave several old hints--having ulterior
+probabilities in view--which were not neglected.
+
+Strange to relate, it was not till my Viking, with a rueful face,
+reminded me of the fact, that I bethought me of a circumstance somewhat
+alarming at the first blush. We must push off without chart or quadrant;
+though, as will shortly be seen, a compass was by no means out of the
+question. The chart, to be sure, I did not so much lay to heart; but a
+quadrant was more than desirable. Still, it was by no means
+indispensable. For this reason. When we started, our latitude would be
+exactly known; and whether, on our voyage westward, we drifted north or
+south therefrom, we could not, by any possibility, get so far out of our
+reckoning, as to fail in striking some one of a long chain of islands,
+which, for many degrees, on both sides of the equator, stretched right
+across our track.
+
+For much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage we
+daily knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the place
+we desired to reach. So what could be plainer than this: that if
+westward we patiently held on our way, we must eventually achieve our
+destination?
+
+As for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they intimidated
+us not. In a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an
+indifferent look-out would preclude all danger on that score. At all
+events, the thing seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old Jarl's
+superstitious reverence for nautical instruments, and the philosophical
+objections which might have been urged by a pedantic disciple of
+Mercator.
+
+Very often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most
+startling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no
+alarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun--"Be thou, old pilot, our
+guide!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed
+
+
+But thoughts of sextants and quadrants were the least of our cares.
+
+Right from under the very arches of the eyebrows of thirty men--captain,
+mates, and crew--a boat was to be abstracted; they knowing nothing of
+the event, until all knowledge would prove unavailing.
+
+Hark ye:
+
+At sea, the boats of a South Sea-man (generally four in number, spare
+ones omitted,) are suspended by tackles, hooked above, to curved timbers
+called "davits," vertically fixed to the ship's sides.
+
+Now, no fair one with golden locks is more assiduously waited upon, or
+more delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale-boat
+by her crew. And out of its element, it seems fragile enough to justify
+the utmost solicitude. For truly, like a fine lady, the fine whale-boat
+is most delicate when idle, though little coy at a pinch.
+
+Besides the "davits," the following supports are provided Two small
+cranes are swung under the keel, on which the latter rests, preventing
+the settling of the boat's middle, while hanging suspended by the bow
+and stern. A broad, braided, hempen band, usually worked in a tasteful
+pattern, is also passed round both gunwales; and secured to the ship's
+bulwarks, firmly lashes the craft to its place. Being elevated above the
+ship's rail, the boats are in plain sight from all parts of the deck.
+
+Now, one of these boats was to be made way with. No facile matter,
+truly. Harder than for any dashing young Janizary to run off with a
+sultana from the Grand Turk's seraglio. Still, the thing could be done,
+for, by Jove, it had been.
+
+What say you to slyly loosing every thing by day; and when night comes,
+cast off the band and swing in the cranes? But how lower the tackles,
+even in the darkest night, without a creaking more fearful than the
+death rattle? Easily avoided. Anoint the ropes, and they will travel
+deftly through the subtle windings of the blocks.
+
+But though I had heard of this plan being pursued, there was a degree of
+risk in it, after all, which I was far from fancying. Another plan was
+hit upon; still bolder; and hence more safe. What it was, in the right
+place will be seen.
+
+In selecting my craft for this good voyage, I would fain have traversed
+the deck, and eyed the boats like a cornet choosing his steed from out a
+goodly stud. But this was denied me. And the "bow boat" was, perforce,
+singled out, as the most remote from the quarter-deck, that region of
+sharp eyes and relentless purposes.
+
+Then, our larder was to be thought of; also, an abundant supply of
+water; concerning which last I determined to take good heed. There were
+but two to be taken care of; but I resolved to lay in sufficient store
+of both meat and drink for four; at the same time that the supplemental
+twain thus provided for were but imaginary. And if it came to the last
+dead pinch, of which we had no fear, however, I was food for no man but
+Jarl.
+
+Little time was lost in catering for our mess. Biscuit and salt beef
+were our sole resource; and, thanks to the generosity of the Arcturion's
+owners, our ship's company had a plentiful supply. Casks of both, with
+heads knocked out, were at the service of all. In bags which we made for
+the purpose, a sufficiency of the biscuit was readily stored away, and
+secreted in a corner of easy access. The salt beef was more difficult to
+obtain; but, little by little, we managed to smuggle out of the cask
+enough to answer our purpose.
+
+As for water, most luckily a day or two previous several "breakers" of
+it had been hoisted from below for the present use of the ship's
+company.
+
+These "breakers" are casks, long and slender, but very strong. Of
+various diameters, they are made on purpose to stow into spaces
+intervening between the immense butts in a ship's hold.
+
+The largest we could find was selected, first carefully examining it to
+detect any leak. On some pretense or other, we then rolled them all over
+to that side of the vessel where our boat was suspended, the selected
+breaker being placed in their middle.
+
+Our compendious wardrobes were snugly packed into bundles and laid aside
+for the present. And at last, by due caution, we had every thing
+arranged preliminary to the final start. Let me say, though, perhaps to
+the credit of Jarl, that whenever the most strategy was necessary, he
+seemed ill at ease, and for the most part left the matter to me. It was
+well that he did; for as it was, by his untimely straight-forwardness,
+he once or twice came near spoiling every thing. Indeed, on one occasion
+he was so unseasonably blunt, that curiously enough, I had almost
+suspected him of taking that odd sort of interest in one's welfare,
+which leads a philanthropist, all other methods failing, to frustrate a
+project deemed bad; by pretending clumsily to favor it. But no
+inuendoes; Jarl was a Viking, frank as his fathers; though not so much
+of a bucanier.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI Eight Bells
+
+
+The moon must be monstrous coy, or some things fall out opportunely, or
+else almanacs are consulted by nocturnal adventurers; but so it is, that
+when Cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds are done.
+Though true it may be, that of moonlight nights, jewelers' caskets and
+maidens' hearts have been burglariously broken into--and rifled, for
+aught Copernicus can tell.
+
+The gentle planet was in her final quarter, and upon her slender horn I
+hung my hopes of withdrawing from the ship undetected.
+
+Now, making a tranquil passage across the ocean, we kept at this time
+what are called among whalemen "boatscrew-watches." That is, instead of
+the sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck
+every four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat's
+crew, the "headsman" (always one of the mates) excepted. To the
+officers, this plan gives uninterrupted repose--"all-night-in," as they
+call it, and of course greatly lightens the duties of the crew.
+
+The harpooneers head the boats' crews, and are responsible for the ship
+during the continuance of their watches.
+
+Now, my Viking being a stalwart seaman, pulled the midship oar of the
+boat of which I was bowsman. Hence, we were in the same watch; to which,
+also, three others belonged, including Mark, the harpooner. One of these
+seamen, however, being an invalid, there were only two left for us to
+manage.
+
+Voyaging in these seas, you may glide along for weeks without starting
+tack or sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and constant are
+the Trades. At night, the watch seldom trouble themselves with keeping
+much of a look-out; especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy in
+these lonely waters. In some ships, for weeks in and weeks out, you are
+puzzled to tell when your nightly turn on deck really comes round; so
+little heed is given to the standing of watches, where in the license of
+presumed safety, nearly every one nods without fear.
+
+But remiss as you may be in the boats-crew-watch of a heedless whaleman,
+the man who heads it is bound to maintain his post on the quarter-deck
+until regularly relieved. Yet drowsiness being incidental to all
+natures, even to Napoleon, beside his own sentry napping in the snowy
+bivouac; so, often, in snowy moonlight, or ebon eclipse, dozed Mark, our
+harpooneer. Lethe be his portion this blessed night, thought I, as
+during the morning which preceded our enterprise, I eyed the man who
+might possibly cross my plans.
+
+But let me come closer to this part of my story. During what are called
+at sea the "dog-watches" (between four o'clock and eight in the
+evening), sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits even
+flow far into the first of the long "night-watches;" but upon its
+expiration at "eight bells" (midnight), silence begins to reign; if you
+hear a voice it is no cherub's: all exclamations are oaths.
+
+At eight bells, the mariners on deck, now relieved from their cares,
+crawl out from their sleepy retreats in old monkey jackets, or coils of
+rigging, and hie to their hammocks, almost without interrupting their
+dreams: while the sluggards below lazily drag themselves up the ladder
+to resume their slumbers in the open air.
+
+For these reasons then, the moonless sea midnight was just the time to
+escape. Hence, we suffered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting for
+the night, when the star board-quarter-boats'-watch, to which we
+belonged, would be summoned on deck at the eventful eight of the bell.
+
+But twenty-four hours soon glide away; and "Starboleens ahoy; eight
+bells there below;" at last started me from a troubled doze.
+
+I sprang from my hammock, and would have lighted my pipe. But the
+forecastle lamp had gone out. An old sea-dog was talking about sharks in
+his sleep. Jarl and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way into
+their trowsers. And little was heard but the humming of the still sails
+aloft; the dash of the waves against the bow; and the deep breathing of
+the dreaming sailors around.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII A Pause
+
+
+Good old Arcturion! Maternal craft; that rocked me so often in thy heart
+of oak, I grieve to tell how I deserted thee on the broad deep. So far
+from home, with  such a motley crew, so many islanders, whose heathen
+babble echoing through thy Christian hull, must have grated harshly on
+every carline.
+
+Old ship! where sails thy lone ghost now? For of the stout Arcturion no
+word was ever heard, from the dark hour we pushed from her fated planks.
+In what time of tempest, to what seagull's scream, the drowning eddies
+did their work, knows no mortal man. Sunk she silently, helplessly, into
+the calm depths of that summer sea, assassinated by the ruthless blade
+of the swordfish? Such things have been. Or was hers a better fate?
+Stricken down while gallantly battling with the blast; her storm-sails
+set; helm manned; and every sailor at his post; as sunk the Hornet, her
+men at quarters, in some distant gale.
+
+But surmises are idle. A very old craft, she may have foundered; or laid
+her bones upon some treacherous reef; but as with many a far rover, her
+fate is a mystery.
+
+Pray Heaven, the spirit of that lost vessel roaming abroad through the
+troubled mists of midnight gales--as old mariners believe of missing
+ships--may never haunt my future path upon the waves. Peacefully may she
+rest at the bottom of the sea; and sweetly sleep my shipmates in the
+lowest watery zone, where prowling sharks come not, nor billows roll.
+
+By quitting the Arcturion when we did, Jarl and I unconsciously eluded a
+sailor's grave. We hear of providential deliverances. Was this one? But
+life is sweet to all, death comes as hard. And for myself I am almost
+tempted to hang my head, that I escaped the fate of my shipmates;
+something like him who blushed to have escaped the fell carnage at
+Thermopylae.
+
+Though I can not repress a shudder when I think of that old ship's end,
+it is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our deserting her
+could have been in any way instrumental in her loss. Nevertheless, I
+would to heaven the Arcturion still floated; that it was given me once
+more to tread her familiar decks.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII They Push Off, Velis Et Remis
+
+
+And now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand
+miles from land, we embarked upon this western voyage.
+
+It was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the helm
+now coming on was of course to be avoided. On some plausible pretense, I
+induced our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving myself
+untrammeled, and at the same time satisfactorily disposing of him. For
+being a rather fat fellow, an enormous consumer of "duff," and with good
+reason supposed to be the son of a farmer, I made no doubt, he would
+pursue his old course and fall to nodding over the wheel. As for the
+leader of the watch--our harpooner--he fell heir to the nest of old
+jackets, under the lee of the mizzen-mast, left nice and warm by his
+predecessor.
+
+The night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no trace
+of a moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at night near
+the Line, half shrouded the stars from view.
+
+Waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch
+had gone below, I motioned to Jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our
+feet. He then descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft toward
+the quarter-deck. All was still. Thrice did I pass my hand full before
+the face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right between him and
+the light of the binnacle.
+
+Mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. I feared to approach
+him. He lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more delay. Risks
+must be run, when time presses. And our ears were a pointer's to catch a
+sound.
+
+To work we went, without hurry, but swiftly and silently. Our various
+stores were dragged from their lurking-places, and placed in the boat,
+which hung from the ship's lee side, the side depressed in the water, an
+indispensable requisite to an attempt at escape. And though at sundown
+the boat was to windward, yet, as we had foreseen, the vessel having
+been tacked during the first watch, brought it to leeward.
+
+Endeavoring to manhandle our clumsy breaker, and lift it into the boat,
+we found, that by reason of the intervention of the shrouds, it could
+not be done without, risking a jar; besides straining the craft in
+lowering. An expedient, however, though at the eleventh hour, was hit
+upon. Fastening a long rope to the breaker, which was perfectly tight,
+we cautiously dropped it overboard; paying out enough line, to insure
+its towing astern of the ship, so as not to strike against the copper.
+The other end of the line we then secured to the boat's stern.
+
+Fortunately, this was the last thing to be done; for the breaker, acting
+as a clog to the vessel's way in the water, so affected her steering as
+to fling her perceptibly into the wind. And by causing the helm to work,
+this must soon rouse the lubber there stationed, if not already awake.
+But our dropping overboard the breaker greatly aided us in this respect:
+it diminished the ship's headway; which owing to the light breeze had
+not been very great at any time during the night. Had it been so, all
+hope of escaping without first arresting the vessel's progress, would
+have been little short of madness. As it was, the sole daring of the
+deed that night achieved, consisted in our lowering away while the ship
+yet clove the brine, though but moderately.
+
+All was now ready: the cranes swung in, the lashings adrift, and the
+boat fairly suspended; when, seizing the ends of the tackle ropes, we
+silently stepped into it, one at each end. The dead weight of the
+breaker astern now dragged the craft horizontally through the air, so
+that her tackle ropes strained hard. She quivered like a dolphin.
+Nevertheless, had we not feared her loud splash upon striking the wave,
+we might have quitted the ship almost as silently as the breath the
+body. But this was out of the question, and our plans were laid
+accordingly.
+
+"All ready, Jarl?"
+
+"Ready."
+
+"A man overboard!" I shouted at the top of my compass; and like
+lightning the cords slid through our blistering hands, and with a
+tremendous shock the boat bounded on the sea's back. One mad sheer and
+plunge, one terrible strain on the tackles as we sunk in the trough of
+the waves, tugged upon by the towing breaker, and our knives severed the
+tackle ropes--we hazarded not unhooking the blocks--our oars were out,
+and the good boat headed round, with prow to leeward.
+
+"Man overboard!" was now shouted from stem to stern. And directly we
+heard the confused tramping and shouting of the sailors, as they rushed
+from their dreams into the almost inscrutable darkness.
+
+"Man overboard! Man overboard!" My heart smote me as the human cry of
+horror came out of the black vaulted night.
+
+"Down helm!" was soon heard from the chief mate. "Back the main-yard!
+Quick to the boats! How's this? One down already? Well done! Hold on,
+then, those other boats!"
+
+Meanwhile several seamen were shouting as they strained at the braces.
+
+"Cut! cut all! Lower away! lower away!" impatiently cried the sailors,
+who already had leaped into the boats.
+
+"Heave the ship to, and hold fast every thing," cried the captain,
+apparently just springing to the deck. "One boat's enough. Steward; show
+a light there from the mizzen-top. Boat ahoy!--Have you got that man?"
+
+No reply. The voice came out of a cloud; the ship dimly showing like a
+ghost. We had desisted from rowing, and hand over hand were now hauling
+in upon the rope attached to the breaker, which we soon lifted into the
+boat, instantly resuming our oars.
+
+"Pull! pull, men! and save him!" again shouted the captain.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," answered Jarl instinctively, "pulling as hard as ever we
+can, sir."
+
+And pull we did, till nothing could be heard from the ship but a
+confused tumult; and, ever and anon, the hoarse shout of the captain,
+too distant to be understood.
+
+We now set our sail to a light air; and right into the darkness, and
+dead to leeward, we rowed and sailed till morning dawned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX The Watery World Is All Before Them
+
+
+At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land!
+
+Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a speck
+to windward broke the even line of the horizon. It was the ship wending
+her way north-eastward.
+
+Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters as
+that which the Arcturion's crew must have imputed to the night past (did
+not the skipper suspect the truth) I would have regarded that little
+speck with many compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it was, did I feel
+in any very serene humor. For the consciousness of being deemed dead, is
+next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality. One feels
+like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass. Even Jarl's
+glance seemed so queer, that I begged him to look another way.
+
+Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he most
+probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of returning
+to the ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution that had thus
+far nerved me, began to succumb in a measure to the awful loneliness of
+the scene. Ere this, I had regarded the ocean as a slave, the steed that
+bore me whither I listed, and whose vicious propensities, mighty though
+they were, often proved harmless, when opposed to the genius of man. But
+now, how changed! In our frail boat, I would fain have built an altar to
+Neptune.
+
+What a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly shouldered us
+from crest to crest, as from hand to hand lost souls may be tossed along
+by the chain of shades which enfilade the route to Tartarus.
+
+But drown or swim, here's overboard with care! Cheer up, Jarl! Ha! Ha!
+how merrily, yet terribly, we sail! Up, up--slowly up--toiling up the
+long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on a
+rail; and down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till
+arrested, we glide upward again. And thus did we go. Now buried in
+watery hollows--our sail idly flapping; then lifted aloft--canvas
+bellying; and beholding the furthest horizon.
+
+Had not our familiarity with the business of whaling divested our
+craft's wild motions of its first novel horrors, we had been but a
+rueful pair. But day-long pulls after whales, the ship left miles
+astern; and entire dark nights passed moored to the monsters, killed too
+late to be towed to the ship far to leeward:--all this, and much more,
+accustoms one to strange things. Death, to be sure, has a mouth as black
+as a wolf's, and to be thrust into his jaws is a serious thing. But true
+it most certainly is--and I speak from no hearsay--that to sailors, as a
+class, the grisly king seems not half so hideous as he appears to those
+who have only regarded him on shore, and at a deferential distance. Like
+many ugly mortals, his features grow less frightful upon acquaintance;
+and met over often and sociably, the old adage holds true, about
+familiarity breeding contempt. Thus too with soldiers. Of the quaking
+recruit, three pitched battles make a grim grenadier; and he who shrank
+from the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready to yield his mustache for a
+sponge.
+
+And truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant souls will
+taunt him while they may. Yet rather, should the wise regard him as the
+inflexible friend, who, even against our own wills, from life's evils
+triumphantly relieves us.
+
+And there is but little difference in the manner of dying. To die, is
+all. And death has been gallantly encountered by those who never beheld
+blood that was red, only its light azure seen through the veins. And to
+yield the ghost proudly, and march out of your fortress with all the
+honors of war, is not a thing of sinew and bone. Though in prison,
+Geoffry Hudson, the dwarf, died more bravely than Goliah, the giant; and
+the last end of a butterfly shames us all. Some women have lived nobler
+lives, and died nobler deaths, than men. Threatened with the stake,
+mitred Cranmer recanted; but through her fortitude, the lorn widow of
+Edessa stayed the tide of Valens' persecutions. 'Tis no great valor to
+perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete.
+For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never
+surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one's bed, transcends the death of
+Epaminondas.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make
+Things Comfortable
+
+
+Our little craft was soon in good order. From the spare rigging brought
+along, we made shrouds to the mast, and converted the boat-hook into a
+handy boom for the jib. Going large before the wind, we set this sail
+wing-and-wing with the main-sail. The latter, in accordance with the
+customary rig of whale-boats, was worked with a sprit and sheet. It
+could be furled or set in an instant. The bags of bread we stowed away
+in the covered space about the loggerhead, a useless appurtenance now,
+and therefore removed. At night, Jarl used it for a pillow; saying, that
+when the boat rolled it gave easy play to his head. The precious breaker
+we lashed firmly amidships; thereby much improving our sailing.
+
+Now, previous to leaving the ship, we had seen to it well, that our
+craft was supplied with all those equipments, with which, by the
+regulations of the fishery, a whale-boat is constantly provided: night
+and day, afloat or suspended. Hanging along our gunwales inside, were
+six harpoons, three lances, and a blubber-spade; all keen as razors, and
+sheathed with leather. Besides these, we had three waifs, a couple of
+two-gallon water-kegs, several bailers, the boat-hatchet for cutting the
+whale-line, two auxiliary knives for the like purpose, and several minor
+articles, also employed in hunting the leviathan. The line and line-tub,
+however, were on ship-board.
+
+And here it may be mentioned, that to prevent the strain upon the boat
+when suspended to the ship's side, the heavy whale-line, over two
+hundred fathoms in length, and something more than an inch in diameter,
+when not in use is kept on ship-board, coiled away like an endless snake
+in its tub. But this tub is always in readiness to be launched into the
+boat. Now, having no use for the line belonging to our craft, we had
+purposely left it behind.
+
+But well had we marked that by far the most important item of a whale-boat's furniture was snugly secured in its place. This was the water-tight keg, at both ends firmly headed, containing a small compass,
+tinder-box and flint, candles, and a score or two of biscuit. This keg
+is an invariable precaution against what so frequently occurs in
+pursuing the sperm whale--prolonged absence from the ship, losing sight
+of her, or never seeing her more, till years after you reach home again.
+In this same keg of ours seemed coopered up life and death, at least so
+seemed it to honest Jarl. No sooner had we got clear from the Arcturion,
+than dropping his oar for an instant, he clutched at it in the dark.
+
+And when day at last came, we knocked out the head of the keg with the
+little hammer and chisel, always attached to it for that purpose, and
+removed the compass, that glistened to us like a human eye. Then filling
+up the vacancy with biscuit, we again made all tight, driving down the
+hoops till they would budge no more.
+
+At first we were puzzled to fix our compass. But at last the Skyeman out
+knife, and cutting a round hole in the after-most thwart, or seat of the
+boat, there inserted the little brass case containing the needle.
+
+Over the stern of the boat, with some old canvas which my Viking's
+forethought had provided, we spread a rude sort of awning, or rather
+counterpane. This, however, proved but little or no protection from the
+glare of the sun; for the management of the main-sail forbade any
+considerable elevation of the shelter. And when the breeze was fresh, we
+were fain to strike it altogether; for the wind being from aft, and
+getting underneath the canvas, almost lifted the light boat's stem into
+the air, vexing the counterpane as if it were a petticoat turning a
+gusty corner. But when a mere breath rippled the sea, and the sun was
+fiery hot, it was most pleasant to lounge in this shady asylum. It was
+like being transferred from the roast to cool in the cupboard. And Jarl,
+much the toughest fowl of the two, out of an abundant kindness for his
+comrade, during the day voluntarily remained exposed at the helm, almost
+two hours to my one. No lady-like scruples had he, the old Viking, about
+marring his complexion, which already was more than bronzed. Over the
+ordinary tanning of the sailor, he seemed masked by a visor of
+japanning, dotted all over with freckles, so intensely yellow, and
+symmetrically circular, that they seemed scorched there by a burning
+glass.
+
+In the tragico-comico moods which at times overtook me, I used to look
+upon the brown Skyeman with humorous complacency. If we fall in with
+cannibals, thought I, then, ready-roasted Norseman that thou art, shall
+I survive to mourn thee; at least, during the period I revolve upon the
+spit.
+
+But of such a fate, it needs hardly be said, we had no apprehension.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw
+
+
+If ever again I launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, I
+shall take good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with a
+rattle-box head. Be he never so silly, his very silliness, so long as he
+be lively at it, shall be its own excuse.
+
+Upon occasion, who likes not a lively loon, one of your giggling,
+gamesome oafs, whose mouth is a grin? Are not such, well-ordered
+dispensations of Providence? filling up vacuums, in intervals of social
+stagnation relieving the tedium of existing? besides keeping up, here
+and there, in very many quarters indeed, sundry people's good opinion of
+themselves? What, if at times their speech is insipid as water after
+wine? What, if to ungenial and irascible souls, their very "mug" is an
+exasperation to behold, their clack an inducement to suicide? Let us not
+be hard upon them for this; but let them live on for the good they may
+do.
+
+But Jarl, dear, dumb Jarl, thou wert none of these. Thou didst carry a
+phiz like an excommunicated deacon's. And no matter what happened, it
+was ever the same. Quietly, in thyself, thou didst revolve upon thine
+own sober axis, like a wheel in a machine which forever goes round,
+whether you look at it or no. Ay, Jarl! wast thou not forever intent
+upon minding that which so many neglect--thine own especial business?
+Wast thou not forever at it, too, with no likelihood of ever winding up
+thy moody affairs, and striking a balance sheet?
+
+But at times how wearisome to me these everlasting reveries in my one
+solitary companion. I longed for something enlivening; a burst of words;
+human vivacity of one kind or other. After in vain essaying to get
+something of this sort out of Jarl, I tried it all by myself; playing
+upon my body as upon an instrument; singing, halloing, and making empty
+gestures, till my Viking stared hard; and I myself paused to consider
+whether I had run crazy or no.
+
+But how account for the Skyeman's gravity? Surely, it was based upon no
+philosophic taciturnity; he was nothing of an idealist; an aerial
+architect; a constructor of flying buttresses. It was inconceivable,
+that his reveries were Manfred-like and exalted, reminiscent of
+unutterable deeds, too mysterious even to be indicated by the remotest
+of hints. Suppositions all out of the question.
+
+His ruminations were a riddle. I asked him anxiously, whether, in any
+part of the world, Savannah, Surat, or Archangel, he had ever a wife to
+think of; or children, that he carried so lengthy a phiz. Nowhere
+neither. Therefore, as by his own confession he had nothing to think of
+but himself, and there was little but honesty in him (having which, by
+the way, he may be thought full to the brim), what could I fall back
+upon but my original theory: namely, that in repose, his intellects
+stepped out, and left his body to itself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII More About Being In An Open Boat
+
+
+On the third morning, at break of day, I sat at the steering oar, an
+hour or two previous having relieved Jarl, now fast asleep. Somehow, and
+suddenly, a sense of peril so intense, came over me, that it could
+hardly have been aggravated by the completest solitude.
+
+On a ship's deck, the mere feeling of elevation above the water, and the
+reach of prospect you command, impart a degree of confidence which
+disposes you to exult in your fancied security. But in an open boat,
+brought down to the very plane of the sea, this feeling almost wholly
+deserts you. Unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip
+upon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is little larger
+than it would be at the bottom of a well. At best, your most extended
+view in any one direction, at least, is in a high, slow-rolling sea;
+when you descend into the dark, misty spaces, between long and uniform
+swells. Then, for the moment, it is like looking up and down in a
+twilight glade, interminable; where two dawns, one on each hand, seem
+struggling through the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains.
+
+But, lingering not long in those silent vales, from watery cliff to
+cliff, a sea-chamois, sprang our solitary craft,--a goat among the Alps!
+
+How undulated the horizon; like a vast serpent with ten thousand folds
+coiled all round the globe; yet so nigh, apparently, that it seemed as
+if one's hand might touch it.
+
+What loneliness; when the sun rose, and spurred up the heavens, we
+hailed him as a wayfarer in Sahara the sight of a distant horseman. Save
+ourselves, the sun and the Chamois seemed all that was left of life in
+the universe. We yearned toward its jocund disk, as in strange lands the
+traveler joyfully greets a face from home, which there had passed
+unheeded. And was not the sun a fellow-voyager? were we not both wending
+westward? But how soon he daily overtook and passed us; hurrying to his
+journey's end.
+
+When a week had gone by, sailing steadily on, by day and by night, and
+nothing in sight but this self-same sea, what wonder if disquieting
+thoughts at last entered our hearts? If unknowingly we should pass the
+spot where, according to our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what
+shoreless sea would we launch? At times, these forebodings bewildered my
+idea of the positions of the groups beyond. All became vague and
+confused; so that westward of the Kingsmil isles and the Radack chain, I
+fancied there could be naught but an endless sea.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting
+The South Seas
+
+
+At intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which diversified
+the scene; especially when the constellation Pisces was in the
+ascendant.
+
+It's famous botanizing, they say, in Arkansas' boundless prairies; I
+commend the student of Ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean moors
+of the Pacific. As your craft glides along, what strange monsters float
+by. Elsewhere, was never seen their like. And nowhere are they found in
+the books of the naturalists.
+
+Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown. And
+whoso crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a garden worm.
+There are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and more sights
+unrevealed than you or I ever ever dreamt of. Moles and bats alone
+should be skeptics; and the only true infidelity is for a live man to
+vote himself dead. Be Sir Thomas Brown our ensample; who, while
+exploding "Vulgar Errors," heartily hugged all the mysteries in the
+Pentateuch.
+
+But look! fathoms down in the sea; where ever saw you a phantom like
+that? An enormous crescent with antlers like a reindeer, and a Delta of
+mouths. Slowly it sinks, and is seen no more.
+
+Doctor Faust saw the devil; but you have seen the "Devil Fish."
+
+Look again! Here comes another. Jarl calls it a Bone Shark. Full as
+large as a whale, it is spotted like a leopard; and tusk-like teeth
+overlap its jaws like those of the walrus. To seamen, nothing strikes
+more terror than the near vicinity of a creature like this. Great ships
+steer out of its path. And well they may; since the good craft Essex,
+and others, have been sunk by sea-monsters, as the alligator thrusts his
+horny snout through a Carribean canoe.
+
+Ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from
+the extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed.
+
+For the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by hundreds;
+but by thousands and by myriads. Trust me, there are more sharks in the
+sea than mortals on land.
+
+And of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs.
+But by the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening the
+sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are
+classed under one family; which family, according to Muller, king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous tribe of the
+Chondropterygii.
+
+To begin. There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so called
+by sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard
+knocks received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar. At
+times, these gentry swim in herds; especially about the remains of a
+slaughtered whale. They are the vultures of the deep.
+
+Then we often encountered the dandy Blue Shark, a long, taper and mighty
+genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a Bond-street beau,
+and the whitest tiers of teeth imaginable. This dainty spark invariably
+lounged by with a careless fin and an indolent tail. But he looked
+infernally heartless.
+
+How his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude, savage
+swagger of the Tiger Shark; a round, portly gourmand; with distended
+mouth and collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom he might
+devour. These gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in
+the South Seas, picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a
+tit-bit, a stray sailor. No wonder, then, that sailors denounce them. In
+substance, Jarl once assured me, that under any temporary misfortune, it
+was one of his sweetest consolations to remember, that in his day, he
+had murdered, not killed, shoals of Tiger Sharks.
+
+Yet this is all wrong. As well hate a seraph, as a shark. Both were made
+by the same hand. And that sharks are lovable, witness their domestic
+endearments. No Fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable side. In
+the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her cub, as Hagar did
+Ishmael; or a queen of France the dauphin. We know not what we do when
+we hate. And I have the word of my gentlemanly friend Stanhope, for it;
+that he who declared he loved a good hater was but a respectable sort of
+Hottentot, at best. No very genteel epithet this, though coming from the
+genteelest of men. But when the digger of dictionaries said that saying
+of his, he was assuredly not much of a Christian. However, it is hard
+for one given up to constitutional hypos like him; to be filled with the
+milk and meekness of the gospels. Yet, with deference, I deny that my
+old uncle Johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him. Love
+a hater, indeed! Who smacks his lips over gall? Now hate is a thankless
+thing. So, let us only hate hatred; and once give love play, we will
+fall in love with a unicorn. Ah! the easiest way is the best; and to
+hate, a man must work hard. Love is a delight; but hate a torment. And
+haters are thumbscrews, Scotch boots, and Spanish inquisitions to
+themselves. In five words--would they were a Siamese diphthong--he who
+hates is a fool.
+
+For several days our Chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid
+Tiger Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our
+wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till
+you come to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a bootless
+errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until completely out of
+sight. Much to the Skyeman's chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance
+poised for a dart.
+
+But of all sharks, save me from the ghastly White Shark. For though we
+should hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and disliking is
+not hating. And never yet could I bring myself to be loving, or even
+sociable, with a White Shark. He is not the sort of creature to enlist
+young affections.
+
+This ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by
+night than by day. Timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding along
+just under the surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a milky hue;
+with glimpses now and then of his bottomless white pit of teeth. No need
+of a dentist hath he. Seen at night, stealing along like a spirit in the
+water, with horrific serenity of aspect, the White Shark sent many a
+thrill to us twain in the Chamois.
+
+By day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the
+ponderous sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he
+fetched a long breath after napping below.
+
+And time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the
+chain-plate armor and golden scales; the Nimrod of the seas, to whom so
+many flying fish fall a prey. Flying from their pursuers, many of them
+flew into our boat. But invariably they died from the shock. No nursing
+could restore them. One of their wings I removed, spreading it out to
+dry under a weight. In two days' time the thin membrane, all over
+tracings like those of a leaf, was transparent as isinglass, and tinted
+with brilliant hues, like those of a changing silk.
+
+Almost every day, we spied Black Fish; coal-black and glossy. They
+seemed to swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel;
+their dorsal fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes.
+
+Of a somewhat similar species, but smaller, and clipper-built about the
+nose, were the Algerines; so called, probably, from their corsair
+propensities; waylaying peaceful fish on the high seas, and plundering
+them of body and soul at a gulp. Atrocious Turks! a crusade should be
+preached against them.
+
+Besides all these, we encountered Killers and Thrashers, by far the most
+spirited and "spunky" of the finny tribes. Though little larger than a
+porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan himself.
+They bait the monster, as dogs a bull. The Killers seizing the Right
+whale by his immense, sulky lower lip, and the Thrashers fastening on to
+his back, and beating him with their sinewy tails. Often they come off
+conquerors, worrying the enemy to death. Though, sooth to say, if
+leviathan gets but one sweep al them with his terrible tail, they go
+flying into the air, as if tossed from Taurus' horn.
+
+This sight we beheld. Had old Wouvermans, who once painted a bull bait,
+been along with us, a rare chance, that, for his pencil. And Gudin or
+Isabey might have thrown the blue rolling sea into the picture. Lastly,
+one of Claude's setting summer suns would have glorified the whole. Oh,
+believe me, God's creatures fighting, fin for fin, a thousand miles from
+land, and with the round horizon for an arena; is no ignoble subject for
+a masterpiece.
+
+Such are a few of the sights of the great South Sea. But there is no
+telling all. The Pacific is populous as China.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV Jarl's Misgivings
+
+
+About this time an event took place. My good Viking opened his mouth,
+and spoke. The prodigy occurred, as, jacknife in hand, he was bending
+over the midship oar; on the loom, or handle, of which he kept our
+almanac; making a notch for every set sun. For some forty-eight hours
+past, the wind had been light and variable. It was more than suspected
+that a current was sweeping us northward.
+
+Now, marking these things, Jarl threw out the thought, that the more
+wind, and the less current, the better; and if a long calm came on, of
+which there was some prospect, we had better take to our oars.
+
+Take to our oars! as if we were crossing a ferry, and no ocean leagues
+to traverse. The idea indirectly suggested all possible horrors. To be
+rid of them forthwith, I proceeded to dole out our morning meal. For to
+make away with such things, there is nothing better than bolting
+something down on top of them; albeit, oft repeated, the plan is very
+apt to beget dyspepsia; and the dyspepsia the blues.
+
+But what of our store of provisions? So far as enough to eat was
+concerned, we felt not the slightest apprehension; our supplies proving
+more abundant than we had anticipated. But, curious to tell, we felt but
+little inclination for food. It was water, bright water, cool, sparkling
+water, alone, that we craved. And of this, also, our store at first
+seemed ample. But as our voyage lengthened, and breezes blew faint, and
+calms fell fast, the idea of being deprived of the precious fluid grew
+into something little short of a mono-mania; especially with Jarl.
+
+Every hour or two with the hammer and chisel belonging to the tinder box
+keg, he tinkered away at the invaluable breaker; driving down the hoops,
+till in his over solicitude, I thought he would burst them outright.
+
+Now the breaker lay on its bilge, in the middle of the boat, where more
+or less sea-water always collected. And ever and anon, dipping his
+finger therein, my Viking was troubled with the thought, that this sea-water tasted less brackish than that alongside. Of course the breaker
+must be leaking. So, he would turn it over, till its wet side came
+uppermost; when it would quickly become dry as a bone. But now, with his
+knife, he would gently probe the joints of the staves; shake his head;
+look up; look down; taste of the water in the bottom of the boat; then
+that of the sea; then lift one end of the breaker; going through with
+every test of leakage he could dream of. Nor was he ever fully
+satisfied, that the breaker was in all respects sound. But in reality it
+was tight as the drum-heads that beat at Cerro-Gordo. Oh! Jarl, Jarl: to
+me in the boat's quiet stern, steering and philosophizing at one time
+and the same, thou and thy breaker were a study.
+
+Besides the breaker, we had, full of water, the two boat-kegs,
+previously alluded to. These were first used. We drank from them by
+their leaden spouts; so many swallows three times in the day; having no
+other means of measuring an allowance. But when we came to the breaker,
+which had only a bung-hole, though a very large one, dog-like, it was so
+many laps apiece; jealously counted by the observer. This plan, however,
+was only good for a single day; the water then getting beyond the reach
+of the tongue. We therefore daily poured from the breaker into one of
+the kegs; and drank from its spout. But to obviate the absorption
+inseparable from decanting, we at last hit upon something better,--my
+comrade's shoe, which, deprived of its quarters, narrowed at the heel,
+and diligently rinsed out in the sea, was converted into a handy but
+rather limber ladle. This we kept suspended in the bung-hole of the
+breaker, that it might never twice absorb the water.
+
+Now pewter imparts flavor to ale; a Meerschaum bowl, the same to the
+tobacco of Smyrna; and goggle green glasses are deemed indispensable to
+the bibbing of Hock. What then shall be said of a leathern goblet for
+water? Try it, ye mariners who list.
+
+One morning, taking his wonted draught, Jarl fished up in his ladle a
+deceased insect; something like a Daddy-long-legs, only more corpulent.
+Its fate? A sea-toss? Believe it not; with all those precious drops
+clinging to its lengthy legs. It was held over the ladle till the last
+globule dribbled; and even then, being moist, honest Jarl was but loth
+to drop it overboard.
+
+For our larder, we could not endure the salt beef; it was raw as a live
+Abyssinian steak, and salt as Cracow. Besides, the Feegee simile would
+not have held good with respect to it. It was far from being "tender as
+a dead man." The biscuit only could we eat; not to be wondered at; for
+even on shipboard, seamen in the tropics are but sparing feeders.
+
+And here let not, a suggestion be omitted, most valuable to any future
+castaway or sailaway as the case may be. Eat not your biscuit dry; but
+dip it in the sea: which makes it more bulky and palatable. During meal
+times it was soak and sip with Jarl and me: one on each side of the
+Chamois dipping our biscuit in the brine. This plan obviated finger-glasses at the conclusion of our repast. Upon the whole, dwelling upon
+the water is not so bad after all. The Chinese are no fools. In the
+operation of making your toilet, how handy to float in your ewer!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
+
+
+Like most silent earnest sort of people, my good Viking was a pattern of
+industry. When in the boats after whales, I have known him carry along a
+roll of sinnate to stitch into a hat. And the boats lying motionless for
+half an hour or so, waiting the rising of the chase, his fingers would
+be plying at their task, like an old lady knitting. Like an experienced
+old-wife too, his digits had become so expert and conscientious, that
+his eyes left them alone; deeming optic supervision unnecessary. And on
+this trip of ours, when not otherwise engaged, he was quite as busy with
+his fingers as ever: unraveling old Cape Horn hose, for yarn wherewith
+to darn our woolen frocks; with great patches from the skirts of a
+condemned reefing jacket, panneling the seats of our "ducks;" in short,
+veneering our broken garments with all manner of choice old broadcloths.
+
+With the true forethought of an old tar, he had brought along with him
+nearly the whole contents of his chest. His precious "Ditty Bag,"
+containing his sewing utensils, had been carefully packed away in the
+bottom of one of his bundles; of which he had as many as an old maid on
+her travels. In truth, an old salt is very much of an old maid, though,
+strictly speaking, far from deserving that misdeemed appellative. Better
+be an old maid, a woman with herself for a husband, than the wife of a
+fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise
+man knows himself to be one. When playing the sempstress, Jarl's
+favorite perch was the triangular little platform in the bow; which
+being the driest and most elevated part of the boat, was best adapted to
+his purpose. Here for hours and hours together the honest old tailor
+would sit darning and sewing away, heedless of the wide ocean around;
+while forever, his slouched Guayaquil hat kept bobbing up and down
+against the horizon before us.
+
+It was a most solemn avocation with him. Silently he nodded like the
+still statue in the opera of Don Juan. Indeed he never spoke, unless to
+give pithy utterance to the wisdom of keeping one's wardrobe in repair.
+But herein my Viking at times waxed oracular. And many's the hour we
+glided along, myself deeply pondering in the stem, hand upon helm; while
+crosslegged at the other end of the boat Jarl laid down patch upon
+patch, and at long intervals precept upon precept; here several saws,
+and there innumerable stitches.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI They Are Becalmed
+
+
+On the eighth day there was a calm.
+
+It came on by night: so that waking at daybreak, and folding my arms
+over the gunwale, I looked out upon a scene very hard to describe. The
+sun was still beneath the horizon; perhaps not yet out of sight from the
+plains of Paraguay. But the dawn was too strong for the stars; which,
+one by one, had gone out, like waning lamps after a ball.
+
+Now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character from
+what it reflects; so in a calm in the Tropics, a colorless sky overhead,
+the ocean, upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of existence. The
+deep blue is gone; and the glassy element lies tranced; almost viewless
+as the air.
+
+But that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed
+collapsed into a vague ellipsis. And alike, the Chamois seemed drifting
+in the atmosphere as in the sea. Every thing was fused into the calm:
+sky, air, water, and all. Not a fish was to be seen. The silence was
+that of a vacuum. No vitality lurked in the air. And this inert blending
+and brooding of all things seemed gray chaos in conception.
+
+This calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few
+cat's-paws of wind varied the scene. They were faint as the breath of
+one dying.
+
+At times the heat was intense. The heavens, at midday, glowing like an
+ignited coal mine. Our skin curled up like lint; our vision became dim;
+the brain dizzy.
+
+To our consternation, the water in the breaker became lukewarm,
+brackish, and slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept our spare
+clothing piled upon the breaker, to shield it from the sun. At last,
+Jarl enlarged the vent, carefully keeping it exposed. To this
+precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then thought. It was now
+deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the smallest modicum
+consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling all desire
+for more.
+
+Nor was this all. The upper planking of the boat began to warp; here and
+there, cracking and splintering. But though we kept it moistened with
+brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the sharp,
+sudden sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both to spring
+to our feet. Instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift to secure the
+rebellious plank with a cord, not having a nail; we then bailed out the
+boat, nearly half full of water.
+
+On the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its
+being pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells
+now overtaking us. Leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging,
+some tempest must have been sending to us its last dying waves. For as a
+pebble dropped into a pond ruffles it to its marge; so, on all sides, a
+sea-gale operates as if an asteroid had fallen into the brine; making
+ringed mountain billows, interminably expanding, instead of ripples.
+
+The great September waves breaking at the base of the Neversink
+Highlands, far in advance of the swiftest pilot-boat, carry tidings. And
+full often, they know the last secret of many a stout ship, never heard
+of from the day she left port. Every wave in my eyes seems a soul.
+
+As there was no steering to be done, Jarl and I sheltered ourselves as
+well as we could under the awning. And for the first two days, one at a
+time, and every three or four hours, we dropped overboard for a bath,
+clinging to the gun-wale; a sharp look-out being kept for prowling
+sharks. A foot or two below the surface, the water felt cool and
+refreshing.
+
+On the third day a change came over us. We relinquished bathing, the
+exertion taxing us too much. Sullenly we laid ourselves down; turned our
+backs to each other; and were impatient of the slightest casual touch of
+our persons. What sort of expression my own countenance wore, I know
+not; but I hated to look at Jarl's. When I did it was a glare, not a
+glance. I became more taciturn than he. I can not tell what it was that
+came over me, but I wished I was alone. I felt that so long as the calm
+lasted, we were without help; that neither could assist the other; and
+above all, that for one, the water would hold out longer than for two. I
+felt no remorse, not the slightest, for these thoughts. It was instinct.
+Like a desperado giving up the ghost, I desired to gasp by myself.
+
+From being cast away with a brother, good God deliver me!
+
+The four days passed. And on the morning of the fifth, thanks be to
+Heaven, there came a breeze. Dancingly, mincingly it came, just rippling
+the sea, until it struck our sails, previously set at the very first
+token of its advance. At length it slightly freshened; and our poor
+Chamois seemed raised from the dead.
+
+Beyond expression delightful! Once more we heard the low humming of the
+sea under our bow, as our boat, like a bird, went singing on its way.
+
+How changed the scene! Overhead, a sweet blue haze, distilling sunlight
+in drops. And flung abroad over the visible creation was the sun-spangled, azure, rustling robe of the ocean, ermined with wave crests;
+all else, infinitely blue. Such a cadence of musical sounds! Waves
+chasing each other, and sporting and frothing in frolicsome foam:
+painted fish rippling past; and anon the noise of wings as sea-fowls
+flew by.
+
+Oh, Ocean, when thou choosest to smile, more beautiful thou art than
+flowery mead or plain!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita
+
+
+There were now fourteen notches on the loom of the Skyeman's oar:--So
+many days since we had pushed from the fore-chains of the Arcturion. But
+as yet, no floating bough, no tern, noddy, nor reef-bird, to denote our
+proximity to land. In that long calm, whither might not the currents
+have swept us?
+
+Where we were precisely, we knew not; but according to our reckoning,
+the loose estimation of the knots run every hour, we must have sailed
+due west but little more than one hundred and fifty leagues; for the
+most part having encountered but light winds, and frequent intermitting
+calms, besides that prolonged one described. But spite of past calms and
+currents, land there must be to the westward. Sun, compass, stout
+hearts, and steady breezes, pointed our prow thereto. So courage! my
+Viking, and never say drown!
+
+At this time, our hearts were much lightened by discovering that our
+water was improving in taste. It seemed to have been undergoing anew
+that sort of fermentation, or working, occasionally incident to ship
+water shortly after being taken on board. Sometimes, for a period, it is
+more or less offensive to taste and smell; again, however, becoming
+comparatively limpid.
+
+But as our water improved, we grew more and more miserly of so priceless
+a treasure.
+
+And here it may be well to make mention of another little circumstance,
+however unsentimental. Thorough-paced tar that he was, my Viking was an
+inordinate consumer of the Indian weed. From the Arcturion, he had
+brought along with him a small half-keg, at bottom impacted with a
+solitary layer of sable Negrohead, fossil-marked, like the primary
+stratum of the geologists. It was the last tier of his abundant supply
+for the long whaling voyage upon which he had embarked upwards of three
+years previous. Now during the calm, and for some days after, poor
+Jarl's accustomed quid was no longer agreeable company. To pun: he
+eschewed his chew. I asked him wherefore. He replied that it puckered up
+his mouth, above all provoked thirst, and had somehow grown every way
+distasteful. I was sorry; for the absence of his before ever present wad
+impaired what little fullness there was left in his cheek; though, sooth
+to say, I no longer called upon him as of yore to shift over the
+enormous morsel to starboard or larboard, and so trim our craft.
+
+The calm gone by, once again my sea-tailor plied needle and thread; or
+turning laundress, hung our raiment to dry on oars peaked obliquely in
+the thole-pins. All of which tattered pennons, the wind being astern,
+helped us gayly on our way; as jolly poor devils, with rags flying in
+the breeze, sail blithely through life; and are merry although they are
+poor!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII My Lord Shark And His Pages
+
+
+There is a fish in the sea that evermore, like a surly lord, only goes
+abroad attended by his suite. It is the Shovel-nosed Shark. A clumsy
+lethargic monster, unshapely as his name, and the last species of his
+kind, one would think, to be so bravely waited upon, as he is. His suite
+is composed of those dainty little creatures called Pilot fish by
+sailors. But by night his retinue is frequently increased by the
+presence of several small luminous fish, running in advance, and
+flourishing their flambeaux like link-boys lighting the monster's way.
+Pity there were no ray-fish in rear, page-like, to carry his caudal
+train.
+
+Now the relation subsisting between the Pilot fish above mentioned and
+their huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable things in
+nature. At any rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. That a monster so
+ferocious, should suffer five or six little sparks, hardly fourteen
+inches long, to gambol about his grim hull with the utmost impunity, is
+of itself something strange. But when it is considered, that by a
+reciprocal understanding, the Pilot fish seem to act as scouts to the
+shark, warning him of danger, and apprising him of the vicinity of prey;
+and moreover, in case of his being killed, evincing their anguish by
+certain agitations, otherwise inexplicable; the whole thing becomes a
+mystery unfathomable. Truly marvels abound. It needs no dead man to be
+raised, to convince us of some things. Even my Viking marveled full as
+much at those Pilot fish as he would have marveled at the Pentecost.
+
+But perhaps a little incident, occurring about this period, will best
+illustrate the matter in hand.
+
+We were gliding along, hardly three knots an hour, when my comrade, who
+had been dozing over the gunwale, suddenly started to his feet, and
+pointed out an immense Shovel-nosed Shark, less than a boat's length
+distant, and about half a fathom beneath the surface. A lance was at
+once snatched from its place; and true to his calling, Jarl was about to
+dart it at the fish, when, interested by the sight of its radiant little
+scouts, I begged him to desist.
+
+One of them was right under the shark, nibbling at his ventral fin;
+another above, hovering about his dorsal appurtenance; one on each
+flank; and a frisking fifth pranking about his nose, seemingly having
+something to say of a confidential nature. They were of a bright, steel-blue color, alternated with jet black stripes; with glistening bellies
+of a silver-white. Clinging to the back of the shark, were four or five
+Remoras, or sucking-fish; snaky parasites, impossible to remove from
+whatever they adhere to, without destroying their lives. The Remora has
+little power in swimming; hence its sole locomotion is on the backs of
+larger fish. Leech-like, it sticketh closer than a false brother in
+prosperity; closer than a beggar to the benevolent; closer than Webster
+to the Constitution. But it feeds upon what it clings to; its feelers
+having a direct communication with the esophagus.
+
+The shark swam sluggishly; creating no sign of a ripple, but ever and,
+anon shaking his Medusa locks, writhing and curling with horrible life.
+Now and then, the nimble Pilot fish darted from his side--this way and
+that--mostly toward our boat; but previous to taking a fresh start ever
+returning to their liege lord to report progress.
+
+A thought struck me. Baiting a rope's end with a morsel of our almost
+useless salt beef, I suffered it to trail in the sea. Instantly the
+foremost scout swam toward it; hesitated; paused; but at last advancing,
+briskly snuffed at the line, and taking one finical little nibble,
+retreated toward the shark. Another moment, and the great Tamerlane
+himself turned heavily about; pointing his black, cannon-like nose
+directly toward our broadside. Meanwhile, the little Pilot fish darted
+hither and thither; keeping up a mighty fidgeting, like men of small
+minds in a state of nervous agitation.
+
+Presently, Tamerlane swam nearer and nearer, all the while lazily eyeing
+the Chamois, as a wild boar a kid. Suddenly making a rush for it, in the
+foam he made away with the bait. But the next instant, the uplifted
+lance sped at his skull; and thrashing his requiem with his sinewy tail,
+he sunk slowly, through his own blood, out of sight. Down with him swam
+the terrified Pilot fish; but soon after, three of them were observed
+close to the boat, gliding along at a uniform pace; one an each side,
+and one in advance; even as they had attended their lord. Doubtless, one
+was under our keel.
+
+"A good omen," said Jarl; "no harm will befall us so long as they stay."
+
+But however that might be, follow us they did, for many days after:
+until an event occurred, which necessitated their withdrawal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX Who Goes There?
+
+
+Jarl's oar showed sixteen notches on the loom, when one evening, as the
+expanded sun touched the horizon's rim, a ship's uppermost spars were
+observed, traced like a spider's web against its crimson disk. It looked
+like a far-off craft on fire.
+
+In bright weather at sea, a sail, invisible in the full flood of noon,
+becomes perceptible toward sunset. It is the reverse in the morning. In
+sight at gray dawn, the distant vessel, though in reality approaching,
+recedes from view, as the sun rises higher and higher. This holds true,
+till its vicinity makes it readily fall within the ordinary scope of
+vision. And thus, too, here and there, with other distant things: the
+more light you throw on them, the more you obscure. Some revelations
+show best in a twilight.
+
+The sight of the stranger not a little surprised us. But brightening up,
+as if the encounter were welcome, Jarl looked happy and expectant. He
+quickly changed his demeanor, however, upon perceiving that I was bent
+upon shunning a meeting.
+
+Instantly our sails were struck; and calling upon Jarl, who was somewhat
+backward to obey, I shipped the oars; and, both rowing, we stood away
+obliquely from our former course.
+
+I divined that the vessel was a whaler; and hence, that by help of the
+glass, with which her look-outs must be momentarily sweeping the
+horizon, they might possibly have descried us; especially, as we were
+due east from the ship; a direction, which at sunset is the one most
+favorable for perceiving a far-off object at sea. Furthermore, our
+canvas was snow-white and conspicuous. To be sure, we could not be
+certain what kind of a vessel it was; but whatever it might be, I, for
+one, had no mind to risk an encounter; for it was quite plain, that if
+the stranger came within hailing distance, there would be no resource
+but to link our fortunes with hers; whereas I desired to pursue none but
+the Chamois'. As for the Skyeman, he kept looking wistfully over his
+shoulder; doubtless, praying Heaven, that we might not escape what I
+sought to avoid.
+
+Now, upon a closer scrutiny, being pretty well convinced that the
+stranger, after all, was steering a nearly westerly course--right away
+from us--we reset our sail; and as night fell, my Viking's entreaties,
+seconded by my own curiosity, induced me to resume our original course;
+and so follow after the vessel, with a view of obtaining a nearer
+glimpse, without danger of detection. So, boldly we steered for the
+sail.
+
+But not gaining much upon her, spite of the lightness of the breeze (a
+circumstance in our favor: the chase being a ship, and we but a boat),
+at my comrade's instigation, we added oars to sails, readily guiding our
+way by the former, though the helm was left to itself.
+
+As we came nearer, it was plain that the vessel was no whaler; but a
+small, two-masted craft; in short, a brigantine. Her sails were in a
+state of unaccountable disarray, only the foresail, mainsail, and jib
+being set. The first was much tattered; and the jib was hoisted but half
+way up the stay, where it idly flapped, the breeze coming from over the
+taffrail. She continually yawed in her course; now almost presenting her
+broadside, then showing her stern.
+
+Striking our sails once more, we lay on our oars, and watched her in the
+starlight. Still she swung from side to side, and still sailed on.
+
+Not a little terrified at the sight, superstitious Jarl more than
+insinuated that the craft must be a gold-huntress, haunted. But I told
+him, that if such were the case, we must board her, come gold or
+goblins. In reality, however, I began to think that she must have been
+abandoned by her crew; or else, that from sickness, those on board were
+incapable of managing her.
+
+After a long and anxious reconnoiter, we came still nearer, using our
+oars, but very reluctantly on Jarl's part; who, while rowing, kept his
+eyes over his shoulder, as if about to beach the little Chamois on the
+back of a whale as of yore. Indeed, he seemed full as impatient to quit
+the vicinity of the vessel, as before he had been anxiously courting it.
+
+Now, as the silent brigantine again swung round her broadside, I hailed
+her loudly. No return. Again. But all was silent. With a few vigorous
+strokes, we closed with her, giving yet another unanswered hail; when,
+laying the Chamois right alongside, I clutched at the main-chains.
+Instantly we felt her dragging us along. Securing our craft by its
+painter, I sprang over the rail, followed by Jarl, who had snatched his
+harpoon, his favorite arms. Long used with that weapon to overcome the
+monsters of the deep, he doubted not it would prove equally serviceable
+in any other encounter.
+
+The deck was a complete litter. Tossed about were pearl oyster shells,
+husks of cocoa-nuts, empty casks, and cases. The deserted tiller was
+lashed; which accounted for the vessel's yawing. But we could not
+conceive, how going large before the wind; the craft could, for any
+considerable time, at least, have guided herself without the help of a
+hand. Still, the breeze was light and steady.
+
+Now, seeing the helm thus lashed, I could not but distrust the silence
+that prevailed. It conjured up the idea of miscreants concealed below,
+and meditating treachery; unscrupulous mutineers--Lascars, or Manilla-men; who, having murdered the Europeans of the crew, might not be
+willing to let strangers depart unmolested. Or yet worse, the entire
+ship's company might have been swept away by a fever, its infection
+still lurking in the poisoned hull. And though the first conceit, as the
+last, was a mere surmise, it was nevertheless deemed prudent to secure
+the hatches, which for the present we accordingly barred down with the
+oars of our boat. This done, we went about the deck in search of water.
+And finding some in a clumsy cask, drank long and freely, and to our
+thirsty souls' content.
+
+The wind now freshening, and the rent sails like to blow from the yards,
+we brought the brigantine to the wind, and brailed up the canvas. This
+left us at liberty to examine the craft, though, unfortunately, the
+night was growing hazy.
+
+All this while our boat was still towing alongside; and I was about to
+drop it astern, when Jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where it
+was; since, if there were people on board, they would most likely be
+down in the cabin, from the dead-lights of which, mischief might be done
+to the Chamois.
+
+It was then, that my comrade observed, that the brigantine had no boats,
+a circumstance most unusual in any sort of a vessel at sea. But marking
+this, I was exceedingly gratified. It seemed to indicate, as I had
+opined, that from some cause or other, she must have been abandoned of
+her crew. And in a good measure this dispelled my fears of foul play,
+and the apprehension of contagion. Encouraged by these reflections, I
+now resolved to descend, and explore the cabin, though sorely against
+Jarl's counsel. To be sure, as he earnestly said, this step might have
+been deferred till daylight; but it seemed too wearisome to wait. So
+bethinking me of our tinder-box and candles, I sent him into the boat
+for them. Presently, two candles were lit; one of which the Skyeman tied
+up and down the barbed end of his harpoon; so that upon going below, the
+keen steel might not be far off, should the light be blown out by a
+dastard.
+
+Unfastening the cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest and
+murkiest den in the world. The altar-like transom, surmounted by the
+closed dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky-light
+overhead, and the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the place
+the air of some subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of Peter the
+Hermit. But coils of rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of clothing, and
+disorderly heaps of rubbish, harmonized not with this impression. Two
+doors, one on each side, led into wee little state-rooms, the berths of
+which also were littered. Among other things, was a large box, sheathed
+with iron and stoutly clamped, containing a keg partly filled with
+powder, the half of an old cutlass, a pouch of bullets, and a case for a
+sextant--a brass plate on the lid, with the maker's name. London. The
+broken blade of the cutlass was very rusty and stained; and the iron
+hilt bent in. It looked so tragical that I thrust it out of sight.
+
+Removing a small trap-door, opening into the space beneath, called the
+"run," we lighted upon sundry cutlasses and muskets, lying together at
+sixes and sevens, as if pitched down in a hurry.
+
+Casting round a hasty glance, and satisfying ourselves, that through the
+bulkhead of the cabin, there was no passage to the forward part of the
+hold, we caught up the muskets and cutlasses, the powder keg and the
+pouch of bullets, and bundling them on deck, prepared to visit the other
+end of the vessel. Previous to so doing, however, I loaded a musket, and
+belted a cutlass to my side. But my Viking preferred his harpoon.
+
+In the forecastle reigned similar confusion. But there was a snug little
+lair, cleared away in one corner, and furnished with a grass mat and
+bolster, like those used among the Islanders of these seas. This little
+lair looked to us as if some leopard had crouched there. And as it
+turned out, we were not far from right. Forming one side of this
+retreat, was a sailor's chest, stoutly secured by a lock, and monstrous
+heavy withal. Regardless of Jarl's entreaties, I managed to burst the
+lid; thereby revealing a motley assemblage of millinery, and outlandish
+knick-knacks of all sorts; together with sundry rude Calico
+contrivances, which though of unaccountable cut, nevertheless possessed
+a certain petticoatish air, and latitude of skirt, betokening them the
+habiliments of some feminine creature; most probably of the human
+species.
+
+In this strong box, also, was a canvas bag, jingling with rusty old
+bell-buttons, gangrened copper bolts, and sheathing nails; damp,
+greenish Carolus dollars (true coin all), besides divers iron screws,
+and battered, chisels, and belaying-pins. Sounded on the chest lid, the
+dollars rang clear as convent bells. These were put aside by Jarl the
+sight of substantial dollars doing away, for the nonce, with his
+superstitious Misgivings. True to his kingship, he loved true coin;
+though abroad on the sea, and no land but dollarless dominions ground,
+all this silver was worthless as charcoal or diamonds. Nearly one and
+the same thing, say the chemists; but tell that to the marines, say the
+illiterate Jews and the jewelers. Go, buy a house, or a ship, if you
+can, with your charcoal! Yea, all the woods in Canada charred down to
+cinders would not be worth the one famed Brazilian diamond, though no
+bigger than the egg of a carrier pigeon. Ah! but these chemists are
+liars, and Sir Humphrey Davy a cheat. Many's the poor devil they've
+deluded into the charcoal business, who otherwise might have made his
+fortune with a mattock.
+
+Groping again into the chest, we brought to light a queer little hair
+trunk, very bald and rickety. At every corner was a mighty clamp, the
+weight of which had no doubt debilitated the box. It was jealously
+secured with a padlock, almost as big as itself; so that it was almost a
+question, which was meant to be security to the other. Prying at it
+hard, we at length effected an entrance; but saw no golden moidores, no
+ruddy doubloons; nothing under heaven but three pewter mugs, such as are
+used in a ship's cabin, several brass screws, and brass plates, which
+must have belonged to a quadrant; together with a famous lot of glass
+beads, and brass rings; while, pasted on the inside of the cover, was a
+little colored print, representing the harlots, the shameless hussies,
+having a fine time with the Prodigal Son.
+
+It should have been mentioned ere now, that while we were busy in the
+forecastle, we were several times startled by strange sounds aloft. And
+just after, crashing into the little hair trunk, down came a great top-block, right through the scuttle, narrowly missing my Viking's crown; a
+much stronger article, by the way, than your goldsmiths turn out in
+these days. This startled us much; particularly Jarl, as one might
+suppose; but accustomed to the strange creakings and wheezings of the
+masts and yards of old vessels at sea, and having many a time dodged
+stray blocks accidentally falling from aloft, I thought little more of
+the matter; though my comrade seemed to think the noises somewhat
+different from any thing of that kind he had even heard before.
+
+After a little more turning over of the rubbish in the forecastle, and
+much marveling thereat, we ascended to the deck; where we found every
+thing so silent, that, as we moved toward the taffrail, the Skyeman
+unconsciously addressed me in a whisper.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX Noises And Portents
+
+
+I longed for day. For however now inclined to believe that the
+brigantine was untenanted, I desired the light of the sun to place that
+fact beyond a misgiving.
+
+Now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel, that she lay
+rather low in the water, I thought proper to sound the well. But there
+being no line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up in the
+arm-chest on the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept.
+Meanwhile I searched for the "breaks," or pump-handles, which, as it
+turned out, could not have been very recently used; for they were found
+lashed up and down to the main-mast.
+
+Suddenly Jarl came running toward me, whispering that all doubt was
+dispelled;--there were spirits on board, to a dead certainty. He had
+overheard a supernatural sneeze. But by this time I was all but
+convinced, that we were alone in the brigantine. Since, if otherwise, I
+could assign no earthly reason for the crew's hiding away from a couple
+of sailors, whom, were they so minded, they might easily have mastered.
+And furthermore, this alleged disturbance of the atmosphere aloft by a
+sneeze, Jarl averred to have taken place in the main-top; directly
+underneath which I was all this time standing, and had heard nothing. So
+complimenting my good Viking upon the exceeding delicacy of his
+auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his piratical ghosts
+and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his own imagination.
+
+Not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a bowline we
+rigged a substitute; and sounding the well, found nothing to excite our
+alarm. Under certain circumstances, however, this sounding a ship's well
+is a nervous sort of business enough. 'Tis like feeling your own pulse
+in the last stage of a fever.
+
+At the Skyeman's suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the
+brigantine's head on the other tack. For until daylight we desired to
+alter the vessel's position as little as possible, fearful of coming
+unawares upon reefs.
+
+And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about the
+brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely
+phantom-like nature, honest Jarl was nevertheless exceedingly downright
+and practical in all hints and proceedings concerning her. Wherein, he
+resembled my Right Reverend friend, Bishop Berkeley--truly, one of your
+lords spiritual--who, metaphysically speaking, holding all objects to be
+mere optical delusions, was, notwith-standing, extremely matter-of-fact
+in all matters touching matter itself. Besides being pervious to the
+points of pins, and possessing a palate capable of appreciating plum-puddings:--which sentence reads off like a pattering of hailstones.
+
+Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl
+must needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins on
+board. He swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round,
+he had heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one of his
+bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed. I laughed:--hinting
+that goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon he besought me to ascend the
+fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But here my mature judgment
+got the better of my first crude opinion. I civilly declined. For
+assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the fore-top might be
+tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a pretty hap would be
+mine, if, with hands full of rigging, and legs dangling in air, while
+surmounting the oblique futtock-shrouds, some unseen arm should all at
+once tumble me overboard. Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on
+to declare, that with regard to the character of the brigantine, his
+mind was now pretty fully made up;--she was an arrant impostor, a shade
+of a ship, full of sailors' ghosts, and before we knew where we were,
+would dissolve in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the
+water. In short, Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old Norsemen,
+was full of old Norse conceits, and all manner of Valhalla marvels
+concerning the land of goblins and goblets. No wonder then, that with
+this catastrophe in prospect, he again entreated me to quit the ill-starred craft, carrying off nothing from her ghostly hull. But I
+refused.
+
+One can not relate every thing at once. While in the cabin, we came
+across a "barge" of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality much
+superior to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally regaled
+ourselves in the intervals of rummaging. Now this sea cake-basket we had
+brought on deck. And for the first time since bidding adieu to the
+Arcturion having fully quenched our thirst, our appetite returned with a
+rush; and having nothing better to do till day dawned, we planted the
+bread-barge in the middle of the quarter-deck; and crossing our legs
+before it, laid close seige thereto, like the Grand Turk and his Vizier
+Mustapha sitting down before Vienna.
+
+Our castle, the Bread-Barge was of the common sort; an oblong oaken box,
+much battered and bruised, and like the Elgin Marbles, all over
+inscriptions and carving:--foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs,
+Burton-blocks, love verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; and divers
+mystic diagrams in chalk, drawn by old Finnish mariners; in casting
+horoscopes and prophecies. Your old tars are all Daniels. There was a
+round hole in one side, through which, in getting at the bread, invited
+guests thrust their hands.
+
+And mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also, many and earnest
+the glances of Mustapha at every sudden creaking of the spars or
+rigging. Like Belshazzar, my royal Viking ate with great fear and
+trembling; ever and anon pausing to watch the wild shadows flitting
+along the bulwarks.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI Man Ho!
+
+
+Slowly, fitfully, broke the morning in the East, showing the desolate
+brig forging heavily through the water, which sluggishly thumped under
+her bows. While leaping from sea to sea, our faithful Chamois, like a
+faithful dog, still gamboled alongside, confined to the main-chains by
+its painter. At times, it would long lag behind; then, pushed by a wave
+like lightning dash forward; till bridled by its leash, it again fell in
+rear.
+
+As the gray light came on, anxiously we scrutinized the features of the
+craft, as one by one they became more plainly revealed. Every thing
+seemed stranger now, than when partially visible in the dingy night. The
+stanchions, or posts of the bulwarks, were of rough stakes, still
+incased in the bark. The unpainted sides were of a dark-colored,
+heathenish looking wood. The tiller was a wry-necked, elbowed bough,
+thrusting itself through the deck, as if the tree itself was fast rooted
+in the hold. The binnacle, containing the compass, was defended at the
+sides by yellow matting. The rigging--shrouds, halyards and all--was of
+"Kaiar," or cocoa-nut fibres; and here and there the sails were patched
+with plaited rushes.
+
+But this was not all. Whoso will pry, must needs light upon matters for
+suspicion. Glancing over the side, in the wake of every scupper-hole, we
+beheld a faded, crimson stain, which Jarl averred to be blood. Though
+now he betrayed not the slightest trepidation; for what he saw pertained
+not to ghosts; and all his fears hitherto had been of the super-natural.
+
+Indeed, plucking up a heart, with the dawn of the day my Viking looked
+bold as a lion; and soon, with the instinct of an old seaman cast his
+eyes up aloft.
+
+Directly, he touched my arm,--"Look: what stirs in the main-top?"
+
+Sure enough, something alive was there.
+
+Fingering our arms, we watched it; till as the day came on, a crouching
+stranger was beheld.
+
+Presenting my piece, I hailed him to descend or be shot. There was
+silence for a space, when the black barrel of a musket was thrust forth,
+leveled at my head. Instantly, Jarl's harpoon was presented at a dart;--two to one;--and my hail was repeated. But no reply.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"Samoa," at length said a clear, firm voice.
+
+"Come down from the rigging. We are friends."
+
+Another pause; when, rising to his feet, the stranger slowly descended,
+holding on by one hand to the rigging, for but one did he have; his
+musket partly slung from his back, and partly griped under the stump of
+his mutilated arm.
+
+He alighted about six paces from where we stood; and balancing his
+weapon, eyed us bravely as the Cid.
+
+He was a tall, dark Islander, a very devil to behold, theatrically
+arrayed in kilt and turban; the kilt of a gay calico print, the turban
+of a red China silk. His neck was jingling with strings of beads.
+
+"Who else is on board?" I asked; while Jarl, thus far covering the
+stranger with his weapon, now dropped it to the deck.
+
+"Look there:--Annatoo!" was his reply in broken English, pointing aloft
+to the fore-top. And lo! a woman, also an Islander; and barring her
+skirts, dressed very much like Samoa, was beheld descending.
+
+"Any more?"
+
+"No more."
+
+"Who are _you_ then; and what craft is this?"
+
+"Ah, ah--you are no ghost;--but are you my friend?" he cried, advancing
+nearer as he spoke; while the woman having gained the deck, also
+approached, eagerly glancing.
+
+We said we were friends; that we meant no harm; but desired to know what
+craft this was; and what disaster had befallen her; for that something
+untoward had occurred, we were certain.
+
+Whereto, Samoa made answer, that it was true that something dreadful had
+happened; and that he would gladly tell us all, and tell us the truth.
+And about it he went.
+
+Now, this story of his was related in the mixed phraseology of a
+Polynesian sailor. With a few random reflections, in substance, it will
+be found in the six following chapters.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands
+
+
+The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the coast
+of Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been miserably cobbled
+together with planks of native wood, and fragments of a wreck, there
+drifted ashore.
+
+Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the tallest
+and goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands. With a
+mixed European and native crew, about thirty in number (but only four
+whites in all, captain included), the Parki, some four months previous,
+had sailed from her port on a voyage southward, in quest of pearls, and
+pearl oyster shells, sea-slugs, and other matters of that sort.
+
+Samoa, a native of the Navigator Islands, had long followed the sea, and
+was well versed in the business of oyster diving and its submarine
+mysteries. The native Lahineese on board were immediately subordinate to
+him; the captain having bargained with Samoa for their services as
+divers.
+
+The woman, Annatoo, was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to the
+westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the
+commander of a ship, touching there on a passage from Macao to
+Valparaiso. At Valparaiso her protector put her ashore; most probably,
+as I afterward had reason to think, for a nuisance.
+
+By chance it came to pass that when Annatoo's first virgin bloom had
+departed, leaving nothing but a lusty frame and a lustier soul, Samoa,
+the Navigator, had fallen desperately in love with her. And thinking the
+lady to his mind, being brave like himself, and doubtless well adapted
+to the vicissitudes of matrimony at sea, he meditated suicide--I would
+have said, wedlock--and the twain became one. And some time after, in
+capacity of wife, Annatoo the dame, accompanied in the brigantine, Samoa
+her lord. Now, as Antony flew to the refuse embraces of Caesar, so Samoa
+solaced himself in the arms of this discarded fair one. And the sequel
+was the same. For not harder the life Cleopatra led my fine frank
+friend, poor Mark, than Queen Annatoo did lead this captive of her bow
+and her spear. But all in good time.
+
+They left their port; and crossing the Tropic and the Line, fell in with
+a cluster of islands, where the shells they sought were found in round
+numbers. And here--not at all strange to tell besides the natives, they
+encountered a couple of Cholos, or half-breed Spaniards, from the Main;
+one half Spanish, the other half quartered between the wild Indian and
+the devil; a race, that from Baldivia to Panama are notorious for their
+unscrupulous villainy.
+
+Now, the half-breeds having long since deserted a ship at these islands,
+had risen to high authority among the natives. This hearing, the Parki's
+captain was much gratified; he, poor ignorant, never before having
+fallen in with any of their treacherous race. And, no doubt, he imagined
+that their influence over the Islanders would tend to his advantage. At
+all events, he made presents to the Cholos; who, in turn, provided him
+with additional divers from among the natives. Very kindly, also, they
+pointed out the best places for seeking the oysters. In a word, they
+were exceedingly friendly; often coming off to the brigantine, and
+sociably dining with the captain in the cabin; placing the salt between
+them and him.
+
+All things went on very pleasantly until, one morning, the half-breeds
+prevailed upon the captain to go with them, in his whale-boat, to a
+shoal on the thither side of the island, some distance from the spot
+where lay the brigantine. They so managed it, moreover, that none but
+the Lahineese under Samoa, in whom the captain much confided, were left
+in custody of the Parki; the three white men going along to row; for
+there happened to be little or no wind for a sail.
+
+Now, the fated brig lay anchored within a deep, smooth, circular lagoon,
+margined on all sides but one by the most beautiful groves. On that
+side, was the outlet to the sea; perhaps a cable's length or more from
+where the brigantine had been moored. An hour or two after the party
+were gone, and when the boat was completely out of sight, the natives in
+shoals were perceived coming off from the shore; some in canoes, and
+some swimming. The former brought bread fruit and bananas,
+ostentatiously piled up in their proas; the latter dragged after them
+long strings of cocoanuts; for all of which, on nearing the vessel, they
+clamorously demanded knives and hatchets in barter.
+
+From their actions, suspecting some treachery, Samoa stood in the
+gangway, and warned them off; saying that no barter could take place
+until the captain's return. But presently one of the savages stealthily
+climbed up from the water, and nimbly springing from the bob-stays to
+the bow-sprit, darted a javelin full at the foremast, where it vibrated.
+The signal of blood! With terrible outcries, the rest, pulling forth
+their weapons, hitherto concealed in the canoes, or under the floating
+cocoanuts, leaped into the low chains of the brigantine; sprang over the
+bulwarks; and, with clubs and spears, attacked the aghast crew with the
+utmost ferocity.
+
+After one faint rally, the Lahineese scrambled for the rigging; but to a
+man were overtaken and slain.
+
+At the first alarm, Annatoo, however, had escaped to the fore-top-gallant-yard, higher than which she could not climb, and whither the
+savages durst not venture. For though after their nuts these Polynesians
+will climb palm trees like squirrels; yet, at the first blush, they
+decline a ship's mast like Kennebec farmers.
+
+Upon the first token of an onslaught, Samoa, having rushed toward the
+cabin scuttle for arms, was there fallen upon by two young savages. But
+after a desperate momentary fray, in which his arm was mangled, he made
+shift to spring below, instantly securing overhead the slide of the
+scuttle. In the cabin, while yet the uproar of butchery prevailed, he
+quietly bound up his arm; then laying on the transom the captain's three
+loaded muskets, undauntedly awaited an assault.
+
+The object of the natives, it seems, was to wreck the brigantine upon
+the sharp coral beach of the lagoon. And with this intent, one of their
+number had plunged into the water, and cut the cable, which was of hemp.
+But the tide ebbing, cast the Parki's head seaward--toward the outlet;
+and the savages, perceiving this, clumsily boarded the fore-tack, and
+hauled aft the sheet; thus setting, after a fashion, the fore-sail,
+previously loosed to dry.
+
+Meanwhile, a gray-headed old chief stood calmly at the tiller,
+endeavoring to steer the vessel shoreward. But not managing the helm
+aright, the brigantine, now gliding apace through the water, only made
+more way toward the outlet. Seeing which, the ringleaders, six or eight
+in number, ran to help the old graybeard at the helm. But it was a black
+hour for them. Of a sudden, while they were handling the tiller, three
+muskets were rapidly discharged upon them from the cabin skylight. Two
+of the savages dropped dead. The old steersman, clutching wildly at the
+helm, fell over it, mortally wounded; and in a wild panic at seeing
+their leaders thus unaccountably slain, the rest of the natives leaped
+overboard and made for the shore.
+
+Hearing the slashing, Samoa flew on deck; and beholding the foresail
+set, and the brigantine heading right out to sea, he cried out to
+Annatoo, still aloft, to descend to the topsail-yard, and loose the
+canvas there. His command was obeyed. Annatoo deserved a gold medal for
+what she did that day. Hastening down the rigging, after loosing the
+topsail, she strained away at the sheets; in which operation she was
+assisted by Samoa, who snatched an instant from the helm.
+
+The foresail and fore-topsail were now tolerably well set; and as the
+craft drew seaward, the breeze freshened. And well that it did; for,
+recovered from their alarm, the savages were now in hot pursuit; some in
+canoes, and some swimming as before. But soon the main-topsail was given
+to the breeze, which still freshening, came from over the quarter. And
+with this brave show of canvas, the Parki made gallantly for the outlet;
+and loud shouted Samoa as she shot by the reef, and parted the long
+swells without. Against these, the savages could not swim. And at that
+turn of the tide, paddling a canoe therein was almost equally difficult.
+But the fugitives were not yet safe. In full chase now came in sight the
+whale-boat manned by the Cholos, and four or five Islanders. Whereat,
+making no doubt, that all the whites who left the vessel that morning
+had been massacred through the treachery of the half-breeds; and that
+the capture of the brigantine had been premeditated; Samoa now saw no
+other resource than to point his craft dead away from the land.
+
+Now on came the devils buckling to their oars. Meantime Annatoo was
+still busy aloft, loosing the smaller sails--t'gallants and royals,
+which she managed partially to set.
+
+The strong breeze from astern now filling the ill-set sails, they
+bellied, and rocked in the air, like balloons, while, from the novel
+strain upon it, every spar quivered and sprung. And thus, like a
+frightened gull fleeing from sea-hawks, the little Parki swooped along,
+and bravely breasted the brine.
+
+His shattered arm in a hempen sling, Samoa stood at the helm, the
+muskets reloaded, and planted full before him on the binnacle. For a
+time, so badly did the brigantine steer, by reason of her ill-adjusted
+sails, made still more unmanageable by the strength of the breeze,--that
+it was doubtful, after all, notwithstanding her start, whether the
+fugitives would not yet fall a prey to their hunters. The craft wildly
+yawed, and the boat drew nearer and nearer. Maddened by the sight, and
+perhaps thinking more of revenge for the past, than of security for the
+future, Samoa, yielding the helm to Annatoo, rested his muskets on the
+bulwarks, and taking long, sure aim, discharged them, one by one at the
+advancing foe.
+
+The three reports were answered by loud jeers from the savages, who
+brandished their spears, and made gestures of derision; while with might
+and main the Cholos tugged at their oars.
+
+The boat still gaining on the brigantine, the muskets were again
+reloaded. And as the next shot sped, there was a pause; when, like
+lightning, the headmost Cholo bounded upwards from his seat, and oar in
+hand, fell into the sea. A fierce yell; and one of the natives springing
+into the water, caught the sinking body by its long hair; and the dead
+and the living were dragged into the boat. Taking heart from this fatal
+shot, Samoa fired yet again; but not with the like sure result; merely
+grazing the remaining half-breed, who, crouching behind his comrades,
+besought them to turn the boat round, and make for the shore. Alarmed at
+the fate of his brother, and seemingly distrustful of the impartiality
+of Samoa's fire, the pusillanimous villain refused to expose a limb
+above the gunwale.
+
+Fain now would the pursuers have made good their escape; but an accident
+forbade. In the careening of the boat, when the stricken Cholo sprung
+overboard, two of their oars had slid into the water; and together with
+that death-griped by the half-breed, were now floating off; occasionally
+lost to view, as they sunk in the trough of the sea. Two of the
+Islanders swam to recover them; but frightened by the whirring of a shot
+over their heads, as they unavoidably struck out towards the Parki, they
+turned quickly about; just in time to see one of their comrades smite
+his body with his hand, as he received a bullet from Samoa.
+
+Enough: darting past the ill-fated boat, they swam rapidly for land,
+followed by the rest; who plunged overboard, leaving in the boat the
+surviving Cholo--who it seems could not swim--the wounded savage, and
+the dead man.
+
+"Load away now, and take thy revenge, my fine fellow," said Samoa to
+himself. But not yet. Seeing all at his mercy, and having none, he
+quickly laid his fore-topsail to the mast; "hove to" the brigantine; and
+opened fire anew upon the boat; every swell of the sea heaving it nearer
+and nearer. Vain all efforts to escape. The wounded man paddled wildly
+with his hands the dead one rolled from side to side; and the Cholo,
+seizing the solitary oar, in his frenzied heedlessness, spun the boat
+round and round; while all the while shot followed shot, Samoa firing as
+fast as Annatoo could load. At length both Cholo and savage fell dead
+upon their comrades, canting the boat over sideways, till well nigh
+awash; in which manner she drifted off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin
+
+
+There was a small carronade on the forecastle, unshipped from its
+carriage, and lashed down to ringbolts on the deck. This Samoa now
+loaded; and with an ax knocking off the round knob upon the breech,
+rammed it home in the tube. When, running the cannon out at one of the
+ports, and studying well his aim, he let fly, sunk the boat, and buried
+his dead.
+
+It was now late in the afternoon; and for the present bent upon avoiding
+land, and gaining the shoreless sea, never mind where, Samoa again
+forced round his craft before the wind, leaving the island astern. The
+decks were still cumbered with the bodies of the Lahineese, which heel
+to point and crosswise, had, log-like, been piled up on the main-hatch.
+These, one by one, were committed to the sea; after which, the decks
+were washed down.
+
+At sunrise next morning, finding themselves out of sight of land, with
+little or no wind, they stopped their headway, and lashed the tiller
+alee, the better to enable them to overhaul the brigantine; especially
+the recesses of the cabin. For there, were stores of goods adapted for
+barter among the Islanders; also several bags of dollars.
+
+Now, nothing can exceed the cupidity of the Polynesian, when, through
+partial commerce with the whites, his eyes are opened to his nakedness,
+and he perceives that in some things they are richer than himself.
+
+The poor skipper's wardrobe was first explored; his chests of clothes
+being capsized, and their contents strown about the cabin floor.
+
+Then took place the costuming. Samoa and Annatoo trying on coats and
+pantaloons, shirts and drawers, and admiring themselves in the little
+mirror panneled in the bulk-head. Then, were broken open boxes and
+bales; rolls of printed cotton were inspected, and vastly admired;
+insomuch, that the trumpery found in the captain's chests was
+disdainfully doffed: and donned were loose folds of calico, more
+cong�nial to their tastes.
+
+As case after case was opened and overturned, slippery grew the cabin
+deck with torrents of glass beads; and heavy the necks of Samoa and
+Annatoo with goodly bunches thereof.
+
+Among other things, came to light brass jewelry,--Rag Fair gewgaws and
+baubles a plenty, more admired than all; Annatoo, bedecking herself
+like, a tragedy queen: one blaze of brass. Much mourned the married
+dame, that thus arrayed, there was none to admire but Samoa her husband;
+but he was all the while admiring himself, and not her.
+
+And here must needs be related, what has hitherto remained unsaid. Very
+often this husband and wife were no Darby and Joan. Their married life
+was one long campaign, whereof the truces were only by night. They
+billed and they cooed on their arms, rising fresh in the morning to
+battle, and often Samoa got more than a hen-pecking. To be short,
+Annatoo was a Tartar, a regular Calmuc, and Samoa--Heaven help him--her
+husband.
+
+Yet awhile, joined together by a sense of common danger, and long
+engrossed in turning over their tinsel acquisitions without present
+thought of proprietorship, the pair refrained from all squabbles. But
+soon burst the storm. Having given every bale and every case a good
+shaking, Annatoo, making an estimate of the whole, very coolly proceeded
+to set apart for herself whatever she fancied. To this, Samoa objected;
+to which objection Annatoo objected; and then they went at it.
+
+The lady vowed that the things were no more Samoa's than hers; nay, not
+so much; and that whatever she wanted, that same would she have. And
+furthermore, by way of codicil, she declared that she was slave to
+nobody.
+
+Now, Samoa, sad to tell, stood in no little awe of his bellicose spouse.
+What, though a hero in other respects; what, though he had slain his
+savages, and gallantly carried his craft from their clutches:--Like the
+valiant captains Marlborough and Belisarius, he was a poltroon to his
+wife. And Annatoo was worse than either Sarah or Antonina.
+
+However, like every thing partaking of the nature of a scratch, most
+conjugal squabbles are quickly healed; for if they healed not, they
+would never anew break out: which is the beauty of the thing. So at
+length they made up but the treaty stipulations of Annatoo told much
+against the interests of Samoa. Nevertheless, ostensibly, it was agreed
+upon, that they should strictly go halves; the lady, however, laying
+special claim to certain valuables, more particularly fancied. But as a
+set-off to this, she generously renounced all claims upon the spare
+rigging; all claims upon the fore-mast and mainmast; and all claims upon
+the captain's arms and ammunition. Of the latter, by the way, Dame
+Antonina stood in no need. Her voice was a park of artillery; her talons
+a charge of bayonets.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
+
+
+By this time Samoa's wounded arm was in such a state, that amputation
+became necessary. Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the
+most part, accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking to his
+couch in despair, the savage would disdain to recline.
+
+More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon, cutting
+off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. No unusual thing, for the
+warriors of Varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately wounded in
+battle. But owing to the clumsiness of the instrument employed--a
+flinty, serrated shell--the operation has been known to last several
+days. Nor will they suffer any friend to help them; maintaining, that a
+matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far better attended to by
+himself. Hence it may be said, that they amputate themselves at their
+leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. But, though thus beholden
+to no one for aught connected with the practice of surgery, they never
+cut off their own heads, that ever I heard; a species of amputation to
+which, metaphorically speaking, many would-be independent sort of people
+in civilized lands are addicted.
+
+Samoa's operation was very summary. A fire was kindled in the little
+caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then
+placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber,
+breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook's ax would have struck the
+blow; but for some reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo
+was assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just above
+the elbow, was no longer Samoa's; and he saw his own bones; which many a
+centenarian can not say. The very clumsiness of the operation was safety
+to the subject. The weight and bluntness of the instrument both deadened
+the pain and lessened the hemorrhage. The wound was then scorched, and
+held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood vanished. From
+that day forward it healed, and troubled Samoa but little.
+
+But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously averse to
+burying in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that
+case Samoa held, that he must very soon drown and follow it; and how,
+that equally dreading to keep the thing near him, he at last hung it
+aloft from the topmast-stay; where yet it was suspended, bandaged over
+and over in cerements. The hand that must have locked many others in
+friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought Samoa, for fowls of
+the air nor fishes of the sea.
+
+Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as Haman? Or the living
+trunk below? Was the arm severed from the body, or the body from the
+arm? The residual part of Samoa was alive, and therefore we say it was
+he. But which of the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm, is
+the worm proper?
+
+For myself, I ever regarded Samoa as but a large fragment of a man, not
+a man complete. For was he not an entire limb out of pocket? And the
+action at Teneriffe over, great Nelson himself--physiologically
+speaking--was but three-quarters of a man. And the smoke of Waterloo
+blown by, what was Anglesea but the like? After Saratoga, what Arnold?
+To say nothing of Mutius Scaevola minus a hand, General Knox a thumb,
+and Hannibal an eye; and that old Roman grenadier, Dentatus, nothing
+more than a bruised and battered trunk, a knotty sort of hemlock of a
+warrior, hard to hack and hew into chips, though much marred in symmetry
+by battle-ax blows. Ah! but these warriors, like anvils, will stand a
+deal of hard hammering. Especially in the old knight-errant times. For
+at the battle of Brevieux in Flanders, my glorious old gossiping
+ancestor, Froissart, informs me, that ten good knights, being suddenly
+unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless to the plain, fatally encumbered by
+their armor. Whereupon, the rascally burglarious peasants, their foes,
+fell to picking their visors; as burglars, locks; or oystermen, oysters;
+to get at their lives. But all to no purpose. And at last they were fain
+to ask aid of a blacksmith; and not till then, were the inmates of the
+armor dispatched. Now it was deemed very hard, that the mysterious
+state-prisoner of France should be riveted in an iron mask; but these
+knight-errants did voluntarily prison themselves in their own iron
+Bastiles; and thus helpless were murdered there-in. Days of chivalry
+these, when gallant chevaliers died chivalric deaths!
+
+And this was the epic age, over whose departure my late eloquent and
+prophetic friend and correspondent, Edmund Burke, so movingly mourned.
+Yes, they were glorious times. But no sensible man, given to quiet
+domestic delights, would exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a
+heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty morning in
+Normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved fingers, and vainly
+striving to cook his cold coffee in his helmet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV Peril A Peace-Maker
+
+
+A few days passed: the brigantine drifting hither and thither, and
+nothing in sight but the sea, when forth again on its stillness rung
+Annatoo's domestic alarum. The truce was up. Most egregiously had the
+lady infringed it; appropriating to herself various objects previously
+disclaimed in favor of Samoa. Besides, forever on the prowl, she was
+perpetually going up and down; with untiring energy, exploring every
+nook and cranny; carrying off her spoils and diligently secreting them.
+Having little idea of feminine adaptations, she pilfered whatever came
+handy:--iron hooks, dollars, bolts, hatchets, and stopping not at balls
+of marline and sheets of copper. All this, poor Samoa would have borne
+with what patience he might, rather than again renew the war, were it
+not, that the audacious dame charged him with peculations upon her own
+private stores; though of any such thing he was innocent as the
+bowsprit.
+
+This insulting impeachment got the better of the poor islander's
+philosophy. He keenly resented it. And the consequence was, that seeing
+all domineering useless, Annatoo flew off at a tangent; declaring that,
+for the future, Samoa might stay by himself; she would have nothing more
+to do with him. Save when unavoidable in managing the brigantine, she
+would not even speak to him, that she wouldn't, the monster! She then
+boldly demanded the forecastle--in the brig's case, by far the
+pleasantest end of the ship--for her own independent suite of
+apartments. As for hapless Belisarius, he might do what he pleased in
+his dark little den of a cabin.
+
+Concerning the division of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in
+carrying the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods,
+together with numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover, she
+laid in a fine stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to
+live independent of her spouse.
+
+Unlovely Annatoo! Unfortunate Samoa! Thus did the pair make a divorce of
+it; the lady going upon a separate maintenance,--and Belisarius resuming
+his bachelor loneliness. In the captain's state room, all cold and
+comfortless, he slept; his lady whilome retiring to her forecastle
+boudoir; beguiling the hours in saying her pater-nosters, and tossing
+over and assorting her ill-gotten trinkets and finery; like Madame De
+Maintenon dedicating her last days and nights to continence and
+calicoes.
+
+But think you this was the quiet end of their conjugal quarrels? Ah, no!
+No end to those feuds, till one or t'other gives up the ghost.
+
+Now, exiled from the nuptial couch, Belisarius bore the hardship without
+a murmur. And hero that he was, who knows that he felt not like a
+soldier on a furlough? But as for Antonina, she could neither get along
+with Belisarius, nor without him. She made advances. But of what sort?
+Why, breaking into the cabin and purloining sundry goods therefrom; in
+artful hopes of breeding a final reconciliation out of the temporary
+outburst that might ensue.
+
+Then followed a sad scene of altercation; interrupted at last by a
+sudden loud roaring of the sea. Rushing to the deck, they beheld
+themselves sweeping head-foremost toward a shoal making out from a
+cluster of low islands, hitherto, by banks of clouds, shrouded from
+view.
+
+The helm was instantly shifted; and the yards braced about. But for
+several hours, owing to the freshness of the breeze, the set of the
+currents, and the irregularity and extent of the shoal, it seemed
+doubtful whether they would escape a catastrophe. But Samoa's
+seamanship, united to Annatoo's industry, at last prevailed; and the
+brigantine was saved.
+
+Of the land where they came so near being wrecked, they knew nothing;
+and for that reason, they at once steered away. For after the fatal
+events which had overtaken the Parki at the Pearl Shell islands, so
+fearful were they of encountering any Islanders, that from the first
+they had resolved to keep open sea, shunning every appearance of land;
+relying upon being eventually picked up by some passing sail.
+
+Doubtless this resolution proved their salvation. For to the navigator
+in these seas, no risk so great, as in approaching the isles; which
+mostly are so guarded by outpost reefs, and far out from their margins
+environed by perils, that the green flowery field within, lies like a
+rose among thorns; and hard to be reached as the heart of proud maiden.
+Though once attained, all three--red rose, bright shore, and soft heart--are full of love, bloom, and all manner of delights. The Pearl Shell
+islands excepted.
+
+Besides, in those generally tranquil waters, Samoa's little craft,
+though hundreds of miles from land, was very readily managed by himself
+and Annatoo. So small was the Parki, that one hand could brace the main-yard; and a very easy thing it was, even to hoist the small top-sails;
+for after their first clumsy attempt to perform that operation by hand,
+they invariably led the halyards to the windlass, and so managed it,
+with the utmost facility.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy
+
+
+Still many days passed and the Parki yet floated. The little flying-fish
+got used to her familiar, loitering hull; and like swallows building
+their nests in quiet old trees, they spawned in the great green
+barnacles that clung to her sides.
+
+The calmer the sea, the more the barnacles grow. In the tropical
+Pacific, but a few weeks suffice thus to encase your craft in shell
+armor. Vast bunches adhere to the very cutwater, and if not stricken
+off, much impede the ship's sailing. And, at intervals, this clearing
+away of barnacles was one of Annatoo's occupations. For be it known,
+that, like most termagants, the dame was tidy at times, though
+capriciously; loving cleanliness by fits and starts. Wherefore, these
+barnacles oftentimes troubled her; and with a long pole she would go
+about, brushing them aside. It beguiled the weary hours, if nothing
+more; and then she would return to her beads and her trinkets; telling
+them all over again; murmuring forth her devotions, and marking whether
+Samoa had been pilfering from her store.
+
+Now, the escape from the shoal did much once again to heal the
+differences of the good lady and her spouse. And keeping house, as they
+did, all alone by themselves, in that lonely craft, a marvel it is, that
+they should ever have quarreled. And then to divorce, and yet dwell in
+the same tenement, was only aggravating the evil. So Belisarius and
+Antonina again came together. But now, grown wise by experience, they
+neither loved over-keenly, nor hated; but took things as they were;
+found themselves joined, without hope of a sundering, and did what they
+could to make a match of the mate. Annatoo concluded that Samoa was not
+wholly to be enslaved; and Samoa thought best to wink at Annatoo's
+foibles, and let her purloin when she pleased.
+
+But as in many cases, all this philosophy about wedlock is not proof
+against the perpetual contact of the parties concerned; and as it is far
+better to revive the old days of courtship, when men's mouths are honey-combs: and, to make them still sweeter, the ladies the bees which there
+store their sweets; when fathomless raptures glimmer far down in the
+lover's fond eye; and best of all, when visits are alternated by
+absence: so, like my dignified lord duke and his duchess, Samoa and
+Annatoo, man and wife, dwelling in the same house, still kept up their
+separate quarters. Marlborough visiting Sarah; and Sarah, Marlborough,
+whenever the humor suggested.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII In Which The Past History Op The Parki Is Concluded
+
+
+Still days, days, days sped by; and steering now this way, now that, to
+avoid the green treacherous shores, which frequently rose into view, the
+Parki went to and fro in the sea; till at last, it seemed hard to tell,
+in what watery world she floated. Well knowing the risks they ran, Samoa
+desponded. But blessed be ignorance. For in the day of his despondency,
+the lively old lass his wife bade him be of stout heart, cheer up, and
+steer away manfully for the setting sun; following which, they must
+inevitably arrive at her own dear native island, where all their cares
+would be over. So squaring their yards, away they glided; far sloping
+down the liquid sphere.
+
+Upon the afternoon of the day we caught sight of them in our boat, they
+had sighted a cluster of low islands, which put them in no small panic,
+because of their resemblance to those where the massacre had taken
+place. Whereas, they must have been full five hundred leagues from that
+fearful vicinity. However, they altered their course to avoid it; and a
+little before sunset, dropping the islands astern, resumed their
+previous track. But very soon after, they espied our little sea-goat,
+bounding over the billows from afar.
+
+This they took for a canoe giving chase to them. It renewed and
+augmented their alarm.
+
+And when at last they perceived that the strange object was a boat,
+their fears, instead of being allayed, only so much the more increased.
+For their wild superstitions led them to conclude, that a white man's
+craft coming upon them so suddenly, upon the open sea, and by night,
+could be naught but a phantom. Furthermore, marking two of us in the
+Chamois, they fancied us the ghosts of the Cholos. A conceit which
+effectually damped Samoa's courage, like my Viking's, only proof against
+things tangible. So seeing us bent upon boarding the brigantine; after a
+hurried over-turning of their chattels, with a view of carrying the most
+valuable aloft for safe keeping, they secreted what they could; and
+together made for the fore-top; the man with a musket, the woman with a
+bag of beads. Their endeavoring to secure these treasures against
+ghostly appropriation originated in no real fear, that otherwise they
+would be stolen: it was simply incidental to the vacant panic into which
+they were thrown. No reproach this, to Belisarius' heart of game; for
+the most intrepid Feegee warrior, he who has slain his hecatombs, will
+not go ten yards in the dark alone, for fear of ghosts.
+
+Their purpose was to remain in the top until daylight; by which time,
+they counted upon the withdrawal of their visitants; who, sure enough,
+at last sprang on board, thus verifying their worst apprehensions.
+
+They watched us long and earnestly. But curious to tell, in that very
+strait of theirs, perched together in that airy top, their domestic
+differences again broke forth; most probably, from their being suddenly
+forced into such very close contact.
+
+However that might be, taking advantage of our descent into the cabin,
+Samoa, in desperation fled from his wife, and one-armed as he was,
+sailor-like, shifted himself over by the fore and aft-stays to the main-top, his musket being slung to his back. And thus divided, though but a
+few yards intervened, the pair were as much asunder as if at the
+opposite Poles.
+
+During the live-long night they were both in great perplexity as to the
+extraordinary goblins on board. Such inquisitive, meddlesome spirits,
+had never before been encountered. So cool and systematic; sagaciously
+stopping the vessel's headway the better to rummage;--the very plan they
+themselves had adopted. But what most surprised them, was our striking a
+light, a thing of which no true ghost would be guilty. Then, our eating
+and drinking on the quarter-deck including the deliberate investment of
+Vienna; and many other actions equally strange, almost led Samoa to
+fancy that we were no shades, after all, but a couple of men from the
+moon.
+
+Yet they had dimly caught sight of the frocks and trowsers we wore,
+similar to those which the captain of the Parki had bestowed upon the
+two Cholos, and in which those villains had been killed. This, with the
+presence of the whale boat, united to chase away the conceit of our
+lunar origin. But these considerations renewed their first superstitious
+impressions of our being the ghosts of the murderous half-breeds.
+
+Nevertheless, while during the latter part of the night we were
+reclining beneath him, munching our biscuit, Samoa eyeing us intently,
+was half a mind to open fire upon us by way of testing our corporeality.
+But most luckily, he concluded to defer so doing till sunlight; if by
+that time we should not have evaporated.
+
+For dame Annatoo, almost from our first boarding the brigantine,
+something in our manner had bred in her a lurking doubt as to the
+genuineness of our atmospheric organization; and abandoned to her
+speculations when Samoa fled from her side, her incredulity waxed
+stronger and stronger. Whence we came she knew not; enough, that we
+seemed bent upon pillaging her own precious purloinings. Alas! thought
+she, my buttons, my nails, my tappa, my dollars, my beads, and my boxes!
+
+Wrought up to desperation by these dismal forebodings, she at length
+shook the ropes leading from her own perch to Samoa's; adopting this
+method of arousing his attention to the heinousness of what was in all
+probability going on in the cabin, a prelude most probably to the
+invasion of her own end of the vessel. Had she dared raise her voice, no
+doubt she would have suggested the expediency of shooting us so soon as
+we emerged from the cabin. But failing to shake Samoa into an
+understanding of her views on the subject, her malice proved futile.
+
+When her worst fears were confirmed, however, and we actually descended
+into the forecastle; there ensued such a reckless shaking of the ropes,
+that Samoa was fain to hold on hard, for fear of being tossed out of the
+rigging. And it was this violent rocking that caused the loud creaking
+of the yards, so often heard by us while below in Annatoo's apartment.
+
+And the fore-top being just over the open forecastle scuttle, the dame
+could look right down upon us; hence our proceedings were plainly
+revealed by the lights that we carried. Upon our breaking open her
+strong-box, her indignation almost completely overmastered her fears.
+Unhooking a top-block, down it came into the forecastle, charitably
+commissioned with the demolition of Jarl's cocoa-nut, then more exposed
+to the view of an aerial observer than my own. But of it turned out, no
+harm was done to our porcelain.
+
+At last, morning dawned; when ensued Jarl's discovery as the occupant of
+the main-top; which event, with what followed, has been duly recounted.
+
+And such, in substance, was the first, second, third and fourth acts of
+the Parki drama. The fifth and last, including several scenes, now
+follows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
+
+
+Though abounding in details full of the savor of reality, Samoa's
+narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory. Not that it
+was so strange; for stranger recitals I had heard.
+
+But one reason, perhaps, was that I had anticipated a narrative quite
+different; something agreeing with my previous surmises.
+
+Not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen islands the
+day preceding; though, upon reflection, that might have been the case,
+and yet, from his immediately altering the Parki's course, the Chamois,
+unknowingly might have sailed by their vicinity. Still, those islands
+could form no part of the chain we were seeking. They must have been
+some region hitherto undiscovered.
+
+But seems it likely, thought I, that one, who, according to his own
+account, has conducted himself so heroically in rescuing the brigantine,
+should be the victim of such childish terror at the mere glimpse of a
+couple of sailors in an open boat, so well supplied, too, with arms, as
+he was, to resist their capturing his craft, if such proved their
+intention? On the contrary, would it not have been more natural, in his
+dreary situation, to have hailed our approach with the utmost delight?
+But then again, we were taken for phantoms, not flesh and blood. Upon
+the whole, I regarded the narrator of these things somewhat
+distrustfully. But he met my gaze like a man. While Annatoo, standing
+by, looked so expressively the Amazonian character imputed to her, that
+my doubts began to waver. And recalling all the little incidents of
+their story, so hard to be conjured up on the spur of a presumed
+necessity to lie; nay, so hard to be conjured up at all; my suspicions
+at last gave way. And I could no longer harbor any misgivings.
+
+For, to be downright, what object could Samoa have, in fabricating such
+a narrative of horrors--those of the massacre, I mean--unless to conceal
+some tragedy, still more atrocious, in which he himself had been
+criminally concerned? A supposition, which, for obvious reasons, seemed
+out of the question. True, instances were known to me of half-civilized
+beings, like Samoa, forming part of the crews of ships in these seas,
+rising suddenly upon their white ship-mates, and murdering them, for the
+sake of wrecking the ship on the shore of some island near by, and
+plundering her hull, when stranded.
+
+But had this been purposed with regard to the Parki, where the rest of
+the mutineers? There was no end to my conjectures; the more I indulged
+in them, the more they multiplied. So, unwilling to torment myself, when
+nothing could be learned, but what Samoa related, and stuck to like a
+hero; I gave over conjecturing at all; striving hard to repose full
+faith in the Islander.
+
+Jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could be brought
+completely to credit the tale. He stoutly maintained that the hobgoblins
+must have had something or other to do with the Parki.
+
+My own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine, Samoa himself
+turned inquisitor. He desired to know who we were; and whence we came in
+our marvelous boat. But on these heads I thought best to withhold from
+him the truth; among other things, fancying that if disclosed, it would
+lessen his deference for us, as men superior to himself. I therefore
+spoke vaguely of our adventures, and assumed the decided air of a
+master; which I perceived was not lost upon the rude Islander. As for
+Jarl, and what he might reveal, I embraced the first opportunity to
+impress upon him the importance of never divulging our flight from the
+Arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that head: injunctions
+which he faithfully promised to observe.
+
+If not wholly displeased with the fine form of Samoa, despite his savage
+lineaments, and mutilated member, I was much less conciliated by the
+person of Annatoo; who, being sinewy of limb, and neither young, comely,
+nor amiable, was exceedingly distasteful in my eyes. Besides, she was a
+tigress. Yet how avoid admiring those Penthesilian qualities which so
+signally had aided Samoa, in wresting the Parki from its treacherous
+captors. Nevertheless, it was indispensable that she should at once be
+brought under prudent subjection; and made to know, once for all, that
+though conjugally a rebel, she must be nautically submissive. For to
+keep the sea with a Calmuc on board, seemed next to impossible. In most
+military marines, they are prohibited by law; no officer may take his
+Pandora and her bandbox off soundings.
+
+By the way, this self-same appellative, Pandora, has been bestowed upon
+vessels. There was a British ship by that name, dispatched in quest of
+the mutineers of the Bounty. But any old tar might have prophesied her
+fate. Bound home she was wrecked on a reef off New South Wales. Pandora,
+indeed! A pretty name for a ship: fairly smiting Fate in the face. But
+in this matter of christening ships of war, Christian nations are but
+too apt to be dare-devils. Witness the following: British names all--The
+Conqueror, the Defiance, the Revenge, the Spitfire, the Dreadnaught, the
+Thunderer, and the Tremendous; not omitting the Etna, which, in the
+Roads of Corfu, was struck by lightning, coming nigh being consumed by
+fire from above. But almost potent as Moses' rod, Franklin's proved her
+salvation.
+
+With the above catalogue, compare we the Frenchman's; quite
+characteristic of the aspirations of Monsieur:--The Destiny, the
+Glorious, the Magnanimous, the Magnificent, the Conqueror, the
+Triumphant, the Indomitable, the Intrepid, the Mont-Blanc. Lastly, the
+Dons; who have ransacked the theology of the religion of peace for fine
+names for their fighting ships; stopping not at designating one of their
+three-deckers, The Most Holy Trinity. But though, at Trafalgar, the
+Santissima Trinidada thundered like Sinai, her thunders were silenced by
+the victorious cannonade of the Victory.
+
+And without being blown into splinters by artillery, how many of these
+Redoubtables and Invincibles have succumbed to the waves, and like
+braggarts gone down before hurricanes, with their bravadoes broad on
+their bows.
+
+Much better the American names (barring Scorpions, Hornets, and Wasps;)
+Ohio, Virginia, Carolina, Vermont. And if ever these Yankees fight great
+sea engagements--which Heaven forefend!--how glorious, poetically
+speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth a
+broadside from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious indeed! yet in
+that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the shade of peace-loving Penn
+be astounded, to see the mightiest murderer of them all, the great
+Pennsylvania, a very namesake of his. Truly, the Pennsylvania's guns
+should be the wooden ones, called by men-of-war's-men, Quakers.
+
+But all this is an episode, made up of digressions. Time to tack ship,
+and return.
+
+Now, in its proper place, I omitted to mention, that shortly after
+descending from the rigging, and while Samoa was rehearsing his
+adventures, dame Annatoo had stolen below into the forecastle, intent
+upon her chattels. And finding them all in mighty disarray, she returned
+to the deck prodigiously, excited, and glancing angrily toward Jarl and
+me, showered a whole torrent of objurgations into both ears of Samoa.
+
+This contempt of my presence surprised me at first; but perhaps women
+are less apt to be impressed by a pretentious demeanor, than men.
+
+Now, to use a fighting phrase, there is nothing like boarding an enemy
+in the smoke. And therefore, upon this first token of Annatoo's
+termagant qualities, I gave her to understand--craving her pardon--that
+neither the vessel nor aught therein was hers; but that every thing
+belonged to the owners in Lahina. I added, that at all hazards, a stop
+must be put to her pilferings. Rude language for feminine ears; but how
+to be avoided? Here was an infatuated woman, who, according to Samoa's
+account, had been repeatedly detected in the act of essaying to draw out
+the screw-bolts which held together the planks. Tell me; was she not
+worse than the Load-Stone Rock, sailing by which a stout ship fell to
+pieces?
+
+During this scene, Samoa said little. Perhaps he was secretly pleased
+that his matrimonial authority was reinforced by myself and my Viking,
+whose views of the proper position of wives at sea, so fully
+corresponded with his own; however difficult to practice, those purely
+theoretical ideas of his had hitherto proved.
+
+Once more turning to Annatoo, now looking any thing but amiable, I
+observed, that all her clamors would be useless; and that if it came to
+the worst, the Parki had a hull that would hold her.
+
+In the end she went off in a fit of the sulks; sitting down on the
+windlass and glaring; her arms akimbo, and swaying from side to side;
+while ever and anon she gave utterance to a dismal chant. It sounded
+like an invocation to the Cholos to rise and dispatch us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The Craft, And
+The Resolution They Came To
+
+
+Descending into the cabin with Samoa, I bade him hunt up the
+brigantine's log, the captain's writing-desk, and nautical instruments;
+in a word, aught that could throw light on the previous history of the
+craft, or aid in navigating her homeward.
+
+But nearly every thing of the kind had disappeared: log, quadrant, and
+ship's papers. Nothing was left but the sextant-case, which Jarl and I
+had lighted upon in the state-room.
+
+Upon this, vague though they were, my suspicions returned; and I closely
+questioned the Islander concerning the disappearance of these important
+articles. In reply, he gave me to understand, that the nautical
+instruments had been clandestinely carried down into the forecastle by
+Annatoo; and by that indefatigable and inquisitive dame they had been
+summarily taken apart for scientific inspection. It was impossible to
+restore them; for many of the fixtures were lost, including the colored
+glasses, sights, and little mirrors; and many parts still recoverable,
+were so battered and broken as to be entirely useless. For several days
+afterward, we now and then came across bits of the quadrant or sextant;
+but it was only to mourn over their fate.
+
+However, though sextant and quadrant were both unattainable, I did not
+so quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which, if in
+good order, though at present not ticking, might still be made in some
+degree serviceable. But no such instrument was to be seen. No: nor to be
+heard of; Samoa himself professing utter ignorance.
+
+Annatoo, I threatened and coaxed; describing the chronometer--a live,
+round creature like a toad, that made a strange noise, which I imitated;
+but she knew nothing about it. Whether she had lighted upon it unbeknown
+to Samoa, and dissected it as usual, there was now no way to determine.
+Indeed, upon this one point, she maintained an air of such inflexible
+stupidity, that if she were really fibbing, her dead-wall countenance
+superseded the necessity for verbal deceit.
+
+It may be, however, that in this particular she was wronged; for, as
+with many small vessels, the Parki might never have possessed the
+instrument in question. All thought, therefore, of feeling our way, as
+we should penetrate farther and farther into the watery wilderness, was
+necessarily abandoned.
+
+The log book had also formed a portion of Annatoo's pilferings. It seems
+she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. But after amusing
+herself by again and again counting over the leaves, and wondering how
+so many distinct surfaces could be compacted together in so small a
+compass, she had very suddenly conceived an aversion to literature, and
+dropped the book overboard as worthless. Doubtless, it met the fate of
+many other ponderous tomes; sinking quickly and profoundly. What Camden
+or Stowe hereafter will dive for it?
+
+One evening Samoa brought me a quarto half-sheet of yellowish, ribbed
+paper, much soiled and tarry, which he had discovered in a dark hole of
+the forecastle. It had plainly formed part of the lost log; but all the
+writing thereon, at present decipherable, conveyed no information upon
+the subject then nearest my heart.
+
+But one could not but be struck by a tragical occurrence, which the page
+very briefly recounted; as well, as by a noteworthy pictorial
+illustration of the event in the margin of the text. Save the cut, there
+was no further allusion to the matter than the following:--"This day,
+being calm, Tooboi, one of the Lahina men, went overboard for a bath,
+and was eaten up by a shark. Immediately sent forward for his bag."
+
+Now, this last sentence was susceptible of two meanings. It is truth,
+that immediately upon the decease of a friendless sailor at sea, his
+shipmates oftentimes seize upon his effects, and divide them; though the
+dead man's clothes are seldom worn till a subsequent voyage. This
+proceeding seems heartless. But sailors reason thus: Better we, than the
+captain. For by law, either scribbled or unscribbled, the effects of a
+mariner, dying on shipboard, should be held in trust by that officer.
+But as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry all their
+kith and kin in their arms and their legs, there hardly ever appears any
+heir-at-law to claim their estate; seldom worth inheriting, like
+Esterhazy's. Wherefore, the withdrawal of a dead man's "kit" from the
+forecastle to the cabin, is often held tantamount to its virtual
+appropriation by the captain. At any rate, in small ships on long
+voyages, such things have been done.
+
+Thus much being said, then, the sentence above quoted from the Parki's
+log, may be deemed somewhat ambiguous. At the time it struck me as
+singular; for the poor diver's grass bag could not have contained much
+of any thing valuable unless, peradventure, he had concealed therein
+some Cleopatra pearls, feloniously abstracted from the shells brought up
+from the sea.
+
+Aside of the paragraph, copied above, was a pen-and-ink sketch of the
+casualty, most cruelly executed; the poor fellow's legs being
+represented half way in the process of deglutition; his arms firmly
+grasping the monster's teeth, as if heroically bent upon making as tough
+a morsel of himself as possible.
+
+But no doubt the honest captain sketched this cenotaph to the departed
+in all sincerity of heart; perhaps, during the melancholy leisure which
+followed the catastrophe. Half obliterated were several stains upon the
+page; seemingly, lingering traces of a salt tear or two.
+
+From this unwonted embellishment of the text, I was led to infer, that
+the designer, at one time or other, must have been engaged in the
+vocation of whaling. For, in India ink, the logs of certain whalemen are
+decorated by somewhat similar illustrations.
+
+When whales are seen, but not captured, the fact is denoted by an
+outline figure representing the creature's flukes, the broad, curving
+lobes of his tail. But in those cases where the monster is both chased
+and killed, this outline is filled up jet black; one for every whale
+slain; presenting striking objects in turning over the log; and so
+facilitating reference. Hence, it is quite imposing to behold, all in a
+row, three or four, sometime five or six, of these drawings; showing
+that so many monsters that day jetted their last spout. And the chief
+mate, whose duty it is to keep the ship's record, generally prides
+himself upon the beauty, and flushy likeness to life, of his flukes;
+though, sooth to say, many of these artists are no Landseers.
+
+After vainly searching the cabin for those articles we most needed, we
+proceeded to explore the hold, into which as yet we had not penetrated.
+Here, we found a considerable quantity of pearl shells; cocoanuts; an
+abundance of fresh water in casks; spare sails and rigging; and some
+fifty barrels or more of salt beef and biscuit. Unromantic as these last
+mentioned objects were, I lingered over them long, and in a revery.
+Branded upon each barrel head was the name of a place in America, with
+which I was very familiar. It is from America chiefly, that ship's
+stores are originally procured for the few vessels sailing out of the
+Hawaiian Islands.
+
+Having now acquainted myself with all things respecting the Parki, which
+could in any way be learned, I repaired to the quarter-deck, and
+summoning round me Samoa, Annatoo, and Jarl, gravely addressed them.
+
+I said, that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than forthwith
+to return to the scene of the massacre, and chastise its surviving
+authors. But as there were only four of us in all; and the place of
+those islands was wholly unknown to me; and even if known, would be
+altogether out of our reach, since we possessed no instruments of
+navigation; it was quite plain that all thought of returning thither was
+entirely useless. The last mentioned reason, also, prevented our
+voyaging to the Hawaiian group, where the vessel belonged; though that
+would have been the most advisable step, resulting, as it would, if
+successful, in restoring the ill-fated craft to her owners.
+
+But all things considered, it seemed best, I added, cautiously to hold
+on our way to the westward. It was our easiest course; for we would ever
+have the wind from astern; and though we could not so much as hope to
+arrive at any one spot previously designated, there was still a positive
+certainty, if we floated long enough, of falling in with islands whereat
+to refresh ourselves; and whence, if we thought fit, we might afterward
+embark for more agreeable climes. I then reminded them of the fact, that
+so long as we kept the sea, there was always some prospect of
+encountering a friendly sail; in which event, our solicitude would be
+over.
+
+All this I said in the mild, firm tone of a superior; being anxious, at
+once to assume the unquestioned supremacy. For, otherwise, Jarl and I
+might better quit the vessel forthwith, than remain on board subject to
+the outlandish caprices of Annatoo, who through Samoa would then have
+the sway. But I was sure of my Viking; and if Samoa proved docile, had
+no fear of his dame.
+
+And therefore during my address, I steadfastly eyed him; thereby
+learning enough to persuade me, that though he deferred to me at
+present, he was, notwithstanding, a man who, without precisely
+meditating mischief, could upon occasion act an ugly part. But of his
+courage, and savage honor, such as it was, I had little doubt. Then,
+wild buffalo that he was, tamed down in the yoke matrimonial, I could
+not but fancy, that if upon no other account, our society must please
+him, as rendering less afflictive the tyranny of his spouse.
+
+For a hen-pecked husband, by the way, Samoa was a most terrible fellow
+to behold. And though, after all, I liked him; it was as you fancy a
+fiery steed with mane disheveled, as young Alexander fancied Bucephalus;
+which wild horse, when he patted, he preferred holding by the bridle.
+But more of Samoa anon.
+
+Our course determined, and the command of the vessel tacitly yielded up
+to myself, the next thing done was to put every thing in order. The
+tattered sails were replaced by others, dragged up from the sail-room
+below; in several places, new running-rigging was rove; blocks
+restrapped; and the slackened stays and shrouds set taught. For all of
+which, we were mostly indebted to my Viking's unwearied and skillful
+marling-spike, which he swayed like a scepter.
+
+The little Parki's toilet being thus thoroughly made for the first time
+since the massacre, we gave her new raiment to the breeze, and daintily
+squaring her yards, she gracefully glided away; honest old Jarl at the
+helm, watchfully guiding her path, like some devoted old foster-father.
+
+As I stood by his side like a captain, or walked up and down on the
+quarter-deck, I felt no little importance upon thus assuming for the
+first time in my life, the command of a vessel at sea. The novel
+circumstances of the case only augmented this feeling; the wild and
+remote seas where we were; the character of my crew, and the
+consideration, that to all purposes, I was owner, as well as commander
+of the craft I sailed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa
+
+
+My original intention to touch at the Kingsmill Chain, or the countries
+adjacent, was greatly strengthened by thus encountering Samoa; and the
+more I had to do with my Belisarius, the more I was pleased with him.
+Nor could I avoid congratulating myself, upon having fallen in with a
+hero, who in various ways, could not fail of proving exceedingly useful.
+
+Like any man of mark, Samoa best speaks for himself; but we may as well
+convey some idea of his person. Though manly enough, nay, an obelisk in
+stature, the savage was far from being sentimentally prepossessing. Be
+not alarmed; but he wore his knife in the lobe of his dexter ear, which,
+by constant elongation almost drooped upon his shoulder. A mode of
+sheathing it exceedingly handy, and far less brigandish than the
+Highlander's dagger concealed in his leggins.
+
+But it was the mother of Samoa, who at a still earlier day had punctured
+him through and through in still another direction. The middle cartilage
+of his nose was slightly pendent, peaked, and Gothic, and perforated
+with a hole; in which, like a Newfoundland dog carrying a cane, Samoa
+sported a trinket: a well polished nail.
+
+In other respects he was equally a coxcomb. In his style of tattooing,
+for instance, which seemed rather incomplete; his marks embracing but a
+vertical half of his person, from crown to sole; the other side being
+free from the slightest stain. Thus clapped together, as it were, he
+looked like a union of the unmatched moieties of two distinct beings;
+and your fancy was lost in conjecturing, where roamed the absent ones.
+When he turned round upon you suddenly, you thought you saw some one
+else, not him whom you had been regarding before.
+
+But there was one feature in Samoa beyond the reach of the innovations
+of art:--his eye; which in civilized man or savage, ever shines in the
+head, just as it shone at birth. Truly, our eyes are miraculous things.
+But alas, that in so many instances, these divine organs should be mere
+lenses inserted into the socket, as glasses in spectacle rims.
+
+But my Islander had a soul in his eye; looking out upon you there, like
+somebody in him. What an eye, to be sure! At times, brilliantly
+changeful as opal; in anger, glowing like steel at white heat.
+
+Belisarius, be it remembered, had but very recently lost an arm. But you
+would have thought he had been born without it; so Lord Nelson-like and
+cavalierly did he sport the honorable stump.
+
+But no more of Samoa; only this: that his name had been given him by a
+sea-captain; to whom it had been suggested by the native designation of
+the islands to which he belonged; the Saviian or Samoan group, otherwise
+known as the Navigator Islands. The island of Upolua, one of that
+cluster, claiming the special honor of his birth, as Corsica does
+Napoleon's, we shall occasionally hereafter speak of Samoa as the
+Upoluan; by which title he most loved to be called.
+
+It is ever ungallant to pass over a lady. But what shall be said of
+Annatoo? As I live, I can make no pleasing portrait of the dame; for as
+in most ugly subjects, flattering would but make the matter worse.
+Furthermore, unalleviated ugliness should ever go unpainted, as
+something unnecessary to duplicate. But the only ugliness is that of the
+heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the only
+loveliness is invisible.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI Rovings Alow And Aloft
+
+
+Every one knows what a fascination there is in wandering up and down in
+a deserted old tenement in some warm, dreamy country; where the vacant
+halls seem echoing of silence, and the doors creak open like the
+footsteps of strangers; and into every window the old garden trees
+thrust their dark boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; and ever and
+anon the nails start from the wainscot; while behind it the mice rattle
+like dice. Up and down in such old specter houses one loves to wander;
+and so much the more, if the place be haunted by some marvelous story.
+
+And during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, very much such
+a fancy had I, for prying about our little brigantine, whose tragic hull
+was haunted by the memory of the massacre, of which it still bore
+innumerable traces.
+
+And so far as the indulgence of quiet strolling and reverie was
+concerned, it was well nigh the same as if I were all by myself. For
+Samoa, for a time, was rather reserved, being occupied with thoughts of
+his own. And Annatoo seldom troubled me with her presence. She was taken
+up with her calicoes and jewelry; which I had permitted her to retain,
+to keep her in good humor if possible. And as for My royal old Viking,
+he was one of those individuals who seldom speak, unless personally
+addressed.
+
+Besides, all that by day was necessary to navigating the Parki was,
+that--somebody should stand at the helm; the craft being so small, and
+the grating, whereon the steersman stood, so elevated, that he commanded
+a view far beyond the bowsprit; thus keeping Argus eyes on the sea, as
+he steered us along. In all other respects we left the brigantine to the
+guardianship of the gentle winds.
+
+My own turn at the helm--for though commander, I felt constrained to do
+duty with the rest--came but once in the twenty-four hours. And not only
+did Jarl and Samoa, officiate as helmsmen, but also Dame Annatoo, who
+had become quite expert at the business. Though Jarl always maintained
+that there was a slight drawback upon her usefulness in this vocation.
+Too much taken up by her lovely image partially reflected in the glass
+of the binnacle before her, Annatoo now and then neglected her duty, and
+led us some devious dances. Nor was she, I ween, the first woman that
+ever led men into zigzags.
+
+For the reasons above stated, I had many spare hours to myself. At
+times, I mounted aloft, and lounging in the slings of the topsail yard--one of the many snug nooks in a ship's rigging--I gazed broad off upon
+the blue boundless sea, and wondered what they were doing in that
+unknown land, toward which we were fated to be borne. Or feeling less
+meditative, I roved about hither and thither; slipping over, by the
+stays, from one mast to the other; climbing up to the truck; or lounging
+out to the ends of the yards; exploring wherever there was a foothold.
+It was like climbing about in some mighty old oak, and resting in the
+crotches.
+
+To a sailor, a ship's ropes are a study. And to me, every rope-yarn of
+the Parki's was invested with interest. The outlandish fashion of her
+shrouds, the collars of her stays, the stirrups, seizings, Flemish-horses, gaskets,--all the wilderness of her rigging, bore unequivocal
+traces of her origin.
+
+But, perhaps, my pleasantest hours were those which I spent, stretched
+out on a pile of old sails, in the fore-top; lazily dozing to the
+craft's light roll.
+
+Frequently, I descended to the cabin: for the fiftieth time, exploring
+the lockers and state-rooms for some new object of curiosity. And often,
+with a glimmering light, I went into the midnight hold, as into old
+vaults and catacombs; and creeping between damp ranges of casks,
+penetrated into its farthest recesses.
+
+Sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, I lighted upon sundry out-of-the-way hiding places of Annatoo's; where were snugly secreted divers
+articles, with which she had been smitten. In truth, no small portion of
+the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its own bowels. I
+found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain's, hidden away in the hollow
+heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most touchingly
+natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a breaker, discovered
+several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied together with cords
+almost strong enough to sustain the mainmast.
+
+Near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down
+into this part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as
+Charles the First. And herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a
+discovery which accounted for what had often proved an enigma. Not
+seldom Annatoo had been among the missing; and though, from stem to
+stern, loudly invoked to come forth and relieve the poignant distress of
+her anxious friends, the dame remained perdu; silent and invisible as a
+spirit. But in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge; or be
+suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she had been
+there from all eternity.
+
+Useless to inquire, "Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo?" For no sweet
+rejoinder would she give.
+
+But now the problem was solved. Here, in this silent cask in the hold,
+Annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a
+stone.
+
+Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about:
+whether she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved
+to this unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could tell.
+Can you?
+
+Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in
+building their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a
+fool of a sage.
+
+Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII Xiphius Platypterus
+
+
+About this time, the loneliness of our voyage was relieved by an event
+worth relating.
+
+Ever since leaving the Pearl Shell Islands, the Parki had been followed
+by shoals of small fish, pleasantly enlivening the sea, and socially
+swimming by her side. But in vain did Jarl and I search among their
+ranks for the little, steel-blue Pilot fish, so long outriders of the
+Chamois. But perhaps since the Chamois was now high and dry on the
+Parki's deck, our bright little avant-couriers were lurking out of
+sight, far down in the brine; racing along close to the keel.
+
+But it is not with the Pilot fish that we now have to do.
+
+One morning our attention was attracted to a mighty commotion in the
+water. The shoals of fish were darting hither and thither, and leaping
+into the air in the utmost affright. Samoa declared, that their deadly
+foe the Sword fish must be after them.
+
+And here let me say, that, since of all the bullies, and braggarts, and
+bravoes, and free-booters, and Hectors, and fish-at-arms, and knight-errants, and moss-troopers, and assassins, and foot-pads, and gallant
+soldiers, and immortal heroes that swim the seas, the Indian Sword fish
+is by far the most remarkable, I propose to dedicate this chapter to a
+special description of the warrior. In doing which, I but follow the
+example of all chroniclers and historians, my Peloponnesian friend
+Thucydides and others, who are ever mindful of devoting much space to
+accounts of eminent destroyers; for the purpose, no doubt, of holding
+them up as ensamples to the world.
+
+Now, the fish here treated of is a very different creature from the
+Sword fish frequenting the Northern Atlantic; being much larger every
+way, and a more dashing varlet to boot. Furthermore, he is denominated
+the Indian Sword fish, in contradistinction from his namesake above
+mentioned. But by seamen in the Pacific, he is more commonly known as
+the Bill fish; while for those who love science and hard names, be it
+known, that among the erudite naturalists he goeth by the outlandish
+appellation of "_Xiphius Platypterus_."
+
+But I waive for my hero all these his cognomens, and substitute a much
+better one of my own: namely, the Chevalier. And a Chevalier he is, by
+good right and title. A true gentleman of Black Prince Edward's bright
+day, when all gentlemen were known by their swords; whereas, in times
+present, the Sword fish excepted, they are mostly known by their high
+polished boots and rattans.
+
+A right valiant and jaunty Chevalier is our hero; going about with his
+long Toledo perpetually drawn. Rely upon it, he will fight you to the
+hilt, for his bony blade has never a scabbard. He himself sprang from it
+at birth; yea, at the very moment he leaped into the Battle of Life; as
+we mortals ourselves spring all naked and scabbardless into the world.
+Yet, rather, are we scabbards to our souls. And the drawn soul of genius
+is more glittering than the drawn cimeter of Saladin. But how many let
+their steel sleep, till it eat up the scabbard itself, and both corrode
+to rust-chips. Saw you ever the hillocks of old Spanish anchors, and
+anchor-stocks of ancient galleons, at the bottom of Callao Bay? The
+world is full of old Tower armories, and dilapidated Venetian arsenals,
+and rusty old rapiers. But true warriors polish their good blades by the
+bright beams of the morning; and gird them on to their brave sirloins;
+and watch for rust spots as for foes; and by many stout thrusts and
+stoccadoes keep their metal lustrous and keen, as the spears of the
+Northern Lights charging over Greenland.
+
+Fire from the flint is our Chevalier enraged. He takes umbrage at the
+cut of some ship's keel crossing his road; and straightway runs a tilt
+at it; with one mad lounge thrusting his Andrea Ferrara clean through
+and through; not seldom breaking it short off at the haft, like a bravo
+leaving his poignard in the vitals of his foe.
+
+In the case of the English ship Foxhound, the blade penetrated through
+the most solid part of her hull, the bow; going completely through the
+copper plates and timbers, and showing for several inches in the hold.
+On the return of the ship to London, it was carefully sawn out; and,
+imbedded in the original wood, like a fossil, is still preserved. But
+this was a comparatively harmless onslaught of the valiant Chevalier.
+With the Rousseau, of Nantucket, it fared worse. She was almost mortally
+stabbed; her assailant withdrawing his blade. And it was only by keeping
+the pumps clanging, that she managed to swim into a Tahitian harbor,
+"heave down," and have her wound dressed by a ship-surgeon with tar and
+oakum. This ship I met with at sea, shortly after the disaster.
+
+At what armory our Chevalier equips himself after one of his spiteful
+tilting-matches, it would not be easy to say. But very hard for him, if
+ever after he goes about in the lists, swordless and disarmed, at the
+mercy of any caitiff shark he may meet.
+
+Now, seeing that our fellow-voyagers, the little fish along-side, were
+sorely tormented and thinned out by the incursions of a pertinacious
+Chevalier, bent upon making a hearty breakfast out of them, I determined
+to interfere in their behalf, and capture the enemy.
+
+With shark-hook and line I succeeded, and brought my brave gentleman to
+the deck. He made an emphatic landing; lashing the planks with his
+sinewy tail; while a yard and a half in advance of his eyes, reached
+forth his terrible blade.
+
+As victor, I was entitled to the arms of the vanquished; so, quickly
+dispatching him, and sawing off his Toledo, I bore it away for a trophy.
+It was three-sided, slightly concave on each, like a bayonet; and some
+three inches through at the base, it tapered from thence to a point.
+
+And though tempered not in Tagus or Guadalquiver, it yet revealed upon
+its surface that wavy grain and watery fleckiness peculiar to tried
+blades of Spain. It was an aromatic sword; like the ancient caliph's,
+giving out a peculiar musky odor by friction. But far different from
+steel of Tagus or Damascus, it was inflexible as Crocket's rifle tube;
+no doubt, as deadly.
+
+Long hung that rapier over the head of my hammock. Was it not storied as
+the good trenchant blade of brave Bayard, that other chevalier? The
+knight's may have slain its scores, or fifties; but the weapon I
+preserved had, doubtless, run through and riddled its thousands.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII Otard
+
+
+And here is another little incident.
+
+One afternoon while all by myself curiously penetrating into the hold, I
+most unexpectedly obtained proof, that the ill-fated captain of the
+Parki had been a man of sound judgment and most excellent taste. In
+brief, I lighted upon an aromatic cask of prime old Otard.
+
+Now, I mean not to speak lightly of any thing immediately connected with
+the unfortunate captain. Nor, on the other hand, would I resemble the
+inconsolable mourner, who among other tokens of affliction, bound in
+funereal crape his deceased friend's copy of Joe Miller. Is there not a
+fitness in things?
+
+But let that pass. I found the Otard, and drank there-of; finding it,
+moreover, most pleasant to the palate, and right cheering to the soul.
+My next impulse was to share my prize with my shipmates. But here a
+judicious reflection obtruded. From the sea-monarchs, his ancestors, my
+Viking had inherited one of their cardinal virtues, a detestation and
+abhorrence of all vinous and spirituous beverages; insomuch, that he
+never could see any, but he instantly quaffed it out of sight. To be
+short, like Alexander the Great and other royalties, Jarl was prone to
+overmuch bibing. And though at sea more sober than a Fifth Monarchy
+Elder, it was only because he was then removed from temptation. But
+having thus divulged my Viking's weak; side, I earnestly entreat, that
+it may not disparage him in any charitable man's estimation. Only think,
+how many more there are like him to say nothing further of Alexander the
+Great--especially among his own class; and consider, I beseech, that the
+most capacious-souled fellows, for that very reason, are the most apt to
+be too liberal in their libations; since, being so large-hearted, they
+hold so much more good cheer than others.
+
+For Samoa, from his utter silence hitherto as to aught inebriating on
+board, I concluded, that, along with his other secrets, the departed
+captain had very wisely kept his Otard to himself.
+
+Nor did I doubt, but that the Upoluan, like all Polynesians, much loved
+getting high of head; and in that state, would be more intractable than
+a Black Forest boar. And concerning Annatoo, I shuddered to think, how
+that Otard might inflame her into a Fury more fierce than the foremost
+of those that pursued Orestes.
+
+In good time, then, bethinking me of the peril of publishing my
+discovery;--bethinking me of the quiet, lazy, ever-present perils of the
+voyage, of all circumstances, the very worst under which to introduce an
+intoxicating beverage to my companions, I resolved to withhold it from
+them altogether.
+
+So impressed was I with all this, that for a moment, I was almost
+tempted to roll over the cask on its bilge, remove the stopper, and
+suffer its contents to mix with the foul water at the bottom of the
+hold.
+
+But no, no: What: dilute the brine with the double distilled soul of the
+precious grape? Haft himself would have haunted me!
+
+Then again, it might come into play medicinally; and Paracelsus himself
+stands sponsor for every cup drunk for the good of the abdomen. So at
+last, I determined to let it remain where it was: visiting it
+occasionally, by myself, for inspection.
+
+But by way of advice to all ship-masters, let me say, that if your Otard
+magazine be exposed to view--then, in the evil hour of wreck, stave in
+your spirit-casks, ere rigging the life-boat.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV How They Steered On Their Way
+
+
+When we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at
+least two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had
+abandoned the Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been, North
+or South of the Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.
+
+But that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line,
+seemed obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme Polar
+constellations was visible; though often we scanned the northern and
+southern horizon in search of them. So far as regards the aspect of the
+skies near the ocean's rim, the difference of several degrees in one's
+latitude at sea, is readily perceived by a person long accustomed to
+surveying the heavens.
+
+If correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time here
+alluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been making in
+the Parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to sail, ere the
+country we sought would be found. But for obvious reasons, how long
+precisely we might continue to float out of sight of land, it was
+impossible to say. Calms, light breezes, and currents made every thing
+uncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating our due westward
+progress, except by what is called Dead Reckoning,--the computation of
+the knots run hourly; allowances' being made for the supposed deviations
+from our course, by reason of the ocean streams; which at times in this
+quarter of the Pacific run with very great velocity.
+
+Now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the Parki than
+in the Chamois. The sense of danger is less vivid, the greater the
+number of lives involved. He who is ready to despair in solitary peril,
+plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of comrades
+is much countenance and consolation.
+
+Still, in the brigantine there were  many sources of uneasiness and
+anxiety unknown to me in the whale-boat. True, we had now between us and
+the deep, five hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant little
+chip. But the Parki required more care and attention; especially by
+night, when a vigilant look-out was indispensable. With impunity, in our
+whale-boat, we might have run close to shoal or reef; whereas, similar
+carelessness or temerity now, might prove fatal to all concerned.
+
+Though in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, I was
+little troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of darkness it was
+quite another thing. And the apprehensions, nay terrors I felt, were
+much augmented by the remissness of both Jarl and Samoa, in keeping
+their night-watches. Several times I was seized with a deadly panic, and
+earnestly scanned the murky horizon, when rising from slumber I found
+the steersman, in whose hands for the time being were life and death,
+sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of a fixture there, as the
+open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow.
+
+Were it not, that on board of other vessels, I myself had many a time
+dozed at the helm, spite of all struggles, I would have been almost at a
+loss to account for this heedlessness in my comrades. But it seemed as
+if the mere sense of our situation, should have been sufficient to
+prevent the like conduct in all on board our craft.
+
+Samoa's aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. His large
+opal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the binnacle,
+gleamed between the lids like bars of flame. And added to all, was his
+giant stature and savage lineaments.
+
+It was in vain, that I remonstrated, begged, or threatened: the
+occasional drowsiness of my fellow-voyagers proved incurable. To no
+purpose, I reminded my Viking that sleeping in the night-watch in a
+craft like ours, was far different from similar heedlessness on board
+the Arcturion. For there, our place upon the ocean was always known, and
+our distance from land; so that when by night the seamen were permitted
+to be drowsy, it was mostly, because the captain well knew that strict
+watchfulness could be dispensed with.
+
+Though in all else, the Skyeman proved a most faithful ally, in this one
+thing he was either perversely obtuse, or infatuated. Or, perhaps,
+finding himself once more in a double-decked craft, which rocked him as
+of yore, he was lulled into a deceitful security.
+
+For Samoa, his drowsiness was the drowsiness of one beat on sleep, come
+dreams or death. He seemed insensible to the peril we ran. Often I sent
+the sleepy savage below, sad, steered myself till morning. At last I
+made a point of slumbering much by day, the better to stand watch by
+night; though I made Samoa and Jarl regularly go through with their
+allotted four hours each.
+
+It has been mentioned, that Annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it
+was only by day. And in justice to the lady, I must affirm, that upon
+the whole she acquitted herself well. For notwithstanding the syren face
+in the binnacle, which dimly allured her glances, Annatoo after all was
+tolerably heedful of her steering. Indeed she took much pride therein;
+always ready for her turn; with marvelous exactitude calculating the
+approaching hour, as it came on in regular rotation. Her time-piece was
+ours, the sun. By night it must have been her guardian star; for
+frequently she gazed up at a particular section of the heavens, like one
+regarding the dial in a tower.
+
+By some odd reasoning or other, she had cajoled herself into the notion,
+that whoever steered the brigantine, for that period was captain.
+Wherefore, she gave herself mighty airs at the tiller; with extravagant
+gestures issuing unintelligible orders about trimming the sails, or
+pitching overboard something to see how fast we were going. All this
+much diverted my Viking, who several times was delivered of a laugh; a
+loud and healthy one to boot: a phenomenon worthy the chronicling.
+
+And thus much for Annatoo, preliminary to what is further to be said.
+Seeing the drowsiness of Jarl and Samoa, which so often kept me from my
+hammock at night, forcing me to repose by day, when I far preferred
+being broad awake, I decided to let Annatoo take her turn at the night
+watches; which several times she had solicited me to do; railing at the
+sleepiness of her spouse; though abstaining from all reflections upon
+Jarl, toward whom she had of late grown exceedingly friendly.
+
+Now the Calmuc stood her first night watch to admiration; if any thing,
+was altogether too wakeful. The mere steering of the craft employed not
+sufficiently her active mind. Ever and anon she must needs rush from the
+tiller to take a parenthetical pull at the fore-brace, the end of which
+led down to the bulwarks near by; then refreshing herself with a draught
+or two of water and a biscuit, she would continue to steer away, full of
+the importance of her office. At any unusual flapping of the sails, a
+violent stamping on deck announced the fact to the startled crew.
+Finding her thus indefatigable, I readily induced her to stand two
+watches to Jarl's and Samoa's one; and when she was at the helm, I
+permitted myself to doze on a pile of old sails, spread every evening on
+the quarter-deck.
+
+It was the Skyeman, who often admonished me to "heave the ship to" every
+night, thus stopping her headway till morning; a plan which, under other
+circumstances, might have perhaps warranted the slumbers of all. But as
+it was, such a course would have been highly imprudent. For while making
+no onward progress through the water, the rapid currents we encountered
+would continually be drifting us eastward; since, contrary to our
+previous experience, they seemed latterly to have reversed their flow, a
+phenomenon by no means unusual in the vicinity of the Line in the
+Pacific. And this it was that so prolonged our passage to the westward.
+Even in a moderate breeze, I sometimes fancied, that the impulse of the
+wind little more than counteracted the glide of the currents; so that
+with much show of sailing, we were in reality almost a fixture on the
+sea.
+
+The equatorial currents of the South Seas may be regarded as among the
+most mysterious of the mysteries of the deep. Whence they come, whither
+go, who knows? Tell us, what hidden law regulates their flow. Regardless
+of the theory which ascribes to them a nearly uniform course from east
+to west, induced by the eastwardly winds of the Line, and the collateral
+action of the Polar streams; these currents are forever shifting. Nor
+can the period of their revolutions be at all relied upon or predicted.
+
+But however difficult it may be to assign a specific cause for the ocean
+streams, in any part of the world, one of the wholesome effects thereby
+produced would seem obvious enough. And though the circumstance here
+alluded to is perhaps known to every body, it may be questioned, whether
+it is generally invested with the importance it deserves. Reference is
+here made to the constant commingling and purification of the sea-water
+by reason of the currents.
+
+For, that the ocean, according to the popular theory, possesses a
+special purifying agent in its salts, is somewhat to be doubted. Nor can
+it be explicitly denied, that those very salts might corrupt it, were it
+not for the brisk circulation of its particles consequent upon the flow
+of the streams. It is well known to seamen, that a bucket of sea-water,
+left standing in a tropical climate, very soon becomes highly offensive;
+which is not the case with rainwater.
+
+But I build no theories. And by way of obstructing the one, which might
+possibly be evolved from the statement above, let me add, that the
+offensiveness of sea-water left standing, may arise in no small degree
+from the presence of decomposed animal matter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV Ah, Annatoo!
+
+
+In order to a complete revelation, I must needs once again discourse of
+Annatoo and her pilferings; and to what those pilferings led. In the
+simplicity of my soul, I fancied that the dame, so much flattered as she
+needs must have been, by the confidence I began to repose in her, would
+now mend her ways, and abstain from her larcenies. But not so. She was
+possessed by some scores of devils, perpetually her to mischief on their
+own separate behoof, and not less for many of her pranks were of no
+earthly advantage to her, present or prospective.
+
+One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo. She came; but knew
+nothing about it. Jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a substitute;
+and a few days after, pop, we came upon the lost: article hidden away in
+the main-top.
+
+Another time, discovering the little vessel to "gripe" hard in steering,
+as if some one under water were jerking her backward, we instituted a
+diligent examination, to see what was the matter. When lo; what should
+we find but a rope, cunningly attached to one of the chain-plates under
+the starboard main-channel. It towed heavily in the water. Upon dragging
+it up--much as you would the cord of a ponderous bucket far down in a
+well--a stout wooden box was discovered at the end; which opened,
+disclosed sundry knives, hatchets, and ax-heads.
+
+Called to the stand, the Upoluan deposed, that thrice he had rescued
+that identical box from Annatoo's all-appropriating clutches.
+
+Now, here were four human beings shut up in this little oaken craft,
+and, for the time being, their interests the same. What sane mortal,
+then, would forever be committing thefts, without rhyme or reason. It
+was like stealing silver from one pocket and decanting it into the
+other. And what might it not lead to in the end?
+
+Why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of the compass
+from the binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute for it, the one
+brought along in the Chamois.
+
+It was Jarl that first published this last and alarming theft. Annatoo
+being at the helm at dawn, he had gone to relieve her; and looking to
+see how we headed, was horror-struck at the emptiness of the binnacle.
+
+I started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously demanded the
+compass. But her face was a blank; every word a denial.
+
+Further lenity was madness. I summoned Samoa, told him what had
+happened, and affirmed that there was no safety for us except in the
+nightly incarceration of his spouse. To this he privily assented; and
+that very evening, when Annatoo descended into the forecastle, we barred
+over her the scuttle-slide. Long she clamored, but unavailingly. And
+every night this was repeated; the dame saying her vespers most
+energetically.
+
+It has somewhere been hinted, that Annatoo occasionally cast sheep's
+eyes at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised when her manner toward him
+decidedly changed. Pulling at the ropes with us, she would give him sly
+pinches, and then look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then again, she
+would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with him; with wry
+faces, rinsed out the wooden can at the water cask, if it so chanced
+that my Viking had previously been drinking therefrom. At other times,
+when the honest Skyeman came up from below, she would set up a shout of
+derision, and loll out her tongue; accompanying all this by certain
+indecorous and exceedingly unladylike gestures, significant of the
+profound contempt in which she held him.
+
+Yet, never did Jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently overlooked and
+forgave it. Inquiring the reason of the dame's singular conduct, I
+learned, that with eye averted, she had very lately crept close to my
+Viking, and met with no tender reception.
+
+Doubtless, Jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently imagined that
+ere long the lady would forgive and forget him. But what knows a
+philosopher about women?
+
+Ere long, so outrageous became Annatoo's detestation of him, that the
+honest old tar could stand it no longer, and like most good-natured men
+when once fairly roused, he was swept through and through with a
+terrible typhoon of passion. He proposed, that forthwith the woman
+should be sacked and committed to the deep; he could stand it no longer.
+
+Murder is catching. At first I almost jumped at the proposition; but as
+quickly rejected it. Ah! Annatoo: Woman unendurable: deliver me, ye
+gods, from being shut up in a ship with such a hornet again.
+
+But are we yet through with her? Not yet. Hitherto she had continued to
+perform the duties of the office assigned her since the commencement of
+the voyage: namely, those of the culinary department. From this she was
+now deposed. Her skewer was broken. My Viking solemnly averring, that he
+would eat nothing more of her concocting, for fear of being poisoned.
+For myself, I almost believed, that there was malice enough in the minx
+to give us our henbane broth.
+
+But what said Samoa to all this? Passing over the matter of the cookery,
+will it be credited, that living right among us as he did, he was yet
+blind to the premeditated though unachieved peccadilloes of his spouse?
+Yet so it was. And thus blind was Belisarius himself, concerning the
+intrigues of Antonina.
+
+Witness that noble dame's affair with the youth Theodosius; when her
+deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns she
+had bestowed upon him.
+
+Upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate Annatoo's
+thievings, Samoa proudly intimated, that the lady was the most virtuous
+of her sex.
+
+But alas, poor Annatoo, why say more? And bethinking me of the hard fate
+that so soon overtook thee, I almost repent what has already and too
+faithfully been portrayed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI The Parki Gives Up The Ghost
+
+
+A long calm in the boat, and now, God help us, another in  the
+brigantine. It was airless and profound.
+
+In that hot calm, we lay fixed and frozen in like Parry at the Pole. The
+sun played upon the glassy sea like the sun upon the glaciers.
+
+At the end of two days we lifted up our eyes and beheld a low, creeping,
+hungry cloud expanding like an army, wing and wing, along the eastern
+horizon. Instantly Jarl bode me take heed.
+
+Here be it said, that though for weeks and weeks reign over the
+equatorial latitudes of the Pacific, the mildest and sunniest of days;
+that nevertheless, when storms do come, they come in their strength:
+spending in a few, brief blasts their concentrated rage. They come like
+the Mamelukes: they charge, and away.
+
+It wanted full an hour to sunset; but the sun was well nigh obscured. It
+seemed toiling among bleak Scythian steeps in the hazy background. Above
+the storm-cloud flitted ominous patches of scud, rapidly advancing and
+receding: Attila's skirmishers, thrown forward in the van of his Huns.
+Beneath, a fitful shadow slid along the surface. As we gazed, the cloud
+came nearer; accelerating its approach.
+
+With all haste we proceeded to furl the sails, which, owing to the calm,
+had been hanging loose in the brails. And by help of a spare boom, used
+on the forecastle-deck sit a sweep or great oar, we endeavored to cast
+the brigantine's head toward the foe.
+
+The storm seemed about to overtake us; but we felt no breeze. The
+noiseless cloud stole on; its advancing shadow lowering over a distinct
+and prominent milk-white crest upon the surface of the ocean. But now
+this line of surging foam came rolling down upon us like a white charge
+of cavalry: mad Hotspur and plumed Murat at its head; pouring right
+forward in a continuous frothy cascade, which curled over, and fell upon
+the glassy sea before it.
+
+Still, no breath of air. But of a sudden, like a blow from a man's hand,
+and before our canvas could be secured, the stunned craft, giving one
+lurch to port, was stricken down on her beam-ends; the roaring tide
+dashed high up against her windward side, and drops of brine fell upon
+the deck, heavy as drops of gore.
+
+It was all a din and a mist; a crashing of spars and of ropes; a
+horrible blending of sights and of sounds; as for an instant we seemed
+in the hot heart of the gale; our cordage, like harp-strings, shrieking
+above the fury of the blast. The masts rose, and swayed, and dipped
+their trucks in the sea. And like unto some stricken buffalo brought low
+to the plain, the brigantine's black hull, shaggy with sea-weed, lay
+panting on its flank in the foam.
+
+Frantically we clung to the uppermost bulwarks. And now, loud above the
+roar of the sea, was suddenly heard a sharp, splintering sound, as of a
+Norway woodman felling a pine in the forest. It was brave Jarl, who
+foremost of all had snatched from its rack against the mainmast, the ax,
+always there kept.
+
+"Cut the lanyards to windward!" he cried; and again buried his ax into
+the mast. He was quickly obeyed. And upon cutting the third lanyard of
+the five, he shouted for us to pause. Dropping his ax, he climbed up to
+windward. As he clutched the rail, the wounded mast snapped in twain
+with a report like a cannon. A slight smoke was perceptible where it
+broke. The remaining lanyards parted. From the violent strain upon them,
+the two shrouds flew madly into the air, and one of the great blocks at
+their ends, striking Annatoo upon the forehead, she let go her hold upon
+a stanchion, and sliding across the aslant deck, was swallowed up in the
+whirlpool under our lea. Samoa shrieked. But there was no time to mourn;
+no hand could reach to save.
+
+By the connecting stays, the mainmast carried over with it the foremast;
+when we instantly righted, and for the time were saved; my own royal
+Viking our saviour.
+
+The first fury of the gale was gone. But far to leeward was seen the
+even, white line of its onset, pawing the ocean into foam. All round us,
+the sea boiled like ten thousand caldrons; and through eddy, wave, and
+surge, our almost water-logged craft waded heavily; every dead clash
+ringing hollow against her hull, like blows upon a coffin.
+
+We floated a wreck. With every pitch we lifted our dangling jib-boom
+into the air; and beating against the side, were the shattered fragments
+of the masts. From these we made all haste to be free, by cutting the
+rigging that held them.
+
+Soon, the worst of the gale was blown over. But the sea ran high. Yet
+the rack and scud of the tempest, its mad, tearing foam, was subdued
+into immense, long-extended, and long-rolling billows; the white cream
+on their crests like snow on the Andes. Ever and anon we hung poised on
+their brows; when the furrowed ocean all round looked like a panorama
+from Chimborazo.
+
+A few hours more, and the surges went down. There was a moderate sea, a
+steady breeze, and a clear, starry sky. Such was the storm that came
+after our calm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII Once More They Take To The Chamois
+
+
+Try the pumps. We dropped the sinker, and found the Parki bleeding at
+every pore. Up from her well, the water, spring-like, came bubbling,
+pure and limpid as the water of Saratoga. Her time had come. But by
+keeping two hands at the pumps, we had no doubt she would float till
+daylight; previous to which we liked not to abandon her.
+
+The interval was employed in clanging at the pump-breaks, and preparing
+the Chamois for our reception. So soon as the sea permitted, we lowered
+it over the side; and letting it float under the stern, stowed it with
+water and provisions, together with various other things, including
+muskets and cutlasses.
+
+Shortly after daylight, a violent jostling and thumping under foot
+showed that the water, gaining rapidly in the, hold, spite of all
+pumping, had floated the lighter casks up-ward to the deck, against
+which they were striking.
+
+Now, owing to the number of empty butts in the hold, there would have
+been, perhaps, but small danger of the vessel's sinking outright--all
+awash as her decks would soon be--were it not, that many of her timbers
+were of a native wood, which, like the Teak of India, is specifically
+heavier than water. This, with the pearl shells on board, counteracted
+the buoyancy of the casks.
+
+At last, the sun--long waited for--arose; the Parki meantime sinking
+lower and lower.
+
+All things being in readiness, we proceeded to embark from the wreck, as
+from a wharf.
+
+But not without some show of love for our poor brigantine.
+
+To a seaman, a ship is no piece of mechanism merely; but a creature of
+thoughts and fancies, instinct with life. Standing at her vibrating
+helm, you feel her beating pulse. I have loved ships, as I have loved
+men.
+
+To abandon the poor Parki was like leaving to its fate something that
+could feel. It was meet that she should die decently and bravely.
+
+All this thought the Skyeman. Samoa and I were in the boat, calling upon
+him to enter quickly, lest the vessel should sink, and carry us down in
+the eddies; for already she had gone round twice. But cutting adrift the
+last fragments of her broken shrouds, and putting her decks in order,
+Jarl buried his ax in the splintered stump of the mainmast, and not till
+then did he join us.
+
+We slowly cheered, and sailed away.
+
+Not ten minutes after, the hull rolled convulsively in the sea; went
+round once more; lifted its sharp prow as a man with arms pointed for a
+dive; gave a long seething plunge; and went down.
+
+Many of her old planks were twice wrecked; once strown upon ocean's
+beach; now dropped into its lowermost vaults, with the bones of drowned
+ships and drowned men.
+
+Once more afloat in our shell! But not with the intrepid spirit that
+shoved off with us from the deck of the Arcturion. A bold deed done from
+impulse, for the time carries few or no misgivings along with it. But
+forced upon you, its terrors stare you in the face. So now. I had pushed
+from the Arcturion with a stout heart; but quitting the sinking Parki,
+my heart sunk with her.
+
+With a fair wind, we held on our way westward, hoping to see land before
+many days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII The Sea On Fire
+
+
+The night following our abandonment of the Parki, was made memorable by
+a remarkable spectacle.
+
+Slumbering in the bottom of the boat, Jarl and I were suddenly awakened
+by Samoa. Starting, we beheld the ocean of a pallid white color,
+corruscating all over with tiny golden sparkles. But the pervading hue
+of the water cast a cadaverous gleam upon the boat, so that we looked to
+each other like ghosts. For many rods astern our wake was revealed in a
+line of rushing illuminated foam; while here and there beneath the
+surface, the tracks of sharks were denoted by vivid, greenish trails,
+crossing and recrossing each other in every direction. Farther away, and
+distributed in clusters, floated on the sea, like constellations in the
+heavens, innumerable Medusae, a species of small, round, refulgent fish,
+only to be met with in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean.
+
+Suddenly, as we gazed, there shot high into the air a bushy jet of
+flashes, accompanied by the unmistakable deep breathing sound of a sperm
+whale. Soon, the sea all round us spouted in fountains of fire; and vast
+forms, emitting a glare from their flanks, and ever and anon raising
+their heads above water, and shaking off the sparkles, showed where an
+immense shoal of Cachalots had risen from below to sport in these
+phosphorescent billows.
+
+The vapor jetted forth was far more radiant than any portion of the sea;
+ascribable perhaps to the originally luminous fluid contracting still
+more brilliancy from its passage through the spouting canal of the
+whales.
+
+We were in great fear, lest without any vicious intention the Leviathans
+might destroy us, by coming into close contact with our boat. We would
+have shunned them; but they were all round and round us. Nevertheless we
+were safe; for as we parted the pallid brine, the peculiar irradiation
+which shot from about our keel seemed to deter them. Apparently
+discovering us of a sudden, many of them plunged headlong down into the
+water, tossing their fiery tails high into the air, and leaving the sea
+still more sparkling from the violent surging of their descent.
+
+Their general course seemed the same as our own; to the westward. To
+remove from them, we at last out oars, and pulled toward the north. So
+doing, we were steadily pursued by a solitary whale, that must have
+taken our Chamois for a kindred fish. Spite of all our efforts, he drew
+nearer and nearer; at length rubbing his fiery flank against the
+Chamois' gunwale, here and there leaving long strips of the glossy
+transparent substance which thin as gossamer invests the body of the
+Cachalot.
+
+In terror at a sight so new, Samoa shrank. But Jarl and I, more used to
+the intimate companionship of the whales, pushed the boat away from it
+with our oars: a thing often done in the fishery.
+
+The close vicinity of the whale revived in the so long astute Skyeman
+all the enthusiasm of his daring vocation. However quiet by nature, a
+thorough-bred whaleman betrays no little excitement in sight of his
+game. And it required some persuasion to prevent Jarl from darting his
+harpoon: insanity under present circumstances; and of course without
+object. But "Oh! for a dart," cried my Viking. And "Where's now our old
+ship?" he added reminiscently.
+
+But to my great joy the monster at last departed; rejoining the shoal,
+whose lofty spoutings of flame were still visible upon the distant line
+of the horizon; showing there, like the fitful starts of the Aurora
+Borealis.
+
+The sea retained its luminosity for about three hours; at the expiration
+of half that period beginning to fade; and excepting occasional faint
+illuminations consequent upon the rapid darting of fish under water, the
+phenomenon at last wholly disappeared.
+
+Heretofore, I had beheld several exhibitions of marine phosphorescence,
+both in the Atlantic and Pacific. But nothing in comparison with what
+was seen that night. In the Atlantic, there is very seldom any portion
+of the ocean luminous, except the crests of the waves; and these mostly
+appear so during wet, murky weather. Whereas, in the Pacific, all
+instances of the sort, previously corning under my notice, had been
+marked by patches of greenish light, unattended with any pallidness of
+sea. Save twice on the coast of Peru, where I was summoned from my
+hammock to the alarming midnight cry of "All hands ahoy! tack ship!" And
+rushing on deck, beheld the sea white as a shroud; for which reason it
+was feared we were on soundings.
+
+Now, sailors love marvels, and love to repeat them. And from many an old
+shipmate I have heard various sage opinings, concerning the phenomenon
+in question. Dismissing, as destitute of sound philosophic probability,
+the extravagant notion of one of my nautical friends--no less a
+philosopher than my Viking himself--namely: that the phosphoresence of
+the sea is caused by a commotion among the mermaids, whose golden locks,
+all torn and disheveled, do irradiate the waters at such times; I
+proceed to record more reliable theories.
+
+Faraday might, perhaps, impute the phenomenon to a peculiarly electrical
+condition of the atmosphere; and to that solely. But herein, my
+scientific friend would be stoutly contradicted by many intelligent
+seamen, who, in part, impute it to the presence of large quantities of
+putrescent animal matter; with which the sea is well known to abound.
+
+And it would seem not unreasonable to suppose, that it is by this means
+that the fluid itself becomes charged with the luminous principle. Draw
+a bucket of water from the phosphorescent ocean, and it still retains
+traces of fire; but, standing awhile, this soon subsides. Now pour it
+along the deck, and it is a stream of flame; caused by its renewed
+agitation. Empty the bucket, and for a space sparkles cling to it
+tenaciously; and every stave seems ignited.
+
+But after all, this seeming ignition of the sea can not be wholly
+produced by dead matter therein. There are many living fish,
+phosphorescent; and, under certain conditions, by a rapid throwing off
+of luminous particles must largely contribute to the result. Not to
+particularize this circumstance as true of divers species of sharks,
+cuttle-fish, and many others of the larger varieties of the finny
+tribes; the myriads of microscopic mollusca, well known to swarm off
+soundings, might alone be deemed almost sufficient to kindle a fire in
+the brine.
+
+But these are only surmises; likely, but uncertain.
+
+After science comes sentiment.
+
+A French naturalist maintains, that the nocturnal radiance of the fire-fly is purposely intended as an attraction to the opposite sex; that the
+artful insect illuminates its body for a beacon to love. Thus: perched
+upon the edge of a leaf, and waiting the approach of her Leander, who
+comes buffeting with his wings the aroma of the flowers, some insect
+Hero may show a torch to her gossamer gallant.
+
+But alas, thrice alas, for the poor little fire-fish of the sea, whose
+radiance but reveals them to their foes, and lights the way to their
+destruction.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX They Fall In With Strangers
+
+
+After quitting the Parki, we had much calm weather, varied by light
+breezes. And sailing smoothly over a sea, so recently one sheet of foam,
+I could not avoid bethinking me, how fortunate it was, that the gale had
+overtaken us in the brigantine, and not in the Chamois. For deservedly
+high as the whale-shallop ranks as a sea boat; still, in a severe storm,
+the larger your craft the greater your sense of security. Wherefore, the
+thousand reckless souls tenanting a line-of-battle ship scoff at the
+most awful hurricanes; though, in reality, they may be less safe in
+their wooden-walled Troy, than those who contend with the gale in a
+clipper.
+
+But not only did I congratulate myself upon salvation from the past, but
+upon the prospect for the future. For storms happening so seldom in
+these seas, one just blown over is almost a sure guarantee of very many
+weeks' calm weather to come.
+
+Now sun followed sun; and no land. And at length it almost seemed as if
+we must have sailed past the remotest presumable westerly limit of the
+chain of islands we sought; a lurking suspicion which I sedulously kept
+to myself However, I could not but nourish a latent faith that all would
+yet be well.
+
+On the ninth day my forebodings were over. In the gray of the dawn,
+perched upon the peak of our sail, a noddy was seen fast asleep. This
+freak was true to the nature of that curious fowl, whose name is
+significant of its drowsiness. Its plumage was snow-white, its bill and
+legs blood-red; the latter looking like little pantalettes. In a sly
+attempt at catching the bird, Samoa captured three tail-feathers; the
+alarmed creature flying away with a scream, and leaving its quills in
+his hand.
+
+Sailing on, we gradually broke in upon immense low-sailing flights of
+other aquatic fowls, mostly of those species which are seldom found far
+from land: terns, frigate-birds, mollymeaux, reef-pigeons, boobies,
+gulls, and the like. They darkened the air; their wings making overhead
+an incessant rustling like the simultaneous turning over of ten thousand
+leaves. The smaller sort skimmed the sea like pebbles sent skipping from
+the shore. Over these, flew myriads of birds of broader wing. While high
+above all, soared in air the daring "Diver," or sea-kite, the power of
+whose vision is truly wonderful. It perceives the little flying-fish in
+the water, at a height which can not be less than four hundred feet.
+Spirally wheeling and screaming as it goes, the sea-kite, bill foremost,
+darts downward, swoops into the water, and for a moment altogether
+disappearing, emerges at last; its prey firmly trussed in its claws. But
+bearing it aloft, the bold bandit is quickly assailed by other birds of
+prey, that strive to wrest from him his booty. And snatched from his
+talons, you see the fish falling through the air, till again caught up
+in the very act of descent, by the fleetest of its pursuers.
+
+Leaving these sights astern, we presently picked up the slimy husk of a
+cocoanut, all over green barnacles. And shortly after, passed two or
+three limbs of trees, and the solitary trunk of a palm; which, upon
+sailing nearer, seemed but very recently started on its endless voyage.
+As noon came on; the dark purple land-haze, which had been dimly
+descried resting upon the western horizon, was very nearly obscured.
+Nevertheless, behind that dim drapery we doubted not bright boughs were
+waving.
+
+We were now in high spirits. Samoa between times humming to himself some
+heathenish ditty, and Jarl ten times more intent on his silence than
+ever; yet his eye full of expectation and gazing broad off from our bow.
+Of a sudden, shading his face with his hand, he gazed fixedly for an
+instant, and then springing to his feet, uttered the long-drawn sound--"Sail ho!"
+
+Just tipping the furthest edge of the sky was a little speck, dancing
+into view every time we rose upon the swells. It looked like one of many
+birds; for half intercepting our view, fell showers of plumage: a flight
+of milk-white noddies flying downward to the sea.
+
+But soon the birds are seen no more. Yet there remains the speck;
+plainly a sail; but too small for a ship. Was it a boat after a whale?
+The vessel to which it belonged far astern, and shrouded by the haze? So
+it seemed.
+
+Quietly, however, we waited the stranger's nearer approach; confident,
+that for some time he would not be able to perceive us, owing to our
+being in what mariners denominate the "sun-glade," or that part of the
+ocean upon which the sun's rays flash with peculiar intensity.
+
+As the sail drew nigh, its failing to glisten white led us to doubt
+whether it was indeed a whale-boat. Presently, it showed yellow; and
+Samoa declared, that it must be the sail of some island craft. True. The
+stranger proving a large double-canoe, like those used by the
+Polynesians in making passages between distant islands.
+
+The Upoluan was now clamorous for a meeting, to which Jarl was averse.
+Deliberating a moment, I directed the muskets to be loaded; then setting
+the sail the wind on our quarter--we headed away for the canoe, now
+sailing at right angles with our previous course.
+
+Here it must be mentioned, that from the various gay cloths and other
+things provided for barter by the captain of the Parki, I had very
+strikingly improved my costume; making it free, flowing, and eastern. I
+looked like an Emir. Nor had my Viking neglected to follow my example;
+though with some few modifications of his own. With his long tangled
+hair and harpoon, he looked like the sea-god, that boards ships, for the
+first time crossing the Equator. For tatooed Samoa, he yet sported both
+kilt and turban, reminding one of a tawny leopard, though his spots were
+all in one place. Besides this raiment of ours, against emergencies we
+had provided our boat with divers nankeens and silks.
+
+But now into full view comes a yoke of huge clumsy prows, shaggy with
+carving, and driving through the water with considerable velocity; the
+immense sprawling sail holding the wind like a bag. She seemed full of
+men; and from the dissonant cries borne over to us, and the canoe's
+widely yawing, it was plain that we had  occasioned no small sensation.
+They seemed undetermined what course to pursue: whether to court a
+meeting, or avoid it; whether to regard us as friends or foes.
+
+As we came still nearer, distinctly beholding their faces, we loudly
+hailed them, inviting them to furl their sails, and allow us to board
+them. But no answer was returned; their confusion increasing. And now,
+within less than two ships'-lengths, they swept right across our bow,
+gazing at us with blended curiosity and fear.
+
+Their craft was about thirty feet long, consisting of a pair of parallel
+canoes, very narrow, and at the distance of a yard or so, lengthwise,
+united by stout cross-timbers, lashed across the four gunwales. Upon
+these timbers was a raised platform or dais, quite dry; and astern an
+arched cabin or tent; behind which, were two broad-bladed paddles
+terminating in rude shark-tails, by which the craft was steered.
+
+The yard, spreading a yellow sail, was a crooked bough, supported
+obliquely in the crotch of a mast, to which the green bark was still
+clinging. Here and there were little tufts of moss. The high, beaked
+prow of that canoe in which the mast was placed, resembled a rude altar;
+and all round it was suspended a great variety of fruits, including
+scores of cocoanuts, unhusked. This prow was railed off, forming a sort
+of chancel within.
+
+The foremost beam, crossing the gunwales, extended some twelve feet
+beyond the side of the dais; and at regular intervals hereupon, stout
+cords were fastened, which, leading up to the head of the mast, answered
+the purpose of shrouds. The breeze was now streaming fresh; and, as if
+to force down into the water the windward side of the craft, five men
+stood upon this long beam, grasping five shrouds. Yet they failed to
+counterbalance the pressure of the sail; and owing to the opposite
+inclination of the twin canoes, these living statues were elevated high
+above the water; their appearance rendered still more striking by their
+eager attitudes, and the apparent peril of their position, as the mad
+spray from the bow dashed over them. Suddenly, the Islanders threw their
+craft into the wind; while, for ourselves, we lay on our oars, fearful
+of alarming them by now coming nearer. But hailing them again, we said
+we were friends; and had friendly gifts for them, if they would
+peaceably permit us to approach. This understood, there ensued a mighty
+clamor; insomuch, that I bade Jarl and Samoa out oars, and row very
+gently toward the strangers. Whereupon, amid a storm of vociferations,
+some of them hurried to the furthest side of their dais; standing with
+arms arched over their heads, as if for a dive; others menacing us with
+clubs and spears; and one, an old man with a bamboo trellis on his head
+forming a sort of arbor for his hair, planted himself full before the
+tent, stretching behind him a wide plaited sling.
+
+Upon this hostile display, Samoa dropped his oar, and brought his piece
+to bear upon the old man, who, by his attitude, seemed to menace us with
+the fate of the great braggart of Gath. But I quickly knocked down the
+muzzle of his musket, and forbade the slightest token of hostility;
+enjoining it upon my companions, nevertheless, to keep well on their
+guard.
+
+We now ceased rowing, and after a few minutes' uproar in the canoe, they
+ran to the steering-paddles, and forcing round their craft before the
+wind, rapidly ran away from us. With all haste we set our sail, and
+pulling also at our oars, soon overtook them, determined upon coming
+into closer communion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL Sire And Sons
+
+
+Seeing flight was useless, the Islanders again stopped their canoe, and
+once more we cautiously drew nearer; myself crying out to them not to be
+fearful; and Samoa, with the odd humor of his race, averring that he had
+known every soul of them from his infancy.
+
+We approached within two or three yards; when we paused, which somewhat
+allayed their alarm. Fastening a red China handkerchief to the blade of
+our long mid-ship oar, I waved it in the air. A lively clapping of
+hands, and many wild exclamations.
+
+While yet waving the flag, I whispered to Jarl to give the boat a sheer
+toward the canoe, which being adroitly done, brought the bow, where I
+stood, still nearer to the Islanders. I then dropped the silk among
+them; and the Islander, who caught it, at once handed it to the warlike
+old man with the sling; who, on seating himself, spread it before him;
+while the rest crowding round, glanced rapidly from the wonderful gift,
+to the more wonderful donors.
+
+This old man was the superior of the party. And Samoa asserted, that he
+must be a priest of the country to which the Islanders belonged; that
+the craft could be no other than one of their sacred canoes, bound on
+some priestly voyage. All this he inferred from the altar-like prow, and
+there being no women on board.
+
+Bent upon conciliating the old priest, I dropped into the canoe another
+silk handkerchief; while Samoa loudly exclaimed, that we were only three
+men, and were peaceably inclined. Meantime, old Aaron, fastening the two
+silks crosswise over his shoulders, like a brace of Highland plaids,
+crosslegged sat, and eyed us.
+
+It was a curious sight. The old priest, like a scroll of old parchment,
+covered all over with hieroglyphical devices, harder to interpret, I'll
+warrant, than any old Sanscrit manuscript. And upon his broad brow,
+deep-graven in wrinkles, were characters still more mysterious, which no
+Champollion nor gipsy could have deciphered. He looked old as the
+elderly hills; eyes sunken, though bright; and head white as the summit
+of Mont Blanc.
+
+The rest were a youthful and comely set: their complexion that of Gold
+Sherry, and all tattooed after this pattern: two broad cross-stripes on
+the chest and back; reaching down to the waist, like a foot-soldier's
+harness. Their faces were full of expression; and their mouths were full
+of fine teeth; so that the parting of their lips, was as the opening of
+pearl oysters. Marked, here and there, after the style of Tahiti, with
+little round figures in blue, dotted in the middle with a spot of
+vermilion, their brawny brown thighs looked not unlike the gallant hams
+of Westphalia, spotted with the red dust of Cayenne.
+
+But what a marvelous resemblance in the features of all. Were they born
+at one birth? This resemblance was heightened by their uniform marks.
+But it was subsequently ascertained, that they were the children of one
+sire; and that sire, old Aaron; who, no doubt, reposed upon his sons, as
+an old general upon the trophies of his youth.
+
+They were the children of as many mothers; and he was training them up
+for the priesthood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI A Fray
+
+
+So bent were the strangers upon concealing who they were, and the object
+of their voyage, that it was some time ere we could obtain the
+information we desired.
+
+They pointed toward the tent, as if it contained their Eleusinian
+mysteries. And the old priest gave us to know, that it would be
+profanation to enter it.
+
+But all this only roused my curiosity to unravel the wonder.
+
+At last I succeeded.
+
+In that mysterious tent was concealed a beautiful maiden. And, in
+pursuance of a barbarous custom, by Aleema, the priest, she was being
+borne an offering from the island of Amma to the gods of Tedaidee.
+
+Now, hearing of the maiden, I waited for no more. Need I add, how
+stirred was my soul toward this invisible victim; and how hotly I swore,
+that precious blood of hers should never smoke upon an altar. If we
+drowned for it, I was bent upon rescuing the captive. But as yet, no
+gentle signal of distress had been waved to us from the tent. Thence, no
+sound could be heard, but an occasional rustle of the matting. Was it
+possible, that one about to be immolated could proceed thus tranquilly
+to her fate?
+
+But desperately as I resolved to accomplish the deliverance of the
+maiden, it was best to set heedfully about it. I desired no shedding of
+blood; though the odds were against us.
+
+The old priest seemed determined to prevent us from boarding his craft.
+But being equally determined the other way, I cautiously laid the bow of
+the Chamois against the canoe's quarter, so as to present the smallest
+possible chance for a hostile entrance into our boat. Then, Samoa, knife
+in ear, and myself with a cutlass, stepped upon the dais, leaving Jarl
+in the boat's head, equipped with his harpoon; three loaded muskets
+lying by his side. He was strictly enjoined to resist the slightest
+demonstration toward our craft.
+
+As we boarded the canoe, the Islanders slowly retreated; meantime
+earnestly conferring in whispers; all but the old priest, who, still
+seated, presented an undaunted though troubled front. To our surprise,
+he motioned us to sit down by him; which we did; taking care, however,
+not to cut off our communication with Jarl.
+
+With the hope of inspiring good will, I now unfolded a roll of printed
+cotton, and spreading it before the priest, directed his attention to
+the pictorial embellishments thereon, representing some hundreds of
+sailor boys simultaneously ascending some hundreds of uniform sections
+of a ship's rigging. Glancing at them a moment, by a significant sign,
+he gave me to know, that long previous he himself had ascended the
+shrouds of a ship. Making this allusion, his countenance was overcast
+with a ferocious expression, as if something terrific was connected with
+the reminiscence. But it soon passed away, and somewhat abruptly he
+assumed an air of much merriment.
+
+While we were thus sitting together, and my whole soul full of the
+thoughts of the captive, and how best to accomplish my purpose, and
+often gazing toward the tent; I all at once noticed a movement among the
+strangers. Almost in the same instant, Samoa, right across the face of
+Aleema, and in his ordinary tones, bade me take heed to myself, for
+mischief was brewing. Hardly was this warning uttered, when, with carved
+clubs in their hands, the Islanders completely surrounded us. Then up
+rose the old priest, and gave us to know, that we were wholly in his
+power, and if we did not swear to depart in our boat forthwith, and
+molest him no more, the peril be ours.
+
+"Depart and you live; stay and you die."
+
+Fifteen to three. Madness to gainsay his mandate. Yet a beautiful maiden
+was at stake.
+
+The knife before dangling in Samoa's ear was now in his hand. Jarl cried
+out for us to regain the boat, several of the Islanders making a rush
+for it. No time to think. All passed quicker than it can be said. They
+closed in upon us, to push us from the canoe: Rudely the old priest
+flung me from his side, menacing me with his dagger, the sharp spine of
+a fish. A thrust and a threat! Ere I knew it, my cutlass made a quick
+lunge. A curse from the priest's mouth; red blood from his side; he
+tottered, stared about him, and fell over like a brown hemlock into the
+sea. A yell of maledictions rose on the air. A wild cry was heard from
+the tent. Making a dead breach among the crowd, we now dashed side by
+side for the boat. Springing into it, we found Jarl battling with two
+Islanders; while the rest were still howling upon the dais. Rage and
+grief had almost disabled them.
+
+With one stroke of my cutlass, I now parted the line that held us to the
+canoe, and with Samoa falling upon the two Islanders, by Jarl's help, we
+quickly mastered them; forcing them down into the bottom of the boat.
+
+The Skyeman and Samoa holding passive the captives, I quickly set our
+sail, and snatching the sheet at the cavil, we rapidly shot from the
+canoe. The strangers defying us with their spears; several couching them
+as if to dart; while others held back their hands, as if to prevent them
+from jeopardizing the lives of their countrymen in the Chamois.
+
+Seemingly untoward events oftentimes lead to successful results: Far
+from destroying all chance of rescuing the captive, our temporary
+flight, indispensable for the safety of Jarl, only made the success of
+our enterprise more probable. For having made prisoners two of the
+strangers, I determined to retain them as hostages, through whom to
+effect my plans without further bloodshed.
+
+And here it must needs be related, that some of the natives were wounded
+in the fray: while all three of their assailants had received several
+bruises.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII Remorse
+
+
+During the skirmish not a single musket had been discharged. The first
+snatched by Jarl had missed fire, and ere he could seize another, it was
+close quarters with him, and no gestures to spare. His harpoon was his
+all. And truly, there is nothing like steel in a fray. It comes and it
+goes with a will, and is never a-weary. Your sword is your life, and
+that of your foe; to keep or to take as it happens. Closer home does it
+go than a rammer; and fighting with steel is a play without ever an
+interlude. There are points more deadly than bullets; and stocks packed
+full of subtle tubes, whence comes an impulse more reliable than powder.
+
+Binding our prisoners lengthwise across the boat's seats, we rowed for
+the canoe, making signs of amity.
+
+Now, if there be any thing fitted to make a high tide ebb in the veins,
+it is the sight of a vanquished foe, inferior to yourself in powers of
+destruction; but whom some necessity has forced you to subdue. All
+victories are not triumphs, nor all who conquer, heroes.
+
+As we drew near the canoe, it was plain, that the loss of their sire had
+again for the instant overcome the survivors. Raising hands, they cursed
+us; and at intervals sent forth a low, piercing wail, peculiar to their
+race. As before, faint cries were heard from the tent. And all the while
+rose and fell on the sea, the ill-fated canoe.
+
+As I gazed at this sight, what iron mace fell on my soul; what curse
+rang sharp in my ear! It was I, who was the author of the deed that
+caused the shrill wails that I heard. By this hand, the dead man had
+died. Remorse smote me hard; and like lightning I asked myself, whether
+the death-deed I had done was sprung of a virtuous motive, the rescuing
+a captive from thrall; or whether beneath that pretense, I had engaged
+in this fatal affray for some other, and selfish purpose; the
+companionship of a beautiful maid. But throttling the thought, I swore
+to be gay. Am I not rescuing the maiden? Let them go down who withstand
+me.
+
+At the dismal spectacle before him, Jarl, hitherto menacing our
+prisoners with his weapon, in order to intimidate their countrymen,
+honest Jarl dropped his harpoon. But shaking his knife in the air, Samoa
+yet defied the strangers; nor could we prevent him. His heathenish blood
+was up.
+
+Standing foremost in the boat, I now assured the strangers, that all we
+sought at their hands was the maiden in the tent. That captive
+surrendered, our own, unharmed, should be restored. If not, they must
+die. With a cry, they started to their feet, and brandished their clubs;
+but, seeing Jarl's harpoon quivering over the hearts of our prisoners,
+they quickly retreated; at last signifying their acquiescence in my
+demand. Upon this, I sprang to the dais, and across it indicating a line
+near the bow, signed the Islanders to retire beyond it. Then, calling
+upon them one by one to deliver their weapons, they were passed into the
+boat.
+
+The Chamois was now brought round to the canoe's stern; and leaving Jarl
+to defend it as before, the Upoluan rejoined me on the dais. By these
+precautions--the hostages still remaining bound hand and foot in the
+boat--we deemed ourselves entirely secure.
+
+Attended by Samoa, I stood before the tent, now still as the grave.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII The Tent Entered
+
+
+By means of thin spaces between the braids of matting, the place was
+open to the air, but not to view. There was also a round opening on one
+side, only large enough, however, to admit the arm; but this aperture
+was partially closed from within. In front, a deep-dyed rug of osiers,
+covering the entrance way, was intricately laced to the standing part of
+the tent. As I divided this lacing with my cutlass, there arose an
+outburst of voices from the Islanders. And they covered their faces, as
+the interior was revealed to my gaze.
+
+Before me crouched a beautiful girl. Her hands were drooping. And, like
+a saint from a shrine, she looked sadly out from her long, fair hair. A
+low wail issued from her lips, and she trembled like a sound. There were
+tears on her cheek, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom.
+
+Did I dream?--A snow-white skin: blue, firmament eyes: Golconda locks.
+For an instant spell-bound I stood; while with a slow, apprehensive
+movement, and still gazing fixedly, the captive gathered more closely
+about her a gauze-like robe. Taking one step within, and partially
+dropping the curtain of the tent, I so stood, as to have both sight and
+speech of Samoa, who tarried without; while the maiden, crouching in the
+farther corner of the retreat, was wholly screened from all eyes but
+mine.
+
+Crossing my hands before me, I now stood without speaking. For the soul
+of me, I could not link this mysterious creature with the tawny
+strangers. She seemed of another race. So powerful was this impression,
+that unconsciously, I addressed her in my own tongue. She started, and
+bending over, listened intently, as if to the first faint echo of
+something dimly remembered. Again I spoke, when throwing back her hair,
+the maiden looked up with a piercing, bewildered gaze. But her eyes soon
+fell, and bending over once more, she resumed her former attitude. At
+length she slowly chanted to herself several musical words, unlike those
+of the Islanders; but though I knew not what they meant, they vaguely
+seemed familiar.
+
+Impatient to learn her story, I now questioned her in Polynesian. But
+with much earnestness, she signed me to address her as before. Soon
+perceiving, however, that without comprehending the meaning of the words
+I employed, she seemed merely touched by something pleasing in their
+sound, I once more addressed her in Polynesian; saying that I was all
+eagerness to hear her history.
+
+After much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm at every sound
+from without; yet all the while deeply regarding me.
+
+Broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are here presented in
+the form in which they were afterward more fully narrated.
+
+So unearthly was the story, that at first I little comprehended it; and
+was almost persuaded that the luckless maiden was some beautiful maniac.
+
+She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from Oroolia, the Island
+of Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the
+Polynesians. To this isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical power,
+she had been spirited from Amma, the place of her nativity. Her name was
+Yillah. And hardly had the waters of Oroolia washed white her olive
+skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when one day strolling in the
+woodlands, she was snared in the tendrils of a vine. Drawing her into
+its bowers, it gently transformed her into one of its blossoms, leaving
+her conscious soul folded up in the transparent petals.
+
+Here hung Yillah in a trance, the world without all tinged with the rosy
+hue of her prison. At length when her spirit was about to burst forth in
+the opening flower, the blossom was snapped from its stem; and borne by
+a soft wind to the sea; where it fell into the opening valve of a shell;
+which in good time was cast upon the beach of the Island of Amma.
+
+In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the priest; who by a
+spell unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now showed
+signs of opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy revealings,
+as of the dawn behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding, the blossom
+exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the air. Condensing at
+last, there emerged from this mist the same radiant young Yillah as
+before; her locks all moist, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom.
+Enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful child now tarried in the sacred
+temple of Apo, buried in a dell; never beheld of mortal eyes save
+Aleema's.
+
+Moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four days gone by, Aleema
+came to her with a dream; that the spirits in Oroolia had recalled her
+home by the way of Tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up in the sea an
+enchanted spring; which streaming over upon the brine, flowed on between
+blue watery banks; and, plunging into a vortex, went round and round,
+descending into depths unknown. Into this whirlpool Yillah was to
+descend in a canoe, at last to well up in an inland fountain of Oroolia.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV Away
+
+
+Though clothed in language of my own, the maiden's story is in substance
+the same as she related. Yet were not these things narrated as past
+events; she merely recounted them as impressions of her childhood, and
+of her destiny yet unaccomplished. And mystical as the tale most
+assuredly was, my knowledge of the strange arts of the island
+priesthood, and the rapt fancies indulged in by many of their victims,
+deprived it in good part of the effect it otherwise would have produced.
+
+For ulterior purposes connected with their sacerdotal supremacy, the
+priests of these climes oftentimes secrete mere infants in their
+temples; and jealously secluding them from all intercourse with the
+world, craftily delude them, as they grow up, into the wildest conceits.
+
+Thus wrought upon, their pupils almost lose their humanity in the
+constant indulgence of seraphic imaginings. In many cases becoming
+inspired as oracles; and as such, they are sometimes resorted to by
+devotees; always screened from view, however, in the recesses of the
+temples. But in every instance, their end is certain. Beguiled with some
+fairy tale about revisiting the islands of Paradise, they are led to the
+secret sacrifice, and perish unknown to their kindred.
+
+But, would that all this had been hidden from me at the time. For Yillah
+was lovely enough to be really divine; and so I might have been tranced
+into a belief of her mystical legends.
+
+But with what passionate exultation did I find myself the deliverer of
+this beautiful maiden; who, thinking no harm, and rapt in a dream, was
+being borne to her fate on the coast of Tedaidee. Nor now, for a moment,
+did the death of Aleema her guardian seem to hang heavy upon my heart. I
+rejoiced that I had sent him to his gods; that in place of the sea moss
+growing over sweet Yillah drowned in the sea, the vile priest himself
+had sunk to the bottom.
+
+But though he had sunk in the deep, his ghost sunk not in the deep
+waters of my soul. However in exultations its surface foamed up, at
+bottom guilt brooded. Sifted out, my motives to this enterprise
+justified not the mad deed, which, in a moment of rage, I had done:
+though, those motives had been covered with a gracious pretense;
+concealing myself from myself. But I beat down the thought.
+
+In relating her story, the maiden frequently interrupted it with
+questions concerning myself:--Whence I came: being white, from Oroolia?
+Whither I was going: to Amma? And what had happened to Aleema? For she
+had been dismayed at the fray, though knowing not what it could mean;
+and she had heard the priest's name called upon in lamentations. These
+questions for the time I endeavored to evade; only inducing her to fancy
+me some gentle demigod, that had come over the sea from her own fabulous
+Oroolia. And all this she must verily have believed. For whom, like me,
+ere this could she have beheld? Still fixed she her eyes upon me
+strangely, and hung upon the accents of my voice.
+
+While this scene was passing, the strangers began to show signs of
+impatience, and a voice from the Chamois repeatedly hailed us to
+accelerate our movements.
+
+My course was quickly decided. The only obstacle to be encountered was
+the possibility of Yillah's alarm at being suddenly borne into my prow.
+For this event I now sought to prepare her. I informed the damsel that
+Aleema had been dispatched on a long errand to Oroolia; leaving to my
+care, for the present, the guardianship of the lovely Yillah; and that
+therefore, it was necessary to carry her tent into my own canoe, then
+waiting to receive it.
+
+This intelligence she received with the utmost concern; and not knowing
+to what her perplexity might lead, I thought fit to transport her into
+the Chamois, while yet overwhelmed by the announcement of my intention.
+
+Quitting her retreat, I apprised Jarl of my design; and then, no more
+delay!
+
+At bottom, the tent was attached to a light framework of bamboos; and
+from its upper corners, four cords, like those of a marquee, confined it
+to the dais. These, Samoa's knife soon parted; when lifting the light
+tent, we speedily transferred it to the Chamois; a wild yell going up
+from the Islanders, which drowned the faint cries of the maiden. But we
+heeded not the din. Toss in the fruit, hanging from the altar-prow! It
+was done; and then running up our sail, we glided away;--Chamois, tent,
+hostages, and all. Rushing to the now vacant stern of their canoe, the
+Islanders once more lifted up their hands and their voices in curses.
+
+A suitable distance gained, we paused to fling overboard the arms we had
+taken; and Jarl proceeded to liberate the hostages.
+
+Meanwhile, I entered the tent, and by many tokens, sought to allay the
+maiden's alarm. Thus engaged, violent plunges were heard: our prisoners
+taking to the sea to regain their canoe. All dripping, they were
+received by their brethren with wild caresses.
+
+From something now said by the captives, the rest seemed suddenly
+inspirited with hopes of revenge; again wildly shaking their spears,
+just before picked up from the sea. With great clamor and confusion they
+soon set their mat-sail; and instead of sailing southward for Tedaidee,
+or northward for Amma their home, they steered straight after us, in our
+wake.
+
+Foremost in the prow stood three; javelins poised for a dart; at
+intervals, raising a yell.
+
+Did they mean to pursue me? Full in my rear they came on, baying like
+hounds on their game. Yillah trembled at their cries. My own heart beat
+hard with undefinable dread. The corpse of Aleema seemed floating
+before: its avengers were raging behind.
+
+But soon these phantoms departed. For very soon it appeared that in vain
+the pagans pursued. Their craft, our fleet Chamois outleaped. And
+farther and farther astern dropped the evil-boding canoe, till at last
+but a speck; when a great swell of the sea surged up before it, and it
+was seen no more. Samoa swore that it must have swamped, and gone down.
+But however it was, my heart lightened apace. I saw none but ourselves
+on the sea: I remembered that our keel left no track as it sailed.
+
+Let the Oregon Indian through brush, bramble, and brier, hunt his
+enemy's trail, far over the mountains and down in the vales; comes he to
+the water, he snuffs idly in air.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV Reminiscences
+
+
+In resecuing the gentle Yillah from the hands of the Islanders, a design
+seemed accomplished. But what was now to be done? Here, in our
+adventurous Chamois, was a damsel more lovely than the flushes of
+morning; and for companions, whom had she but me and my comrades?
+Besides, her bosom still throbbed with alarms, her fancies all roving
+through mazes.
+
+How subdue these dangerous imaginings? How gently dispel them?
+
+But one way there was: to lead her thoughts toward me, as her friend and
+preserver; and a better and wiser than Aleema the priest. Yet could not
+this be effected but by still maintaining my assumption of a divine
+origin in the blessed isle of Oroolia; and thus fostering in her heart
+the mysterious interest, with which from the first she had regarded me.
+But if punctilious reserve on the part of her deliverer should teach her
+to regard him as some frigid stranger from the Arctic Zone, what
+sympathy could she have for him? and hence, what peace of mind, having
+no one else to cling to?
+
+Now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried Aleema.
+
+"Think not of him, sweet Yillah," I cried. "Look on me. Am I not white
+like yourself? Behold, though since quitting Oroolia the sun has dyed my
+cheek, am I not even as you? Am I brown like the dusky Aleema? They
+snatched you away from your isle in the sea, too early for you to
+remember me there. But you have not been forgotten by me, sweetest
+Yillah. Ha! ha! shook we not the palm-trees together, and chased we not
+the rolling nuts down the glen? Did we not dive into the grotto on the
+sea-shore, and come up together in the cool cavern in the hill? In my
+home in Oroolia, dear Yillah, I have a lock of your hair, ere yet it was
+golden: a little dark tress like a ring. How your cheeks were then
+changing from olive to white. And when shall I forget the hour, that I
+came upon you sleeping among the flowers, with roses and lilies for
+cheeks. Still forgetful? Know you not my voice? Those little spirits in
+your eyes have seen me before. They mimic me now as they sport in their
+lakes. All the past a dim blank? Think of the time when we ran up and
+down in our arbor, where the green vines grew over the great ribs of the
+stranded whale. Oh Yillah, little Yillah, has it all come to this? am I
+forever forgotten? Yet over the wide watery world have I sought thee:
+from isle to isle, from sea to sea. And now we part not. Aleema is gone.
+My prow shall keep kissing the waves, till it kisses the beach at
+Oroolia. Yillah, look up."
+
+Sunk the ghost of Aleema: Sweet Yillah was mine!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI The Chamois With A Roving Commission
+
+
+Through the assiduity of my Viking, ere nightfall our Chamois was again
+in good order. And with many subtle and seamanlike splices the light
+tent was lashed in its place; the sail taken up by a reef.
+
+My comrades now questioned me, as to my purposes; whether they had been
+modified by the events of the day. I replied that our destination was
+still the islands to the westward.
+
+But from these we had steadily been drifting all the morning long; so
+that now no loom of the land was visible. But our prow was kept pointing
+as before.
+
+As evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the
+helm.
+
+How soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. The rays of the sun,
+setting behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of a
+shaded light behind a lattice. And the low breeze, pervaded with the
+peculiar balm of the mid-Pacific near land, was fragrant as the breath
+of a bride.
+
+Such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of Yillah in
+mine seemed no hand, but a touch. Visions flitted before me and in me;
+something hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay.
+
+And now entered a thought into my heart. I reflected how serenely we
+might thus glide along, far removed from all care and anxiety. And then,
+what different scenes might await us upon any of the shores roundabout.
+But there seemed no danger in the balmy sea; the assured vicinity of
+land imparting a sense of security. We had ample supplies for several
+days more, and thanks to the Pagan canoe, an abundance of fruit.
+
+Besides, what cared I now for the green groves and bright shore? Was not
+Yillah my shore and my grove? my meadow, my mead, my soft shady vine,
+and my arbor? Of all things desirable and delightful, the full-plumed
+sheaf, and my own right arm the band? Enough: no shore for me yet. One
+sweep of the helm, and our light prow headed round toward the vague land
+of song, sun, and vine: the fabled South.
+
+As we glided along, strange Yillah gazed down in the sea, and would fain
+have had me plunge into it with her, to rove through its depths. But I
+started dismayed; in fancy, I saw the stark body of the priest drifting
+by. Again that phantom obtruded; again guilt laid his red hand on my
+soul. But I laughed. Was not Yillah my own? by my arm rescued from ill?
+To do her a good, I had periled myself. So down, down, Aleema.
+
+When next morning, starting from slumber, my comrades beheld the sun on
+our beam, instead of astern as before at that hour, they eagerly
+inquired, "Whither now?" But very briefly I gave them to know, that
+after devoting the night to the due consideration of a matter so
+important, I had determined upon voyaging for the island Tedaidee, in
+place of the land to the westward.
+
+At this, they were not displeased. But to tell the plain truth, I
+harbored some shadowy purpose of merely hovering about for a while, till
+I felt more landwardly inclined.
+
+But had I not declared to Yillah, that our destination was the fairy
+isle she spoke of, even Oroolia? Yet that shore was so exceedingly
+remote, and the folly of endeavoring to reach it in a craft built with
+hands, so very apparent, that what wonder I really nourished no thought
+of it?
+
+So away floated the Chamois, like a vagrant cloud in the heavens: bound,
+no one knew whither.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
+
+
+But time to tell, how Samoa and Jarl regarded this mystical Yillah; and
+how Yillah regarded them.
+
+As Beauty from the Beast, so at first shrank the damsel from my one-armed companion. But seeing my confidence in the savage, a reaction soon
+followed. And in accordance with that curious law, by which, under
+certain conditions, the ugliest mortals become only amiably hideous,
+Yillah at length came to look upon Samoa as a sort of harmless and good-natured goblin. Whence came he, she cared not; or what was his history;
+or in what manner his fortunes were united to mine.
+
+May be, she held him a being of spontaneous origin.
+
+Now, as every where women are the tamers of the menageries of men; so
+Yillah in good time tamed down Samoa to the relinquishment of that
+horrible thing in his ear, and persuaded him to substitute a vacancy for
+the bauble in his nose. On his part, however, all this was conditional.
+He stipulated for the privilege of restoring both trinkets upon suitable
+occasions.
+
+But if thus gayly the damsel sported with Samoa; how different his
+emotions toward her? The fate to which she had been destined, and every
+nameless thing about her, appealed to all his native superstitions,
+which ascribed to beings of her complexion a more than terrestrial
+origin. When permitted to approach her, he looked timid and awkwardly
+strange; suggesting the likeness of some clumsy satyr, drawing in his
+horns; slowly wagging his tail; crouching abashed before some radiant
+spirit.
+
+And this reverence of his was most pleasing to me, Bravo! thought I; be
+a pagan forever. No more than myself; for, after a different fashion,
+Yillah was an idol to both.
+
+But what of my Viking? Why, of good Jarl I grieve to say, that the old-fashioned interest he took in my affairs led him to look upon Yillah as
+a sort of intruder, an Ammonite syren, who might lead me astray. This
+would now and then provoke a phillipic; but he would only turn toward my
+resentment his devotion; and then I was silent.
+
+Unsophisticated as a wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable of
+perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our
+companions. And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption,
+that it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove
+otherwise than irresistible to all.
+
+She betrayed much surprise at my Vikings appearance. But most of all was
+she struck by a characteristic device upon the arm of the wonderful
+mariner--our Saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown of thorns,
+and three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one from each hand
+and foot.
+
+Now, honest Jarl did vastly pride himself upon this ornament. It was the
+only piece of vanity about him. And like a lady keeping gloveless her
+hand to show off a fine Turquoise ring, he invariably wore that sleeve
+of his frock rolled up, the better to display the embellishment.
+
+And round and round would Yillah turn Jarl's arm, till Jarl was fain to
+stand firm, for fear of revolving all over. How such untutored homage
+would have thrilled the heart of the ingenious artist!
+
+Eventually, through the Upoluan, she made overtures to the Skyeman,
+concerning the possession of his picture in her own proper right. In her
+very simplicity, little heeding, that like a landscape in fresco, it
+could not be removed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII Something Under The Surface
+
+
+Not to omit an occurrence of considerable interest, we must needs here
+present some account of a curious retinue of fish which overtook our
+Chamois, a day or two after parting with the canoe.
+
+A violent creaming and frothing in our rear announced their approach.
+Soon we found ourselves the nucleus of an incredible multitude of finny
+creatures, mostly anonymous.
+
+First, far in advance of our prow, swam the helmeted Silver-heads; side
+by side, in uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas, with
+their flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct regiment, wormed
+and twisted through the water like Archimedean screws, the quivering
+Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the Trigger-fish--so called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs
+with a comical curve, as if at half-cock. Far astern the rear was
+brought up by endless battalions of Yellow-backs, right martially vested
+in buff.
+
+And slow sailing overhead were flights of birds; a wing in the air for
+every fin in the sea.
+
+But let the sea-fowls fly on: turn we to the fish.
+
+Their numbers were amazing; countless as the tears shed for perfidious
+lovers. Far abroad on both flanks, they swam in long lines, tier above
+tier; the water alive with their hosts. Locusts of the sea,
+peradventure, going to fall with a blight upon some green, mossy
+province of Neptune. And tame and fearless they were, as the first fish
+that swam in Euphrates; hardly evading the hand; insomuch that Samoa
+caught many without lure or line.
+
+They formed a decorous escort; paddling along by our barnacled sides, as
+if they had been with us from the very beginning; neither scared by our
+craft's surging in the water; nor in the least sympathetic at losing a
+comrade by the hand of Samoa. They closed in their ranks and swam on.
+
+How innocent, yet heartless they looked! Had a plank dropped out of our
+boat, we had sunk to the bottom; and belike, our cheerful retinue would
+have paid the last rites to our remains.
+
+But still we kept company; as sociably as you please; Samoa helping
+himself when he listed, and Yillah clapping her hands as the radiant
+creatures, by a simultaneous turning round on their silvery bellies,
+caused the whole sea to glow like a burnished shield.
+
+But what has befallen this poor little Boneeta astern, that he swims so
+toilingly on, with gills showing purple? What has he there, towing
+behind? It is tangled sea-kelp clinging to its fins. But the clogged
+thing strains to keep up with its fellows. Yet little they heed. Away
+they go; every fish for itself, and any fish for Samoa.
+
+At last the poor Boneeta is seen no more. The myriad fins swim on; a
+lonely waste, where the lost one drops behind.
+
+Strange fish! All the live-long day, they were there by our side; and at
+night still tarried and shone; more crystal and scaly in the pale
+moonbeams, than in the golden glare of the sun.
+
+How prettily they swim; all silver life; darting hither and thither
+between their long ranks, and touching their noses, and scraping
+acquaintance. No mourning they wear for the Boneeta left far astern; nor
+for those so cruelly killed by Samoa. No, no; all is glee, fishy glee,
+and frolicking fun; light hearts and light fins; gay backs and gay
+spirits.--Swim away, swim away! my merry fins all. Let us roam the
+flood; let us follow this monster fish with the barnacled sides; this
+strange-looking fish, so high out of water; that goes without fins. What
+fish can it be? What rippling is that? Dost hear the great monster
+breathe? Why, 'tis sharp at both ends; a tail either way; nor eyes has
+it any, nor mouth. What a curious fish! what a comical fish! But more
+comical far, those creatures above, on its hollow back, clinging thereto
+like the snaky eels, that cling and slide on the back of the Sword fish,
+our terrible foe. But what curious eels these are! Do they deem
+themselves pretty as we? No, no; for sure, they behold our limber fins,
+our speckled and beautiful scales. Poor, powerless things! How they must
+wish they were we, that roam the flood, and scour the seas with a wish.
+Swim away; merry fins, swim away! Let him drop, that fellow that halts;
+make a lane; close in, and fill up. Let him drown, if he can not keep
+pace. No laggards for us:--We fish, we fish, we merrily swim, We care
+not for friend nor for foe: Our fins are stout, Our tails are out, As
+through the seas we go.
+
+Fish, Fish, we are fish with red gills; Naught disturbs us, our blood is
+at zero: We are buoyant because of our bags, Being many, each fish is a
+hero. We care not what is it, this life That we follow, this phantom
+unknown: To swim, it's exceedingly pleasant,--      So swim away, making
+a foam. This strange looking thing by our side, Not for safety, around
+it we flee:--    Its shadow's so shady, that's all,--      We only swim
+under its lee. And as for the eels there above, And as for the fowls in
+the air, We care not for them nor their ways, As we cheerily glide afar!
+
+We fish, we fish, we merrily swim, We care not for friend nor for foe:
+Our fins are stout, Our tails are out, As through the seas we go.
+
+But how now, my fine fish! what alarms your long ranks, and tosses them
+all into a hubbub of scales and of foam? Never mind that long knave with
+the spear there, astern. Pipe away, merry fish, and give us a stave or
+two more, keeping time with your doggerel tails. But no, no! their
+singing was over. Grim death, in the shape of a Chevalier, was after
+them.
+
+How they changed their boastful tune! How they hugged the vilified boat!
+How they wished they were in it, the braggarts! And how they all tingled
+with fear!
+
+For, now here, now there, is heard a terrific rushing sound under water,
+betokening the onslaught of the dread fish of prey, that with spear ever
+in rest, charges in upon the out-skirts of the shoal, transfixing the
+fish on his weapon. Re-treating and shaking them off, the Chevalier
+devours them; then returns to the charge.
+
+Hugging the boat to desperation, the poor fish fairly crowded themselves
+up to the surface, and floundered upon each other, as men are lifted off
+their feet in a mob. They clung to us thus, out of a fancied security in
+our presence. Knowing this, we felt no little alarm for ourselves,
+dreading lest the Chevalier might despise our boat, full as much as his
+prey; and in pursuing the fish, run through the poor Chamois with a
+lunge. A jacket, rolled up, was kept in readiness to be thrust into the
+first opening made; while as the thousand fins audibly patted against
+our slender planks, we felt nervously enough; as if treading upon thin,
+crackling ice.
+
+At length, to our no small delight, the enemy swam away; and again by
+our side merrily paddled our escort; ten times merrier than ever.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX Yillah
+
+
+While for a few days, now this way, now that, as our craft glides along,
+surrounded by these locusts of the deep, let the story of Yillah flow
+on.
+
+Of her beauty say I nothing. It was that of a crystal lake in a
+fathomless wood: all light and shade; full of fleeting revealings; now
+shadowed in depths; now sunny in dimples; but all sparkling and
+shifting, and blending together.
+
+But her wild beauty was a vail to things still more strange. As often
+she gazed so earnestly into my eyes, like some pure spirit looking far
+down into my soul, and seeing therein some upturned faces, I started in
+amaze, and asked what spell was on me, that thus she gazed.
+
+Often she entreated me to repeat over and over again certain syllables
+of my language. These she would chant to herself, pausing now and then,
+as if striving to discover wherein lay their charm.
+
+In her accent, there was something very different from that of the
+people of the canoe. Wherein lay the difference. I knew not; but it
+enabled her to pronounce with readiness all the words which I taught
+her; even as if recalling sounds long forgotten.
+
+If all this filled me with wonder, how much was that wonder increased,
+and yet baffled again, by considering her complexion, and the cast of
+her features.
+
+After endeavoring in various ways to account for these things, I was led
+to imagine, that the damsel must be an Albino (Tulla) occasionally to be
+met with among the people of the Pacific. These persons are of an
+exceedingly delicate white skin, tinted with a faint rose hue, like the
+lips of a shell. Their hair is golden. But, unlike the Albinos of other
+climes, their eyes are invariably blue, and no way intolerant of light.
+
+As a race, the Tullas die early. And hence the belief, that they pertain
+to some distant sphere, and only through irregularities in the
+providence of the gods, come to make their appearance upon earth:
+whence, the oversight discovered, they are hastily snatched. And it is
+chiefly on this account, that in those islands where human sacrifices
+are offered, the Tullas are deemed the most suitable oblations for the
+altar, to which from their birth many are prospectively devoted. It was
+these considerations, united to others, which at times induced me to
+fancy, that by the priest, Yillah was regarded as one of these beings.
+So mystical, however, her revelations concerning her past history, that
+often I knew not what to divine. But plainly they showed that she had
+not the remotest conception of her real origin.
+
+But these conceits of a state of being anterior to an earthly existence
+may have originated in one of those celestial visions seen transparently
+stealing over the face of a slumbering child. And craftily drawn forth
+and re-echoed by another, and at times repeated over to her with many
+additions, these imaginings must at length have assumed in her mind a
+hue of reality, heightened into conviction by the dreamy seclusion of
+her life.
+
+But now, let her subsequent and more credible history be related, as
+from time to time she rehearsed it.
+
+
+CHAPTER L Yillah In Ardair
+
+
+In the verdant glen of Ardair, far in the silent interior of Amma, shut
+in by hoar old cliffs, Yillah the maiden abode.
+
+So small and so deep was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by steep
+acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive the shadows
+that played there; that, from above, it seemed more like a lake of cool,
+balmy air, than a glen: its woodlands and grasses gleaming shadowy all,
+like sea groves and mosses beneath the calm sea.
+
+Here, none came but Aleema the priest, who at times was absent for days
+together. But at certain seasons, an unseen multitude with loud chants
+stood upon the verge of the neighboring precipices, and traversing those
+shaded wilds, slowly retreated; their voices lessening and lessening, as
+they wended their way through the more distant groves.
+
+At other times, Yillah being immured in the temple of Apo, a band of men
+entering the vale, surrounded her retreat, dancing there till evening
+came. Meanwhile, heaps of fruit, garlands of flowers, and baskets of
+fish, were laid upon an altar without, where stood Aleema, arrayed in
+white tappa, and muttering to himself, as the offerings were laid at his
+feet.
+
+When Aleema was gone, Yillah went forth into the glen, and wandered
+among the trees, and reposed by the banks of the stream. And ever as she
+strolled, looked down upon her the grim old cliffs, bearded with
+trailing moss.
+
+Toward the lower end of the vale, its lofty walls advancing and
+overhanging their base, almost met in mid air. And a great rock, hurled
+from an adjacent height, and falling into the space intercepted, there
+remained fixed. Aerial trees shot up from its surface; birds nested in
+its clefts; and strange vines roved abroad, overrunning the tops of the
+trees, lying thereon in coils and undulations, like anacondas basking in
+the light. Beneath this rock, was a lofty wall of ponderous stones.
+Between its crevices, peeps were had of a long and leafy arcade,
+quivering far away to where the sea rolled in the sun. Lower down, these
+crevices gave an outlet to the waters of the brook, which, in a long
+cascade, poured over sloping green ledges near the foot of the wall,
+into a deep shady pool; whose rocky sides, by the perpetual eddying of
+the water, had been worn into a grotesque resemblance to a group of
+giants, with heads submerged, indolently reclining about the basin.
+
+In this pool, Yillah would bathe. And once, emerging, she heard the
+echoes of a voice, and called aloud. But the only reply, was the
+rustling of branches, as some one, invisible, fled down the valley
+beyond. Soon after, a stone rolled inward, and Aleema the priest stood
+before her; saying that the voice she had heard was his. But it was not.
+
+At last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined for
+companionship. When the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves of the
+mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as tears in
+the eye, Yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in her soul to
+awaken. She sang low airs, she thought she had heard in Oroolia; but
+started affrighted, as from dingles and dells, came back to her strains
+more wild than hers. And ever, when sad, Aleema would seek to cheer her
+soul, by calling to mind the bright scenes of Oroolia the Blest, to
+which place, he averred, she was shortly to return, never more to
+depart.
+
+Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak,
+presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose shadow,
+every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain: a silent
+phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen.
+
+At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth,
+and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her arms
+in a caress; saying, "Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?" And at last, when
+it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the whole valley in
+gloom; Aleema would say, "Arise Yillah; Apo hath stretched himself to
+sleep in Ardair. Go, slumber where thou wilt; for thou wilt slumber in
+his arms."
+
+And so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim Apo.
+
+One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something that
+every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully still; she
+went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from the peak. Of a
+sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that made it to look as
+if parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and thought it was Apo
+calling "Yillah! Yillah!" But now it seemed like the voice she had heard
+while bathing in the pool. Glancing upward, she beheld a beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down upon her from an inaccessible crag. But
+presently, there was a rustling in the groves behind, and swift as
+thought, something darted through the air. The youth bounded forward.
+Yillah opened her arms to receive him; but he fell upon the cliff, and
+was seen no more. As alarmed, and in tears, she fled from the scene,
+some one out of sight ran before her through the wood.
+
+Upon recounting this adventure to Aleema, he said, that the being she
+had seen, must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that Apo
+had slain him.
+
+The sight of this youth, filled Yillah with wild yearnings to escape
+from her lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest and
+the phantom, suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings, in
+regions beyond Ardair. But Aleema sought to put away these conceits;
+saying, that ere long she would be journeying to Oroolia, there to
+rejoin the spirits she dimly remembered.
+
+Soon after, he came to her with a shell--one of those ever moaning of
+ocean--and placing it to her ear, bade her list to the being within,
+which in that little shell had voyaged from Oroolia to bear her company
+in Amma.
+
+Now, the maiden oft held it to her ear, and closing her eyes, listened
+and listened to its soft inner breathings, till visions were born of the
+sound, and her soul lay for hours in a trance of delight.
+
+And again the priest came, and brought her a milk-white bird, with a
+bill jet-black, and eyes like stars. "In this, lurks the soul of a
+maiden; it hath flown from Oroolia to greet you." The soft stranger
+willingly nestled in her bosom; turning its bright eyes upon hers, and
+softly warbling.
+
+Many days passed; and Yillah, the bird, and the shell were inseparable.
+The bird grew familiar; pecked seeds from her mouth; perched upon her
+shoulder, and sang in her ear; and at night, folded its wings in her
+bosom, and, like a sea-fowl, went softly to sleep: rising and falling
+upon the maiden's heart. And every morning it flew from its nest, and
+fluttered and chirped; and sailed to and fro; and blithely sang; and
+brushed Yillah's cheek till she woke. Then came to her hand: and Yillah,
+looking earnestly in its eyes, saw strange faces there; and said to
+herself as she gazed--"These are two souls, not one."
+
+But at last, going forth into the groves with the bird, it suddenly flew
+from her side, and perched in a bough; and throwing back its white downy
+throat, there gushed from its bill a clear warbling jet, like a little
+fountain in air. Now the song ceased; when up and away toward the head
+of the vale, flew the bird. "Lil! Lil! come back, leave me not, blest
+souls of the maidens." But on flew the bird, far up a defile, winging
+its way till a speck.
+
+It was shortly after this, and upon the evening of a day which had been
+tumultuous with sounds of warfare beyond the lower wall of the glen;
+that Aleema came to Yillah in alarm; saying--"Yillah, the time has come
+to follow thy bird; come, return to thy home in Oroolia." And he told
+her the way she would voyage there: by the vortex on the coast of
+Tedaidee. That night, being veiled and placed in the tent, the maiden
+was borne to the sea-side, where the canoe was in waiting. And setting
+sail quickly, by next morning the island of Amma was no longer in sight.
+
+And this was the voyage, whose sequel has already been recounted.
+
+
+CHAPTER LI The Dream Begins To Fade
+
+
+Stripped of the strange associations, with which a mind like Yillah's
+must have invested every incident of her life, the story of her abode in
+Ardair seemed not incredible.
+
+But so etherealized had she become from the wild conceits she nourished,
+that she verily believed herself a being of the lands of dreams. Her
+fabulous past was her present.
+
+Yet as our intimacy grew closer and closer, these fancies seemed to be
+losing their hold. And often she questioned me concerning my own
+reminiscences of her shadowy isle. And cautiously I sought to produce
+the impression, that whatever I had said of that clime, had been
+revealed to me in dreams; but that in these dreams, her own lineaments
+had smiled upon me; and hence the impulse which had sent me roving after
+the substance of this spiritual image.
+
+And true it was to say so; and right it was to swear it, upon her white
+arms crossed. For oh, Yillah; were you not the earthly semblance of that
+sweet vision, that haunted my earliest thoughts?
+
+At first she had wildly believed, that the nameless affinities between
+us, were owing to our having in times gone by dwelt together in the same
+ethereal region. But thoughts like these were fast dying out. Yet not
+without many strange scrutinies. More intently than ever she gazed into
+my eyes; rested her ear against my heart, and listened to its beatings.
+And love, which in the eye of its object ever seeks to invest itself
+with some rare superiority, love, sometimes induced me to prop my
+failing divinity; though it was I myself who had undermined it.
+
+But if it was with many regrets, that in the sight of Yillah, I
+perceived myself thus dwarfing down to a mortal; it was with quite
+contrary emotions, that I contemplated the extinguishment in her heart
+of the notion of her own spirituality. For as such thoughts were chased
+away, she clung the more closely to me, as unto one without whom she
+would be desolate indeed.
+
+And now, at intervals, she was sad, and often gazed long and fixedly
+into the sea. Nor would she say why it was, that she did so; until at
+length she yielded; and replied, that whatever false things Aleema might
+have instilled into her mind; of this much she was certain: that the
+whirlpool on the coast of Tedaidee prefigured her fate; that in the
+waters she saw lustrous eyes, and beckoning phantoms, and strange shapes
+smoothing her a couch among the mosses.
+
+Her dreams seemed mine. Many visions I had of the green corse of the
+priest, outstretching its arms in the water, to receive pale Yillah, as
+she sunk in the sea.
+
+But these forebodings departed, no happiness in the universe like ours.
+We lived and we loved; life and love were united; in gladness glided our
+days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII World Ho!
+
+
+Five suns rose and set. And Yillah pining for the shore, we turned our
+prow due west, and next morning came in sight of land.
+
+It was innumerable islands; lifting themselves bluely through the azure
+air, and looking upon the distant sea, like haycocks in a hazy field.
+Towering above all, and mid-most, rose a mighty peak; one fleecy cloud
+sloping against its summit; a column wreathed. Beyond, like purple
+steeps in heaven at set of sun, stretched far away, what seemed lands on
+lands, in infinite perspective.
+
+Gliding on, the islands grew more distinct; rising up from the billows
+to greet us; revealing hills, vales, and peaks, grouped within a milk-white zone of reef, so vast, that in the distance all was dim. The
+jeweled vapors, ere-while hovering over these violet shores, now seemed
+to be shedding their gems; and as the almost level rays of the sun,
+shooting through the air like a variegated prism, touched the verdant
+land, it trembled all over with dewy sparkles.
+
+Still nearer we came: our sail faintly distended as the breeze died away
+from our vicinity to the isles. The billows rolled listlessly by, as if
+conscious that their long task was nigh done; while gleamed the white
+reef, like the trail of a great fish in a calm. But as yet, no sign of
+paddle or canoe; no distant smoke; no shining thatch. Bravo! good
+comrades, we've discovered some new constellation in the sea.
+
+Sweet Yillah, no more of Oroolia; see you not this flowery land?
+Nevermore shall we desire to roam.
+
+Voyaging along the zone, we came to an opening; and quitting the
+firmament blue of the open sea, we glided in upon the still, green
+waters of the wide lagoon. Mapped out in the broad shadows of the isles,
+and tinted here and there with the reflected hues of the sun clouds, the
+mild waters stretched all around us like another sky. Near by the break
+in the reef, was a little island, with palm trees harping in the breeze;
+an aviary of alluring sounds, that seemed calling upon us to land. And
+here, Yillah, whom the sight of the verdure had made glad, threw out a
+merry suggestion. Nothing less, than to plant our mast, sail-set, upon
+the highest hill; and fly away, island and all; trees rocking, birds
+caroling, flowers springing; away, away, across the wide waters, to
+Oroolia! But alas! how weigh the isle's coral anchor, leagues down in
+the fathomless sea?
+
+We glanced around; but all the islands seemed slumbering in the flooding
+light.
+
+"A canoe! a canoe!" cried Samoa, as three proas showed themselves
+rounding a neighboring shore. Instantly we sailed for them; but after
+shooting to and fro for a time, and standing up and gazing at us, the
+Islanders retreated behind the headland. Hardly were they out of sight,
+when from many a shore roundabout, other proas pushed off. Soon the
+water all round us was enlivened by fleets of canoes, darting hither and
+thither like frighted water-fowls. Presently they all made for one
+island.
+
+From their actions we argued that these people could have had but little
+or no intercourse with whites; and most probably knew not how to account
+for our appearance among them. Desirous, therefore, of a friendly
+meeting, ere any hostile suspicions might arise, we pointed our craft
+for the island, whither all the canoes were now hastening. Whereupon,
+those which had not yet reached their destination, turned and fled;
+while the occupants of the proas that had landed, ran into the groves,
+and were lost to view.
+
+Crossing the distinct outer line of the isle's shadow on the water, we
+gained the shore; and gliding along its margin, passing canoe after
+canoe, hauled up on the silent beach, which otherwise seemed entirely
+innocent of man.
+
+A dilemma. But I decided at last upon disembarking Jarl and Samoa, to
+seek out and conciliate the natives. So, landing them upon a jutting
+buttress of coral, whence they waded to the shore; I pushed off with
+Yillah into the water beyond, to await the event.
+
+Full an hour must have elapsed; when, to our great joy, loud shouts were
+heard; and there burst into view a tumultuous crowd, in the midst of
+which my Viking was descried, mounted upon the shoulders of two brawny
+natives; while the Upoluan, striding on in advance, seemed resisting a
+similar attempt to elevate him in the world.
+
+Good omens both.
+
+"Come ashore!" cried Jarl. "Aramai!" cried Samoa; while storms of
+interjections went up from the Islanders who with extravagant gestures
+danced about the beach.
+
+Further caution seemed needless: I pointed our prow for the shore. No
+sooner was this perceived, than, raising an applauding shout, the
+Islanders ran up to their waists in the sea. And skimming like a gull
+over the smooth lagoon, the light shallop darted in among them. Quick as
+thought, fifty hands were on the gunwale: and, with all its contents,
+lifted bodily into the air, the little Chamois, upon many a dripping
+shoulder, was borne deep into the groves. Yillah shrieked at the rocking
+motion, and when the boughs of the trees brushed against the tent.
+
+With his staff, an old man now pointed to a couple of twin-like trees,
+some four paces apart; and a little way from the ground conveniently
+crotched.
+
+And here, eftsoons, they deposited their burden; lowering the Chamois
+gently between the forks of the trees, whose willow-like foliage fringed
+the tent and its inmate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII The Chamois Ashore
+
+
+Until now, enveloped in her robe, and crouching like a fawn, Yillah had
+been well nigh hidden from view. But presently she withdrew her hood.
+
+What saw the Islanders, that they so gazed and adored in silence: some
+retreating, some creeping nearer, and the women all in a flutter? Long
+they gazed; and following Samoa's example, stretched forth their arms in
+reverence.
+
+The adoration of the maiden was extended to myself. Indeed, from the
+singular gestures employed, I had all along suspected, that we were
+being received with unwonted honors.
+
+I now sought to get speech of my comrades. But so obstreperous was the
+crowd, that it was next to impossible. Jarl was still in his perch in
+the air; his enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to alight.
+Samoa, however, who had managed to keep out of the saddle, by-and-by
+contrived to draw nearer to the Chamois.
+
+He advised me, by no means to descend for the present; since in any
+event we were sure of remaining unmolested therein; the Islanders
+regarding it as sacred.
+
+The Upoluan attracted a great deal of attention; chiefly from his style
+of tattooing, which, together with other peculiarities, so interested
+the natives, that they were perpetually hanging about him, putting eager
+questions, and all the time keeping up a violent clamor.
+
+But despite the large demand upon his lungs, Samoa made out to inform
+me, that notwithstanding the multitude assembled, there was no high
+chief, or person of consequence present; the king of the place, also
+those of the islands adjacent, being absent at a festival in another
+quarter of the Archipelago. But upon the first distant glimpse of the
+Chamois, fleet canoes had been dispatched to announce the surprising
+event that had happened.
+
+In good time, the crowd becoming less tumultuous, and abandoning the
+siege of Samoa, I availed myself of this welcome lull, and called upon
+him and my Viking to enter the Chamois; desirous of condensing our
+forces against all emergencies.
+
+Samoa now gave me to understand, that from all he could learn, the
+Islanders regarded me as a superior being. They had inquired of him,
+whether I was not white Taji, a sort of half-and-half deity, now and
+then an Avatar among them, and ranking among their inferior ex-officio
+demi-gods. To this, Samoa had said ay; adding, moreover, all he could to
+encourage the idea.
+
+He now entreated me, at the first opportunity, to announce myself as
+Taji: declaring that if once received under that title, the unbounded
+hospitality of our final reception would be certain; and our persons
+fenced about from all harm.
+
+Encouraging this. But it was best to be wary. For although among some
+barbarians the first strangers landing upon their shores, are frequently
+hailed as divine; and in more than one wild land have been actually
+styled gods, as a familiar designation; yet this has not exempted the
+celestial visitants from peril, when too much presuming upon the
+reception extended to them. In sudden tumults they have been slain
+outright, and while full faith in their divinity had in no wise abated.
+The sad fate of an eminent navigator is a well-known illustration of
+this unaccountable waywardness.
+
+With no small anxiety, therefore, we awaited the approach of some of the
+dignitaries of Mardi; for by this collective appellation, the people
+informed us, their islands were known.
+
+We waited not long. Of a sudden, from the sea-side, a single shrill cry
+was heard. A moment more, and the blast of numerous conch shells
+startled the air; a confused clamor drew nearer and nearer; and flying
+our eyes in the direction of these sounds, we impatiently awaited what
+was to follow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV A Gentleman From The Sun
+
+
+Never before had I seen the deep foliage of woodlands navigated by
+canoes. But on they came sailing through the leaves; two abreast; borne
+on men's shoulders; in each a chief, carried along to the measured march
+of his bearers; paddle blades reversed under arms. As they emerged, the
+multitude made gestures of homage. At the distance of some eight or ten
+paces the procession halted; when the kings alighted to the ground.
+
+They were fine-looking men, arrayed in various garbs. Rare the show of
+stained feathers, and jewels, and other adornments. Brave the floating
+of dyed mantles.
+
+The regal bearing of these personages, the deference paid them, and
+their entire self-possession, not a little surprised me. And it seemed
+preposterous, to assume a divine dignity in the presence of these
+undoubted potentates of _terra firma_. Taji seemed oozing from my
+fingers' ends. But courage! and erecting my crest, I strove to look
+every inch the character I had determined to assume.
+
+For a time, it was almost impossible to tell with what emotions
+precisely the chiefs were regarding me. They said not a word.
+
+But plucking up heart of grace, I crossed my cutlass on my chest, and
+reposing my hand on the hilt, addressed their High Mightinesses thus.
+"Men of Mardi, I come from the sun. When this morning it rose and
+touched the wave, I pushed my shallop from its golden beach, and hither
+sailed before its level rays. I am Taji."
+
+More would have been added, but I paused for the effect of my exordium.
+
+Stepping back a pace or two, the chiefs eagerly conversed.
+
+Emboldened, I returned to the charge, and labored hard to impress them
+with just such impressions of me and mine, as I deemed desirable. The
+gentle Yillah was a seraph from the sun; Samoa I had picked off a reef
+in my route from that orb; and as for the Skyeman, why, as his name
+imported, he came from above. In a word, we were all strolling
+divinities.
+
+Advancing toward the Chamois, one of the kings, a calm old man, now
+addressed me as follows:--"Is this indeed Taji? he, who according to a
+tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? But that
+period is yet unexpired. What bring'st thou hither then, Taji, before
+thy time? Thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when
+thou dwelt among our sires. But wherefore comest thou, Taji? Truly, thou
+wilt interfere with the worship of thy images, and we have plenty of
+gods besides thee. But comest thou to fight?--We have plenty of spears,
+and desire not thine. Comest thou to dwell?--Small are the houses of
+Mardi. Or comest thou to fish in the sea? Tell us, Taji."
+
+Now, all this was a series of posers hard to be answered; furnishing a
+curious example, moreover, of the reception given to strange demi-gods
+when they travel without their portmanteaus; and also of the familiar
+manner in which these kings address the immortals. Much I mourned that I
+had not previously studied better my part, and learned the precise
+nature of my previous existence in the land.
+
+But nothing like carrying it bravely.
+
+"Attend. Taji comes, old man, because it pleases him to come. And Taji
+will depart when it suits him. Ask the shades of your sires whether Taji
+thus scurvily greeted them, when they came stalking into his presence in
+the land of spirits. No. Taji spread the banquet. He removed their
+mantles. He kindled a fire to drive away the damp. He said not, 'Come
+you to fight, you fogs and vapors? come you to dwell? or come you to
+fish in the sea?' Go to, then, kings of Mardi!"
+
+Upon this, the old king fell back; and his place was supplied by a noble
+chief, of a free, frank bearing. Advancing quickly toward the boat, he
+exclaimed--"I am Media, the son of Media. Thrice welcome, Taji. On my
+island of Odo hast thou an altar. I claim thee for my guest." He then
+reminded the rest, that the strangers had voyaged far, and needed
+repose. And, furthermore, that he proposed escorting them forthwith to
+his own dominions; where, next day, he would be happy to welcome all
+visitants.
+
+And good as his word, he commanded his followers to range themselves
+under the Chamois. Springing out of our prow, the Upoluan was followed
+by Jarl; leaving Yillah and Taji to be borne therein toward the sea.
+
+Soon, we were once more afloat; by our side, Media sociably seated; six
+of his paddlers, perched upon the gunwale, swiftly urging us over the
+lagoon.
+
+The transition from the grove to the sea was instantaneous. All seemed a
+dream.
+
+The place to which we were hastening, being some distance away, as we
+rounded isle after isle, the extent of the Archipelago grew upon us
+greatly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV Tiffin In A Temple
+
+
+Upon at last drawing nigh to Odo, its appearance somewhat disappointed
+me. A small island, of moderate elevation.
+
+But plumb not the height of the house that feasts you. The beach was
+lined with expectant natives, who, lifting the Chamois, carried us up
+the beach.
+
+Alighting, as they were bearing us along, King Media, designating a
+canoe-house hard by, ordered our craft to be deposited therein. This
+being done, we stepped upon the soil. It was the first we had pressed in
+very many days. It sent a sympathetic thrill through our frames.
+
+Turning his steps inland, Media signed us to follow.
+
+Soon we came to a rude sort of inclosure, fenced in by an imposing wall.
+Here a halt was sounded, and in great haste the natives proceeded to
+throw down a portion of the stones. This accomplished, we were signed to
+enter the fortress thus carried by storm. Upon an artificial mound,
+opposite the breach, stood a small structure of bamboo, open in front.
+Within, was a long pedestal, like a settee, supporting three images,
+also of wood, and about the size of men; bearing, likewise, a remote
+resemblance to that species of animated nature. Before these idols was
+an altar, and at its base many fine mats.
+
+Entering the temple, as if he felt very much at home, Media disposed
+these mats so as to form a very pleasant lounge; where he deferentially
+entreated Yillah to recline. Then deliberately removing the first idol,
+he motioned me to seat myself in its place. Setting aside the middle
+one, he quietly established himself in its stead. The displaced ciphers,
+meanwhile, standing upright before us, and their blank faces looking
+upon this occasion unusually expressive. As yet, not a syllable as to
+the meaning of this cavalier treatment of their wooden godships.
+
+We now tranquilly awaited what next might happen, and I earnestly
+prayed, that if sacrilege was being committed, the vengeance of the gods
+might be averted from an ignoramus like me; notwithstanding the
+petitioner himself hailed from the other world. Perfect silence was
+preserved: Jarl and Samoa standing a little without the temple; the
+first looking quite composed, but his comrade casting wondering glances
+at my sociable apotheosis with Media.
+
+Now happening to glance upon the image last removed, I was not long in
+detecting a certain resemblance between it and our host. Both were
+decorated in the same manner; the carving on the idol exactly
+corresponding with the tattooing of the king.
+
+Presently, the silence was relieved by a commotion without: and a butler
+approached, staggering under an immense wooden trencher; which, with
+profound genuflexions, he deposited upon the altar before us. The tray
+was loaded like any harvest wain; heaped up with good things sundry and
+divers: Bread-fruit, and cocoanuts, and plantains, and guavas; all
+pleasant to the eye, and furnishing good earnest of something equally
+pleasant to the palate.
+
+Transported at the sight of these viands, after so long an estrangement
+from full indulgence in things green, I was forthwith proceeding to help
+Yillah and myself, when, like lightning, a most unwelcome query
+obtruded. Did deities dine? Then also recurred what Media had declared
+about my shrine in Odo. Was this it? Self-sacrilegious demigod that I
+was, was I going to gluttonize on the very offerings, laid before me in
+my own sacred fane? Give heed to thy ways, oh Taji, lest thou stumble
+and be lost.
+
+But hereupon, what saw we, but his cool majesty of Odo tranquilly
+proceeding to lunch in the temple?
+
+How now? Was Media too a god? Egad, it must be so. Else, why his image
+here in the fane, and the original so entirely at his ease, with legs
+full cosily tucked away under the very altar itself. This put to flight
+all appalling apprehensions of the necessity of starving to keep up the
+assumption of my divinity. So without more ado I helped myself right and
+left; taking the best care of Yillah; who over fed her flushed beauty
+with juicy fruits, thereby transferring to her cheek the sweet glow of
+the guava.
+
+Our hunger appeased, and Media in token thereof celestially laying his
+hand upon the appropriate region, we proceeded to quit the inclosure.
+But coming to the wall where the breach had been made, lo, and behold,
+no breach was to be seen. But down it came tumbling again, and forth we
+issued.
+
+This overthrowing of walls, be it known, is an incidental compliment
+paid distinguished personages in this part of Mardi. It would seem to
+signify, that such gentry can go nowhere without creating an impression;
+even upon the most obdurate substances.
+
+But to return to our ambrosial lunch.
+
+Sublimate, as you will, the idea of our ethereality as intellectual
+beings; no sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast
+deal of satisfaction in dining. More: there is a savor of life and
+immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till
+filled.
+
+And well knowing this, nature has provided this jolly round board, our
+globe, which in an endless sequence of courses and crops, spreads a
+perpetual feast. Though, as with most public banquets, there is no small
+crowding, and many go away famished from plenty.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI King Media A Host
+
+
+Striking into a grove, about sunset we emerged upon a fine, clear space,
+and spied a city in the woods.
+
+In the middle of all, like a generalissimo's marquee among tents, was a
+structure more imposing than the rest. Here, abode King Media.
+
+Disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were many palm posts
+staked firmly in the earth. A man's height from the ground, these
+supported numerous horizontal trunks, upon which lay a flooring of
+habiscus. High over this dais, but resting upon independent supports
+beyond, a gable-ended roof sloped away to within a short distance of the
+ground.
+
+Such was the palace.
+
+We entered it by an arched, arbored entrance, at one of its palmetto-thatched ends. But not through this exclusive portal entered the
+Islanders. Humbly stooping, they found ingress under the drooping eaves.
+A custom immemorial, and well calculated to remind all contumacious
+subjects of the dignity of the habitation thus entered.
+
+Three steps led to the summit of the dais, where piles of soft mats, and
+light pillows of woven grass, stuffed with the golden down of a wild
+thistle, invited all loiterers to lounge.
+
+How pleasant the twilight that welled up from under the low eaves, above
+which we were seated. And how obvious now the design of the roof. No
+shade more grateful and complete; the garish sun lingering without like
+some lackey in waiting.
+
+But who is this in the corner, gaping at us like a butler in a quandary?
+Media's household deity, in the guise of a plethoric monster, his
+enormous head lolling back, and wide, gaping mouth stuffed full of fresh
+fruits and green leaves. Truly, had the idol possessed a soul under his
+knotty ribs, how tantalizing to hold so glorious a mouthful without the
+power of deglutition. Far worse than the inexorable lock-jaw, which will
+not admit of the step preliminary to a swallow.
+
+This jolly Josh image was that of an inferior deity, the god of Good
+Cheer, and often after, we met with his merry round mouth in many other
+abodes in Mardi. Daily, his jaws are replenished, as a flower vase in
+summer.
+
+But did the demi-divine Media thus brook the perpetual presence of a
+subaltern divinity? Still more; did he render it homage? But ere long
+the Mardian mythology will be discussed, thereby making plain what may
+now seem anomalous.
+
+Politely escorting us into his palace, Media did the honors by inviting
+his guests to recline. He then seemed very anxious to impress us with
+the fact, that, by bringing us to his home, and thereby charging the
+royal larder with our maintenance, he had taken no hasty or imprudent
+step. His merry butlers kept piling round us viands, till we were well
+nigh walled in. At every fresh deposit, Media directing our attention to
+the same, as yet additional evidence of his ample resources as a host.
+The evidence was finally closed by dragging under the eaves a felled
+plantain tree, the spike of red ripe fruit, sprouting therefrom,
+blushing all over, at so rude an introduction to the notice of
+strangers.
+
+During this scene, Jarl was privily nudging Samoa, in wonderment, to
+know what upon earth it all meant. But Samoa, scarcely deigning to
+notice interrogatories propounded through the elbow, only let drop a
+vague hint or two.
+
+It was quite amusing, what airs Samoa now gave himself, at least toward
+my Viking. Among the Mardians he was at home. And who, when there,
+stretches not out his legs, and says unto himself, "Who is greater than
+I?"
+
+To be plain: concerning himself and the Skyeman, the tables were turned.
+At sea, Jarl had been the oracle: an old sea-sage, learned in hemp and
+helm. But our craft high and dry, the Upoluan lifted his crest as the
+erudite pagan; master of Gog and Magog, expounder of all things
+heathenish and obscure.
+
+An hour or two was now laughed away in very charming conversation with
+Media; when I hinted, that a couch and solitude would be acceptable.
+Whereupon, seizing a taper, our host escorted us without the palace. And
+ushering us into a handsome unoccupied mansion, gave me to understand
+that the same was mine. Mounting to the dais, he then instituted a
+vigorous investigation, to discern whether every thing was in order. Not
+fancying something about the mats, he rolled them up into bundles, and
+one by one sent them flying at the heads of his servitors; who, upon
+that gentle hint made off with them, soon after returning with fresh
+ones. These, with mathematical precision, Media in person now spread on
+the dais; looking carefully to the fringes or ruffles with which they
+were bordered, as if striving to impart to them a sentimental
+expression.
+
+This done, he withdrew.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII Taji Takes Counsel With Himself
+
+
+My brief intercourse with our host, had by this time enabled me to form
+a pretty good notion of the light, in which I was held by him and his
+more intelligent subjects.
+
+His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my
+assumptions, he was no way overawed by them; treating me as familiarly,
+indeed, as if I were a mere mortal, one of the abject generation of
+mushrooms.
+
+The scene in the temple, however, had done much toward explaining this
+demeanor of his. A demi-god in his own proper person, my claims to a
+similar dignity neither struck him with wonder, nor lessened his good
+opinion of himself.
+
+As for any thing foreign in my aspect, and my ignorance of Mardian
+customs---all this, instead of begetting a doubt unfavorable to my
+pretensions, but strengthened the conviction of them as verities. Thus
+has it been in similar instances; but to a much greater extent. The
+celebrated navigator referred to in a preceding chapter, was hailed by
+the Hawaiians as one of their demi-gods, returned to earth, after a wide
+tour of the universe. And they worshiped him as such, though incessantly
+he was interrogating them, as to who under the sun his worshipers were;
+how their ancestors came on the island; and whether they would have the
+kindness to provide his followers with plenty of pork during his stay.
+
+But a word or two concerning the idols in the shrine at Odo. Superadded
+to the homage rendered him as a temporal prince, Media was there
+worshiped as a spiritual being. In his corporeal absence, his effigy
+receiving all oblations intended for him. And in the days of his
+boyhood, listening to the old legends of the Mardian mythology, Media
+had conceived a strong liking for the fabulous Taji; a deity whom he had
+often declared was worthy a niche in any temple extant. Hence he had
+honored my image with a place in his own special shrine; placing it side
+by side with his worshipful likeness.
+
+I appreciated the compliment. But of the close companionship of the
+other image there, I was heartily ashamed. And with reason. The nuisance
+in question being the image of a deified maker of plantain-pudding,
+lately deceased; who had been famed far and wide as the most notable
+fellow of his profession in the whole Archipelago. During his sublunary
+career, having been attached to the household of Media, his grateful
+master had afterward seen fit to crown his celebrity by this posthumous
+distinction: a circumstance sadly subtracting from the dignity of an
+apotheosis. Nor must it here be omitted, that in this part of Mardi
+culinary artists are accounted worthy of high consideration. For among
+these people of Odo, the matter of eating and drinking is held a matter
+of life and of death. "Drag away my queen from my arms," said old Tyty
+when overcome of Adommo, "but leave me my cook."
+
+Now, among the Mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to keep
+me in countenance. Most of the kings of the Archipelago, besides Media,
+claiming homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of hereditary
+descent, the divine spark being transmissable from father to son. In
+illustration of this, was the fact, that in several instances the people
+of the land addressed the supreme god Oro, in the very same terms
+employed in the political adoration of their sublunary rulers.
+
+Ay: there were deities in Mardi far greater and taller than I: right
+royal monarchs to boot, living in jolly round tabernacles of jolly brown
+clay; and feasting, and roystering, and lording it in yellow tabernacles
+of bamboo. These demi-gods had wherewithal to sustain their lofty
+pretensions. If need were, could crush out of him the infidelity of a
+non-conformist. And by this immaculate union of church and state, god
+and king, in their own proper persons reigned supreme Caesars over the
+souls and bodies of their subjects.
+
+Beside these mighty magnates, I and my divinity shrank into nothing. In
+their woodland ante-chambers plebeian deities were kept lingering. For
+be it known, that in due time we met with several decayed, broken down
+demi-gods: magnificos of no mark in Mardi; having no temples wherein to
+feast personal admirers, or spiritual devotees. They wandered about
+forlorn and friendless. And oftentimes in their dinnerless despair
+hugely gluttonized, and would fain have grown fat, by reflecting upon
+the magnificence of their genealogies. But poor fellows! like shabby
+Scotch lords in London in King James's time, the very multitude of them
+confounded distinction. And since they could show no rent-roll, they
+were permitted to fume unheeded.
+
+Upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in Mardi,
+that I held my divinity but cheaply. And seeing such a host of
+immortals, and hearing of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their
+nature, haunting woodlands and streams; my views of theology grew
+strangely confused; I began to bethink me of the Jew that rejected the
+Talmud, and his all-permeating principle, to which Goethe and others
+have subscribed.
+
+Instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to palm
+myself off as a god--the way in which the thing first impressed me--I
+now perceived that I might be a god as much as I pleased, and yet not
+whisk a lion's tail after all at least on that special account.
+
+As for Media's reception, its graciousness was not wholly owing to the
+divine character imputed to me. His, he believed to be the same. But to
+a whim, a freakishness in his soul, which led him to fancy me as one
+among many, not as one with no peer.
+
+But the apparent unconcern of King Media with respect to my godship, by
+no means so much surprised me, as his unaffected indifference to my
+amazing voyage from the sun; his indifference to the sun itself; and all
+the wonderful circumstances that must have attended my departure.
+Whether he had ever been there himself, that he regarded a solar trip
+with so much unconcern, almost became a question in my mind. Certain it
+is, that as a mere traveler he must have deemed me no very great
+prodigy.
+
+My surprise at these things was enhanced by reflecting, that to the
+people of the Archipelago the map of Mardi was the map of the world.
+With the exception of certain islands out of sight and at an indefinite
+distance, they had no certain knowledge of any isles but their own.
+
+And, no long time elapsed ere I had still additional reasons to cease
+wondering at the easy faith accorded to the story which I had given of
+myself. For these Mardians were familiar with still greater marvels than
+mine; verily believing in prodigies of all sorts. Any one of them put my
+exploits to the blush.
+
+Look to thy ways then, Taji, thought I, and carry not thy crest too
+high. Of a surety, thou hast more peers than inferiors. Thou art
+overtopped all round. Bear thyself discreetly and not haughtily, Taji.
+It will not answer to give thyself airs. Abstain from all consequential
+allusions to the other world, and the genteel deities among whom thou
+hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel in
+Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy Chamois, because it is unlike a
+canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree, Taji; for Media himself will measure
+it with thee there by the furlong. Be not a "snob," Taji.
+
+So then, weighing all things well, and myself severely, I resolved to
+follow my Mentor's wise counsel; neither arrogating aught, nor abating
+of just dues; but circulating freely, sociably, and frankly, among the
+gods, heroes, high_ priests, kings, and gentlemen, that made up the
+principalities of Mardi.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day
+
+
+During the night following our arrival, many dreams were no doubt dreamt
+in Odo. But my thoughts were wakeful. And while all others slept,
+obeying a restless impulse, I stole without into the magical starlight.
+There are those who in a strange land ever love to view it by night.
+
+It has been said, that the opening in the groves where was situated
+Media's city, was elevated above the surrounding plains. Hence was
+commanded a broad reach of prospect.
+
+Far and wide was deep low-sobbing repose of man and nature. The groves
+were motionless; and in the meadows, like goblins, the shadows advanced
+and retreated. Full before me, lay the Mardian fleet of isles,
+profoundly at anchor  within their coral harbor. Near by was one belted
+round by a frothy luminous reef, wherein it lay, like Saturn in its
+ring.
+
+From all their summits, went up a milk-white smoke, as from Indian
+wigwams in the hazy harvest-moon.  And floating away, these vapors
+blended with the faint mist, as of a cataract, hovering over the
+circumvallating reef. Far beyond all, and far into the infinite night,
+surged the jet-black ocean.
+
+But how tranquil the wide lagoon, which mirrored the burning spots in
+heaven! Deep down into its innermost heart penetrated the slanting rays
+of Hesperus like a shaft of light, sunk far into mysterious Golcondas,
+where myriad gnomes seemed toiling. Soon a light breeze rippled the
+water, and the shaft was seen no more. But the moon's bright wake was
+still revealed: a silver track, tipping every wave-crest in its course,
+till each seemed a pearly, scroll-prowed nautilus, buoyant with some
+elfin crew.
+
+From earth to heaven! High above me was Night's shadowy bower,
+traversed, vine-like, by the Milky Way, and heavy with golden
+clusterings. Oh stars! oh eyes, that see me, wheresoe'er I roam: serene,
+intent, inscrutable for aye, tell me Sybils, what I am.--Wondrous worlds
+on worlds! Lo, round and round me, shining, awful spells: all glorious,
+vivid constellations, God's diadem ye are! To you, ye stars, man owes
+his subtlest raptures, thoughts unspeakable, yet full of faith.
+
+But how your mild effulgence stings the boding heart. Am I a murderer,
+stars?
+
+Hours pass. The starry trance is departed. Long waited for, the dawn now
+comes.
+
+First, breaking along the waking face; peeping from out the languid
+lids; then shining forth in longer glances; till, like the sun, up comes
+the soul, and sheds its rays abroad.
+
+When thus my Yillah did daily dawn, how she lit up my world; tinging
+more rosily the roseate clouds, that in her summer cheek played to and
+fro, like clouds in Italian air.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX Their Morning Meal
+
+
+Not wholly is our world made up of bright stars and bright eyes: so now
+to our story.
+
+A conscientious host should ever be up betimes, to look after the
+welfare of his guests, and see to it that their day begin auspiciously.
+King Media announced the advent of the sun, by rustling at my bower's
+eaves in person.
+
+A repast was spread in an adjoining arbor, which Media's pages had
+smoothed for our reception, and where his subordinate chiefs were in
+attendance. Here we reclined upon mats. Balmy and fresh blew the breath
+of the morning; golden vapors were upon the mountains, silver sheen upon
+the grass; and the birds were at matins in the groves; their bright
+plumage flashing into view, here and there, as if some rainbow were
+crouching in the foliage.
+
+Spread before us were viands, served in quaint-shaped, curiously-dyed
+gourds, not Sevres, but almost as tasteful; and like true porcelain,
+fire had tempered them. Green and yielding, they are plucked from the
+tree; and emptied of their pulp, are scratched over with minute marks,
+like those of a line engraving. The ground prepared, the various figures
+are carefully etched. And the outlines filled up with delicate
+punctures, certain vegetable oils are poured over them, for coloring.
+Filled with a peculiar species of earth, the gourd is now placed in an
+oven in the ground. And in due time exhumed, emptied of its contents,
+and washed in the stream, it presents a deep-dyed exterior; every figure
+distinctly traced and opaque, but the ground semi-transparent. In some
+cases, owing to the variety of dyes employed, each figure is of a
+different hue.
+
+More glorious goblets than these for the drinking of wine, went never
+from hand to mouth. Capacious as pitchers, they almost superseded
+decanters.
+
+Now, in a tropical climate, fruit, with light wines, forms the only fit
+meal of a morning. And with orchards and vineyards forever in sight, who
+but the Hetman of the Cossacs would desire more? We had plenty of the
+juice of the grape. But of this hereafter; there are some fine old
+cellars, and plenty of good cheer in store.
+
+During the repast, Media, for a time, was much taken up with our
+raiment. He begged me to examine for a moment the texture of his right
+royal robe, and observe how much superior it was to my own. It put my
+mantle to the blush; being tastefully stained with rare devices in red
+and black; and bordered with dyed fringes of feathers, and tassels of
+red birds' claws.
+
+Next came under observation the Skyeman's Guayaquil hat; at whose
+preposterous shape, our host laughed in derision; clapping a great
+conical calabash upon the head of an attendant, and saying that now he
+was Jarl. At this, and all similar sallies, Samoa was sure to roar
+louder than any; though mirth was no constitutional thing with him. But
+he seemed rejoiced at the opportunity of turning upon us the ridicule,
+which as a barbarian among whites, he himself had so often experienced.
+
+These pleasantries over, King Media very slightly drew himself up, as if
+to make amends for his previous unbending. He discoursed imperially with
+his chiefs; nodded his sovereign will to his pages; called for another
+gourd of wine; in all respects carrying his royalty bravely.
+
+The repast concluded, we journeyed to the canoe-house, where we found
+the little Chamois stabled like a steed. One solitary depredation had
+been committed. Its sides and bottom had been completely denuded of the
+minute green barnacles, and short sea-grass, which, like so many
+leeches, had fastened to our planks during our long, lazy voyage.
+
+By the people they had been devoured as dainties.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX Belshazzar On The Bench
+
+
+Now, Media was king of Odo. And from the simplicity of his manners
+hitherto, and his easy, frank demeanor toward ourselves, had we
+foolishly doubted that fact, no skepticism could have survived an
+illustration of it, which this very day we witnessed at noon.
+
+For at high noon, Media was wont to don his dignity with his symbols of
+state; and sit on his judgment divan or throne, to hear and try all
+causes brought before him, and fulminate his royal decrees.
+
+This divan was elevated at one end of a spacious arbor, formed by an
+avenue of regal palms, which in brave state, held aloft their majestical
+canopy.
+
+The crown of the island prince was of the primitive old Eastern style;
+in shape, similar, perhaps, to that jauntily sported as a foraging cap
+by his sacred majesty King Nimrod, who so lustily followed the hounds.
+It was a plaited turban of red tappa, radiated by the pointed and
+polished white bones of the Ray-fish. These diverged from a bandeau or
+fillet of the most precious pearls; brought up from the sea by the
+deepest diving mermen of Mardi. From the middle of the crown rose a tri-foiled spear-head. And a spear-headed scepter graced the right hand of
+the king.
+
+Now, for all the rant of your democrats, a fine king on a throne is a
+very fine sight to behold. He looks very much like a god. No wonder that
+his more dutiful subjects so swore, that their good lord and master King
+Media was demi-divine.
+
+A king on his throne! Ah, believe me, ye Gracchi, ye Acephali, ye
+Levelers, it is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at
+Babylon the Tremendous, when Nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old Scone in
+the days of Macbeth; at Rheims, among Oriflammes, at the coronation of
+Louis le Grand; at Westminster Abbey, when the gentlemanly George doffed
+his beaver for a diadem; or under the soft shade of palm trees on an
+isle in the sea.
+
+Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that
+Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold
+it in heaven. But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the Persians, or
+the conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a
+whit more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently ringing for his
+valet.
+
+A king on his throne! It is Jupiter nodding in the councils of Olympus;
+Satan, seen among the coronets in Hell.
+
+A king on his throne! It is the sun over a mountain; the sun over law-giving Sinai; the sun in our system: planets, duke-like, dancing
+attendance, and baronial satellites in waiting.
+
+A king on his throne! After all, but a gentleman seated. And thus sat
+the good lord, King Media.
+
+Time passed. And after trying and dismissing several minor affairs,
+Media called for certain witnesses to testify concerning one Jiromo, a
+foolhardy wight, who had been silly enough to plot against the majesty
+now sitting judge and jury upon him.
+
+His guilt was clear. And the witnesses being heard, from a bunch of palm
+plumes Media taking a leaf, placed it in the hand of a runner or
+pursuivant, saying, "This to Jiromo, where he is prisoned; with his
+king's compliments; say we here wait for his head."
+
+It was doffed like a turban before a Dey, and brought back on the
+instant.
+
+Now came certain lean-visaged, poverty-stricken, and hence suspicious-looking varlets, grumbling and growling, and amiable as Bruin. They came
+muttering some wild jargon about "bulwarks," "bulkheads," "cofferdams,"
+"safeguards," "noble charters," "shields," and "paladiums," "great and
+glorious birthrights," and other unintelligible gibberish.
+
+Of the pursuivants, these worthies asked audience of Media.
+
+"Go, kneel at the throne," was the answer.
+
+"Our knee-pans are stiff with sciatics," was the rheumatic reply.
+
+"An artifice to keep on your legs," said the pursuivants.
+
+And advancing they salamed, and told Media the excuse of those sour-looking varlets. Whereupon my lord commanded them to down on their
+marrow-bones instanter, either before him or the headsman, whichsoever
+they pleased.
+
+They preferred the former. And as they there kneeled, in vain did men
+with sharp ears (who abound in all courts) prick their auriculars, to
+list to that strange crackling and firing off of bone balls and sockets,
+ever incident to the genuflections of rheumatic courtiers.
+
+In a row, then, these selfsame knee-pans did kneel before the king; who
+eyed them as eagles in air do goslings on dunghills; or hunters, hounds
+crouching round their calves.
+
+"Your prayer?" said Media.
+
+It was a petition, that thereafter all differences between man and man
+in Ode, together with all alleged offenses against the state, might be
+tried by twelve good men and true. These twelve to be unobnoxious to the
+party or parties concerned; their peers; and previously unbiased
+touching the matter at issue. Furthermore, that unanimity in these
+twelve should be indispensable to a verdict; and no dinner be vouchsafed
+till unanimity came.
+
+Loud and long laughed King Media in scorn.
+
+"This be your judge," he cried, swaying his scepter. "What! are twelve
+wise men more wise than one? or will twelve fools, put together, make
+one sage? Are twelve honest men more honest than one? or twelve knaves
+less knavish than one? And if, of twelve men, three be fools, and three
+wise, three knaves, and three upright, how obtain real unanimity from
+such?
+
+"But if twelve judges be better than one, then are twelve hundred better
+than twelve. But take the whole populace for a judge, and you will long
+wait for a unanimous verdict.
+
+"If upon a thing dubious, there be little unanimity in the conflicting
+opinions of one man's mind, how expect it in the uproar of twelve
+puzzled brains? though much unanimity be found in twelve hungry
+stomachs.
+
+"Judges unobnoxious to the accused! Apply it to a criminal case. Ha! ha!
+if peradventure a Cacti be rejected, because he had seen the accused
+commit the crime for which he is arraigned. Then, his mind would be
+biased: no impartiality from him! Or your testy accused might object to
+another, because of his tomahawk nose, or a cruel squint of the eye.
+
+"Of all follies the most foolish! Know ye from me, that true peers
+render not true verdicts. Jiromo was a rebel. Had I tried him by his
+peers, I had tried him by rebels; and the rebel had rebelled to some
+purpose.
+
+"Away! As unerring justice dwells in a unity, and as one judge will at
+last judge the world beyond all appeal; so--though often here below
+justice be hard to attain--does man come nearest the mark, when he
+imitates that model divine. Hence, one judge is better than twelve."
+
+"And as Justice, in ideal, is ever painted high lifted above the crowd;
+so, from the exaltation of his rank, an honest king is the best of those
+unical judges, which individually are better than twelve. And therefore
+am I, King Media, the best judge in this land."
+
+"Subjects! so long as I live, I will rule you and judge you alone. And
+though you here kneeled before me till you grew into the ground, and
+there took root, no yea to your petition will you get from this throne.
+I am king: ye are slaves. Mine to command: yours to obey. And this hour
+I decree, that henceforth no gibberish of bulwarks and bulkheads be
+heard in this land. For a dead bulwark and a bulkhead, to dam off
+sedition, will I make of that man, who again but breathes those bulky
+words. Ho! spears! see that these knee-pans here kneel till set of sun."
+
+High noon was now passed; and removing his crown, and placing it on the
+dais for the kneelers to look at during their devotions, King Media
+departed from that place, and once more played the agreeable host.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI An Incognito
+
+
+For the rest of that day, and several that followed, we were continually
+receiving visits from the neighboring islands; whose inhabitants in
+fleets and flotillas flocked round Odo to behold the guests of its lord.
+Among them came many messengers from the neighboring kings with soft
+speeches and gifts.
+
+But it were needless to detail our various interviews, or relate in what
+manifold ways, the royal strangers gave token of their interest
+concerning us.
+
+Upon the third day, however, there was noticed a mysterious figure, like
+the inscrutable incognitos sometimes encountered, crossing the tower-shadowed Plaza of Assignations at Lima. It was enveloped in a dark robe
+of tappa, so drawn and plaited about the limbs; and with one hand, so
+wimpled about the face, as only to expose a solitary eye. But that eye
+was a world. Now it was fixed upon Yillah with a sinister glance, and
+now upon me, but with a different expression. However great the crowd,
+however tumultuous, that fathomless eye gazed on; till at last it seemed
+no eye, but a spirit, forever prying into my soul. Often I strove to
+approach it, but it would evade me, soon reappearing.
+
+Pointing out the apparition to Media, I intreated him to take means to
+fix it, that my suspicions might be dispelled, as to its being
+incorporeal. He replied that, by courtesy, incognitos were sacred.
+Insomuch that the close-plaited robe and the wimple were secure as a
+castle. At last, to my relief, the phantom disappeared, and was seen no
+more.
+
+Numerous and fervent the invitations received to return the calls
+wherewith we were honored. But for the present we declined them;
+preferring to establish ourselves firmly in the heart of Media, ere
+encountering the vicissitudes of roaming. In a multitude of
+acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
+
+Now, while these civilities were being received, and on the fourth
+morning after our arrival, there landed on the beach three black-eyed
+damsels, deep brunettes, habited in long variegated robes, and with gay
+blossoms on their heads.
+
+With many salams, the strangers were ushered into my presence by an old
+white-haired servitor of Media's, who with a parting cong� murmured,
+"From Queen Hautia," then departed. Surprised, I stood mute, and
+welcomed them.
+
+The first, with many smiles and blandishments, waved before me a many-tinted Iris: the flag-flower streaming with pennons. Advancing, the
+second then presented three rose-hued purple-veined Circea flowers, the
+dew still clinging to them. The third placed in my hand a moss-rose bud;
+then, a Venus-car.
+
+"Thanks for your favors! now your message."
+
+Starting at this reception, graciously intended, they conferred a
+moment; when the Iris-bearer said in winning phrase, "We come from
+Hautia, whose moss-rose you hold."
+
+"All thanks to Hautia then; the bud is very fragrant."
+
+Then she pointed to the Venus-car.
+
+"This too is sweet; thanks to Hautia for her flowers. Pray, bring me
+more."
+
+"He mocks our mistress," and gliding from me, they waved witch-hazels,
+leaving me alone and wondering.
+
+Informing Media of this scene, he smiled; threw out queer hints of
+Hautia; but knew not what her message meant.
+
+At first this affair occasioned me no little uneasiness, with much
+matter for marveling; but in the novel pleasure of our sojourn in Odo,
+it soon slipped from my mind; nor for some time, did I again hear aught
+of Queen Hautia.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII Taji Retires From The World
+
+
+After a while, when the strangers came not in shoals as before, I
+proposed to our host, a stroll over his dominions; desirous of beholding
+the same, and secretly induced by the hope of selecting an abode, more
+agreeable to my fastidious taste, than the one already assigned me.
+
+The ramble over--a pleasant one it was--it resulted in a determination
+on my part to quit Odo. Yet not to go very far; only ten or twelve
+yards, to a little green tuft of an islet; one of many, which here and
+there, all round the island, nestled like birds' nests in the branching
+boughs of the coral grove, whose roots laid hold of the foundations of
+the deep. Between these islets and the shore, extended shelving ledges,
+with shallows above, just sufficient to float a canoe. One of these
+islets was wooded and wined; an arbor in the sea. And here, Media
+permitting, I decided to dwell.
+
+Not long was Media in complying; nor long, ere my retreat was in
+readiness. Laced together, the twisting boughs were closely thatched.
+And thatched were the sides also, with deep crimson pandannus leaves;
+whose long, forked spears, lifted by the breeze, caused the whole place
+to blaze, as with flames. Canes, laid on palm trunks, formed the floor.
+How elastic! In vogue all over Odo, among the chiefs, it imparted such a
+buoyancy to the person, that to this special cause may be imputed in
+good part the famous fine spirits of the nobles.
+
+Hypochondriac! essay the elastic flooring! It shall so pleasantly and
+gently jolt thee, as to shake up, and pack off the stagnant humors
+mantling thy pool-like soul.
+
+Such was my dwelling. But I make no mention of sundry little
+appurtenances of tropical housekeeping: calabashes, cocoanut shells, and
+rolls of fine tappa; till with Yillah seated at last in my arbor, I
+looked round, and wanted for naught.
+
+But what of Jarl and Samoa? Why Jarl must needs be fanciful, as well as
+myself. Like a bachelor in chambers, he settled down right opposite to
+me, on the main land, in a little wigwam in the grove.
+
+But Samoa, following not his comrade's example, still tarried in the
+camp of the Hittites and Jebusites of Odo. Beguiling men of their
+leisure by his marvelous stories: and maidens of their hearts by his
+marvelous wiles.
+
+When I chose, I was completely undisturbed in my arbor; an ukase of
+Media's forbidding indiscriminate intrusion. But thrice in the day came
+a garrulous old man with my viands.
+
+Thus sequestered, however, I could not entirely elude the pryings of the
+people of the neighboring islands; who often passed by, slowly paddling,
+and earnestly regarding my retreat. But gliding along at a distance, and
+never essaying a landing, their occasional vicinity troubled me but
+little. But now and then of an evening, when thick and fleet the shadows
+were falling, dim glimpses of a canoe would be spied; hovering about the
+place like a ghost. And once, in the stillness of the night, hearing the
+near ripple of a prow, I sallied forth, but the phantom quickly
+departed.
+
+That night, Yillah shuddered as she slept. "The whirl-pool," she
+murmured, "sweet mosses." Next day she was lost in reveries, plucking
+pensive hyacinths, or gazing intently into the lagoon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII Odo And Its Lord
+
+
+Time now to enter upon some further description of the island and its
+lord.
+
+And first for Media: a gallant gentleman and king. From a goodly stock
+he came. In his endless pedigree, reckoning deities by decimals,
+innumerable kings, and scores of great heroes, chiefs, and priests. Nor
+in person, did he belie his origin. No far-descended dwarf was he, the
+least of a receding race. He stood like a palm tree; about whose
+acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the silken fringes, than
+Media's locks upon his noble brow. Strong was his arm to wield the club,
+or hurl the javelin; and potent, I ween, round a maiden's waist.
+
+Thus much here for Media. Now comes his isle.
+
+Our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by itself; full of
+beauties as a garden; chequered by charming groves; watered by roving
+brooks; and fringed all round by a border of palm trees, whose roots
+drew nourishment from the water. But though abounding in other quarters
+of the Archipelago, not a solitary bread-fruit grew in Odo. A noteworthy
+circumstance, observable in these regions, where islands close
+adjoining, so differ in their soil, that certain fruits growing genially
+in one, are foreign to another. But Odo was famed for its guavas, whose
+flavor was likened to the flavor of new-blown lips; and for its grapes,
+whose juices prompted many a laugh and many a groan.
+
+Beside the city where Media dwelt, there were few other clusters of
+habitations in Odo. The higher classes living, here and there, in
+separate households; but not as eremites. Some buried themselves in the
+cool, quivering bosoms of the groves. Others, fancying a marine
+vicinity, dwelt hard by the beach in little cages of bamboo; whence of
+mornings they sallied out with jocund cries, and went plunging into the
+refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the threshold of their
+dwellings. Others still, like birds, built their nests among the sylvan
+nooks of the elevated interior; whence all below, and hazy green, lay
+steeped in languor the island's throbbing heart.
+
+Thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. The common sort, including
+serfs, and Helots, war-captives held in bondage, lived in secret places,
+hard to find. Whence it came, that, to a stranger, the whole isle looked
+care-free and beautiful. Deep among the ravines and the rocks, these
+beings lived in noisome caves, lairs for beasts, not human homes; or
+built them coops of rotten boughs--living trees were banned them--whose
+mouldy hearts hatched vermin. Fearing infection of some plague, born of
+this filth, the chiefs of Odo seldom passed that way and looking round
+within their green retreats, and pouring out their wine, and plucking
+from orchards of the best, marveled how these swine could grovel in the
+mire, and wear such sallow cheeks. But they offered no sweet homes; from
+that mire they never sought to drag them out; they open threw no
+orchard; and intermitted not the mandates that condemned their drudges
+to a life of deaths. Sad sight! to see those round-shouldered Helots,
+stooping in their trenches: artificial, three in number, and concentric:
+the isle well nigh surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly
+dew from heaven, and bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the
+nutritious Taro.
+
+Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief
+that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man
+toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to
+them--then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with
+these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be the brutes they
+seemed.
+
+Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed, and
+plenty without a pause?--Odo, in whose lurking-places infants turned
+from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.--Odo, in whose inmost
+haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard most dismal
+cries, and voices cursing Media. There, men were scourged; their crime,
+a heresy; the heresy, that Media was no demigod. For this they shrieked.
+Their fathers shrieked before; their fathers, who, tormented, said,
+"Happy we to groan, that our children's children may be glad." But their
+children's children howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous generations,
+and loudly swore, "The pit that's dug for us may prove another's grave."
+
+But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo seemed
+a happy land. The palm-trees waved--though here and there you marked one
+sear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed--though dead ones moldered
+in decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee--though, receding, they
+sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.
+
+But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle. Did
+men in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon's fountain there? For near
+and far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations harvested
+in winrows. In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a gentle
+epitaph; no _requiescat-in-pace_ mocked a sinner damned; no _memento-mori_ admonished men to live while yet they might. Here Death hid his
+skull; and hid it in the sea, the common sepulcher of Odo. Not dust to
+dust, but dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. For all who died upon
+that isle were carried out beyond the outer reef, and there were buried
+with their sires' sires. Hence came the thought, that of gusty nights,
+when round the isles, and  high toward heaven, flew the white reef's
+rack and foam, that then and there, kept chattering watch and ward, the
+myriads that were ocean-tombed.
+
+But why these watery obsequies?
+
+Odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead,
+and Life's small colony be dislodged by Death's grim hosts; as the gaunt
+tribes of Tamerlane o'erspread the tented pastures of the Khan?
+
+And now, what follows, said these Islanders: "Why sow corruption in the
+soil which yields us life? We would not pluck our grapes from over
+graves. This earth's an urn for flowers, not for ashes."
+
+They said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea.
+
+And what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more sublimely urned? Or do
+the minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of Charlemagne, show more of
+pomp, than all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked mariner?
+
+But no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not their
+company; though full soon we shall all have them for fellows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV Yillah A Phantom
+
+
+For a time we were happy in Odo: Yillah and I in our islet. Nor did the
+pearl on her bosom glow more rosily than the roses in her cheeks; though
+at intervals they waned and departed; and deadly pale was her glance,
+when she murmured of the whirlpool and mosses. As pale my soul,
+bethinking me of Aleema the priest.
+
+But day by day, did her spell weave round me its magic, and all the
+hidden things of her being grew more lovely and strange. Did I commune
+with a spirit? Often I thought that Paradise had overtaken me on earth,
+and that Yillah was verily an angel, and hence the mysteries that
+hallowed her.
+
+But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.--Long memories
+of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how common are ye
+to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say--"Lo, thy felicity, my
+soul?" No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back
+upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold.
+
+Sped the hours, the days, the one brief moment of our joys. Fairy bower
+in the fair lagoon, scene of sylvan ease and heart's repose,--Oh,
+Yillah, Yillah! All the woods repeat the sound, the wild, wild woods of
+my wild soul. Yillah! Yillah! cry the small strange voices in me, and
+evermore, and far and deep, they echo on.
+
+Days passed. When one morning I found the arbor vacant. Gone! A dream. I
+closed my eyes, and would have dreamed her back. In vain. Starting, I
+called upon her name; but none replied. Fleeing from the islet, I gained
+the neighboring shore, and searched among the woods; and my comrades
+meeting, besought their aid. But idle all. No glimpse of aught, save
+trees and flowers. Then Media was sought out; the event made known; and
+quickly, bands were summoned to range the isle.
+
+Noon came; but no Yillah. When Media averred she was no longer in Odo.
+Whither she was gone, or how, he knew not; nor could any imagine.
+
+At this juncture, there chanced to arrive certain messengers from
+abroad; who, presuming that all was well with Taji, came with renewed
+invitations to visit various pleasant places round about. Among these,
+came Queen Hautia's heralds, with their Iris flag, once more bringing
+flowers. But they came and went unheeded.
+
+Setting out to return, these envoys were accompanied by numerous
+followers of Media, dispatched to the neighboring islands, to seek out
+the missing Yillah. But three days passed; and, one by one, they all
+returned; and stood before me silently.
+
+For a time I raved. Then, falling into outer repose, lived for a space
+in moods and reveries, with eyes that knew no closing, one glance
+forever fixed.
+
+They strove to rouse me. Girls danced and sang; and tales of fairy times
+were told; of monstrous imps, and youths enchanted; of groves and
+gardens in the sea. Yet still I moved not, hearing all, yet noting
+naught. Media cried, "For shame, oh Taji; thou, a god?" and placed a
+spear in my nerveless hand. And Jarl loud called upon me to awake. Samoa
+marveled.
+
+Still sped the days. And at length, my memory was restored. The thoughts
+of things broke over me like returning billows on a beach long bared. A
+rush, a foam of recollections!--Sweet Yillah gone, and I bereaved.
+
+Another interval, and that mood was past. Misery became a memory. The
+keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered;
+though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep:
+tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit,
+whatever it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so
+with that other grief. Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but
+the loudest notes are struck from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but
+the deep spring only wells.
+
+At last I turned to Media, saying I must hie from Odo, and rove
+throughout all Mardi; for Yillah might yet be found.
+
+But hereafter, in words, little more of the maiden, till perchance her
+fate be learned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV Taji Makes Three Acquaintances
+
+
+Down to this period, I had restrained Samoa from wandering to the
+neighboring islands, though he had much desired it, in compliance with
+the invitations continually received. But now I informed both him, and
+his comrade, of the tour I purposed; desiring their company.
+
+Upon the announcement of my intention to depart, to my no small surprise
+Media also proposed to accompany me: a proposition gladly embraced. It
+seems, that for some reason, he had not as yet extended his travels to
+the more distant islands. Hence the voyage in prospect was particularly
+agreeable to him. Nor did he forbear any pains to insure its prosperity;
+assuring me, furthermore, that its object must eventually be crowned
+with success. "I myself am interested in this pursuit," said he; "and
+trust me, Yillah will be found."
+
+For the tour of the lagoon, the docile Chamois was proposed; but Media
+dissented; saying, that it befitted not the lord of Odo to voyage in the
+equipage of his guest. Therefore, three canoes were selected from his
+own royal fleet.
+
+One for ourselves, and a trio of companions whom he purposed introducing
+to my notice; the rest were reserved for attendants.
+
+Thanks to Media's taste and heedfulness, the strangers above mentioned
+proved truly acceptable.
+
+The first was Mohi, or Braid-Beard, so called from the manner in which
+he wore that appendage, exceedingly long and gray. He was a venerable
+teller of stories and legends, one of the Keepers of the Chronicles of
+the Kings of Mardi.
+
+The second was Babbalanja, a man of a mystical aspect, habited in a
+voluminous robe. He was learned in Mardian lore; much given to
+quotations from ancient and obsolete authorities: the Ponderings of Old
+Bardianna: the Pandects of Alla-Malolla.
+
+Third and last, was Yoomy, or the Warbler. A youthful, long-haired,
+blue-eyed minstrel; all fits and starts; at times, absent of mind, and
+wan of cheek; but always very neat and pretty in his apparel; wearing
+the most becoming of turbans, a Bird of Paradise feather its plume, and
+sporting the gayest of sashes. Most given was Yoomy to amorous melodies,
+and rondos, and roundelays, very witching to hear. But at times
+disdaining the oaten reed, like a clarion he burst forth with lusty lays
+of arms and battle; or, in mournful strains, sounded elegies for
+departed bards and heroes.
+
+Thus much for Yoomy as a minstrel. In other respects, it would be hard
+to depict him. He was so capricious a mortal; so swayed by contrary
+moods; so lofty, so humble, so sad, so merry; so made up of a thousand
+contradictions, that we must e'en let him depict himself as our story
+progresses. And herein it is hoped he will succeed; since no one in
+Mardi comprehended him.
+
+Now the trio, thus destined for companions on our voyage, had for some
+time been anxious to take the tour of the Archipelago. In particular,
+Babbalanja had often expressed the most ardent desire to visit every one
+of the isles, in quest of some object, mysteriously hinted. He murmured
+deep concern for my loss, the sincerest sympathy; and pressing my hand
+more than once, said lowly, "Your pursuit is mine, noble Taji. Where'er
+you search, I follow."
+
+So, too, Yoomy addressed me; but with still more feeling. And something
+like this, also, Braid-Beard repeated.
+
+But to my sorrow, I marked that both Mohi and Babbalanja, especially the
+last, seemed not so buoyant of hope, concerning lost Yillah, as the
+youthful Yoomy, and his high-spirited lord, King Media.
+
+As our voyage would embrace no small period of time, it behoved King
+Media to appoint some trustworthy regent, to rule during his absence.
+This regent was found in Almanni, a stem-eyed, resolute warrior, a
+kinsman of the king.
+
+All things at last in readiness, and the ensuing morning appointed for a
+start, Media, on the beach, at eventide, when both light and water
+waned, drew a rude map of the lagoon, to compensate for the obstructions
+in the way of a comprehensive glance at it from Odo.
+
+And thus was sketched the plan of our voyage; which islands first to
+visit; and which to touch at, when we should be homeward bound.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail
+
+
+True each to his word, up came the sun, and round to my isle came Media.
+
+
+How glorious a morning! The new-born clouds all dappled with gold, and
+streaked with violet; the sun in high spirits; and the pleasant air
+cooled overnight by the blending circumambient fountains, forever
+playing all round the reef; the lagoon within, the coral-rimmed basin,
+into which they poured, subsiding, hereabouts, into green tranquillity.
+
+But what monsters of canoes! Would they devour an innocent voyager?
+their great black prows curling aloft, and thrown back like trunks of
+elephants; a dark, snaky length behind, like the sea-serpent's train.
+
+The prow of the foremost terminated in a large, open, shark's mouth,
+garnished with ten rows of pearly human teeth, curiously inserted into
+the sculptured wood. The gunwale was ornamented with rows of rich
+spotted Leopard and Tiger-shells; here and there, varied by others, flat
+and round, and spirally traced; gay serpents petrified in coils. These
+were imbedded in a grooved margin, by means of a resinous compound,
+exhaling such spices, that the canoes were odoriferous as the Indian
+chests of the Maldives.
+
+The likeness of the foremost canoe to an elephant, was helped by a sort
+of canopied Howdah in its stern, of heavy, russet-dyed tappa, tasselled
+at the corners with long bunches of cocoanut fibres, stained red. These
+swayed to and fro, like the fox-tails on a Tuscarora robe.
+
+But what is this, in the head of the canoe, just under the shark's
+mouth? A grinning little imp of an image; a ring in its nose; cowrie
+shells jingling at its ears; with an abominable leer, like that of
+Silenus reeling on his ass. It was taking its ease; cosily smoking a
+pipe; its bowl, a duodecimo edition of the face of the smoker. This
+image looked sternward; everlastingly mocking us.
+
+Of these canoes, it may be well to state, that although during our stay
+in Odo, so many barges and shallops had touched there, nothing similar
+to Media's had been seen. But inquiring whence his sea-equipage came, we
+were thereupon taught to reverence the same as antiquities and heir-looms; claw-keeled, dragon-prowed crafts of a bygone generation; at
+present, superseded in general use by the more swan-like canoes,
+significant of the advanced stage of marine architecture in Mardi. No
+sooner was this known, than what had seemed almost hideous in my eyes,
+became merely grotesque. Nor could I help being greatly delighted with
+the good old family pride of our host.
+
+The upper corners of our sails displayed the family crest of Media;
+three upright boars' tusks, in an heraldic field argent. A fierce
+device: Whom rends he?
+
+All things in readiness, we glided away: the multitude waving adieu; and
+our flotilla disposed in the following order.
+
+First went the royal Elephant, carrying Media, myself, Jarl, and Samoa;
+Mohi the Teller of Legends, Babbalanja, and Yoomy, and six vivacious
+paddlers; their broad paddle-blades carved with the royal boars' tusks,
+the same tattooed on their chests for a livery.
+
+And thus, as Media had promised, we voyaged in state. To crown all,
+seated sideways in the high, open shark's-mouth of our prow was a little
+dwarf of a boy, one of Media's pages, a red conch-shell, bugle-wise
+suspended at his side. Among various other offices, it was the duty of
+little Vee-Vee to announce the advent of his master, upon drawing near
+to the islands in our route. Two short bars, projecting from one side of
+the prow, furnished him the means of ascent to his perch.
+
+As we gained the open lagoon with bellied sails, and paddles playing, a
+sheaf of foam borne upright at our prow; Yoomy, standing where the spicy
+spray flew over him, stretched forth his hand and cried--"The dawn of
+day is passed, and Mardi lies all before us: all her isles, and all her
+lakes; all her stores of good and evil. Storms may come, our barks may
+drown. But blow before us, all ye winds; give us a lively blast, good
+clarion; rally round us all our wits; and be this voyage full gayly
+sailed, for Yillah will yet be found."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII Little King Peepi
+
+
+Valapee, or the Isle of Yams, being within plain sight of Media's
+dominions, we were not very long in drawing nigh to its shores.
+
+Two long parallel elevations, rising some three arrow-flights into the
+air, double-ridge the island's entire length, lapping between, a
+widening vale, so level withal, that at either extremity, the green of
+its groves blends with the green of the lagoon; and the isle seems
+divided by a strait.
+
+Within several paces of the beach, our canoes keeled the bottom, and
+camel-like mutely hinted that we voyagers must dismount.
+
+Hereupon, the assembled islanders ran into the water, and with bent
+shoulders obsequiously desired the honor of transporting us to land. The
+beach gained, all present wearing robes instantly stripped them to the
+waist; a naked chest being their salute to kings. Very convenient for
+the common people, this; their half-clad forms presenting a perpetual
+and profound salutation.
+
+Presently, Peepi, the ruler of Valapee drew near: a boy, hardly ten
+years old, striding the neck of a burly mute, bearing a long spear erect
+before him, to which was attached a canopy of five broad banana leaves,
+new plucked. Thus shaded, little Peepi advanced, steadying himself by
+the forelock of his bearer.
+
+Besides his bright red robe, the young prince wore nothing but the
+symbol of Valapeean royalty; a string of small, close-fitting, concave
+shells, coiled and ambushed in his profuse, curly hair; one end falling
+over his ear, revealing a serpent's head, curiously carved from a
+nutmeg.
+
+Quite proverbial, the unembarrassed air of young slips of royalty. But
+there was something so surprisingly precocious in this young Peepi, that
+at first one hardly knew what to conclude.
+
+The first compliments over, the company were invited inland to a shady
+retreat.
+
+As we pursued the path, walking between old Mohi the keeper of
+chronicles and Samoa the Upoluan, Babbalanja besought the former to
+enlighten a stranger concerning the history of this curious Peepi.
+Whereupon the chronicler gave us the following account; for all of which
+he alone is responsible.
+
+Peepi, it seems, had been proclaimed king before he was born; his sire
+dying some few weeks previous to that event; and vacating his divan,
+declared that he left a monarch behind.
+
+Marvels were told of Peepi. Along with the royal dignity, and superadded
+to the soul possessed in his own proper person, the infant monarch was
+supposed to have inherited the valiant spirits of some twenty heroes,
+sages, simpletons, and demi-gods, previously lodged in his sire.
+
+Most opulent in spiritual gifts was this lord of Valapee; the legatee,
+moreover, of numerous anonymous souls, bequeathed to him by their late
+loyal proprietors. By a slavish act of his convocation of chiefs, he
+also possessed the reversion of all and singular the immortal spirits,
+whose first grantees might die intestate in Valapee. Servile, yet
+audacious senators! thus prospectively to administrate away the
+inalienable rights of posterity. But while yet unborn, the people of
+Valapee had been deprived of more than they now sought to wrest from
+their descendants. And former Peepies, infant and adult, had received
+homage more profound, than Peepi the Present. Witness the demeanor of
+the chieftains of old, upon every new investiture of the royal serpent.
+In a fever of loyalty, they were wont to present themselves before the
+heir to the isle, to go through with the court ceremony of the Pupera; a
+curious proceeding, so called: inverted endeavors to assume an erect
+posture: the nasal organ the base.
+
+It was to the frequent practice of this ceremony, that most intelligent
+observers imputed the flattened noses of the elderly chiefs of the
+island; who, nevertheless, much gloried therein.
+
+It was these chiefs, also, who still observed the old-fashioned custom
+of retiring from the presence of royalty with their heads between their
+thighs; so that while advancing in the contrary direction, their faces
+might be still deferentially turned toward their lord and master. A fine
+view of him did they obtain. All objects look well through an arch.
+
+But to return to Peepi, the inheritor of souls and subjects. It was an
+article of faith with the people of Valapee, that Peepi not only
+actually possessed the souls bequeathed to him; but that his own was
+enriched by their peculiar qualities: The headlong valor of the late
+Tongatona; the pusillanimous discretion of Blandoo; the cunning of Voyo;
+the simplicity of Raymonda; the prodigality of Zonoree; the thrift of
+Titonti.
+
+But had all these, and similar opposite qualities, simultaneously acted
+as motives upon Peepi, certes, he would have been a most pitiable
+mortal, in a ceaseless eddy of resolves, incapable of a solitary act.
+
+But blessed be the gods, it was otherwise. Though it fared little better
+for his subjects as it was. His assorted souls were uppermost and active
+in him, one by one. Today, valiant Tongatona ruled the isle, meditating
+wars and invasions; tomorrow, thrice discreet Blandoo, who, disbanding
+the levies, turned his attention to the terraces of yams. And so on in
+rotation to the end.
+
+Whence, though capable of action, Peepi, by reason of these revolving
+souls in him, was one of the most unreliable of beings. What the open-handed Zonoree promised freely to-day, the parsimonious Titonti withheld
+to-morrow; and forever Raymonda was annulling the doings of Voyo; and
+Voyo the doings of Raymonda.
+
+What marvel then, that in Valapee all was legislative uproar and
+confusion; advance and retreat;  abrogations and revivals; foundations
+without superstructures; nothing permanent but the island itself.
+
+Nor were there those in the neighboring countries, who failed to reap
+profit from this everlasting transition state of the affairs of the
+kingdom. All boons from Peepi were entreated when the prodigal Zonoree
+was lord of the ascendant. And audacious claims were urged upon the
+state when the pusillanimous Blandoo shrank from the thought of
+resisting them.
+
+Thus subject to contrary impulses, over which he had not the faintest
+control, Peepi was plainly denuded of all moral obligation to virtue. He
+was no more a free agent, than the heart which beat in his bosom.
+Wherefore, his complaisant parliament had passed a law, recognizing that
+curious, but alarming fact; solemnly proclaiming, that King Peepi was
+minus a conscience. Agreeable to truth. But when they went further, and
+vowed by statute, that Peepi could do no wrong, they assuredly did
+violence to the truth; besides, making a sad blunder in their logic. For
+far from possessing an absolute aversion to evil, by his very nature it
+was the hardest thing in the world for Peepi to do right.
+
+Taking all these things into consideration, then, no wonder that this
+wholly irresponsible young prince should be a lad of considerable
+assurance, and the easiest manners imaginable.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee
+
+
+Coiling through the thickets, like the track of a serpent, wound along
+the path we pursued. And ere long we came to a spacious grove,
+embowering an oval arbor. Here, we reclined at our ease, and
+refreshments were served.
+
+Little worthy of mention occurred, save this. Happening to catch a
+glimpse of the white even teeth of Hohora one of our attendants, King
+Peepi coolly begged of Media the favor, to have those same dentals drawn
+on the spot, and presented to him.
+
+Now human teeth, extracted, are reckoned among the most valuable
+ornaments in Mardi. So open wide thy strong box, Hohora, and show thy
+treasures. What a gallant array! standing shoulder to shoulder, without
+a hiatus between. A complete set of jewelry, indeed, thought Peepi. But,
+it seems, not destined for him; Media leaving it to the present
+proprietor, whether his dentals should change owners or not.
+
+And here, to prepare the way for certain things hereafter to be
+narrated, something farther needs be said concerning the light in which
+men's molars are regarded in Mardi.
+
+Strung together, they are sported for necklaces, or hung in drops from
+the ear; they are wrought into dice; in lieu of silken locks, are
+exchanged for love tokens.
+
+As in all lands, men smite their breasts, and tear their hair, when
+transported with grief; so, in some countries, teeth are stricken out
+under the sway of similar emotions. To a very great extent, this was
+once practiced in the Hawaiian Islands, ere idol and altar went down.
+Still living in Oahu, are many old chiefs, who were present at the
+famous obsequies of their royal old generalissimo, Tammahammaha, when
+there is no telling how many pounds of ivory were cast upon his grave.
+
+Ah! had the regal white elephants of Siam been there, doubtless they had
+offered up their long, hooked tusks, whereon they impale the leopards,
+their foes; and the unicorn had surrendered that fixed bayonet in his
+forehead; and the imperial Cachalot-whale, the long chain of white
+towers in his jaw; yea, over that grim warrior's grave, the mooses, and
+elks, and stags, and fallow-deer had stacked their antlers, as soldiers
+their arms on the field.
+
+Terrific shade of tattooed Tammahammaha! if, from a vile dragon's
+molars, rose mailed men, what heroes shall spring from the cannibal
+canines once pertaining to warriors themselves!--Am I the witch of
+Endor, that I conjure up this ghost? Or, King Saul, that I so quake at
+the sight? For, lo! roundabout me Tammahammaha's tattooing expands, till
+all the sky seems a tiger's skin. But now, the spotted phantom sweeps
+by; as a man-of-war's main-sail, cloud-like, blown far to leeward in a
+gale.
+
+Banquo down, we return.
+
+In Valapee, prevails not the barbarous Hindoo custom of offering up
+widows to the shades of their lords; for, bereaved, the widows there
+marry again. Nor yet prevails the savage Hawaiian custom of offering up
+teeth to the manes of the dead; for, at the decease of a friend, the
+people rob not their own mouths to testify their woe. On the contrary,
+they extract the teeth from the departed, distributing them among the
+mourners for memorial legacies; as elsewhere, silver spoons are
+bestowed.
+
+From the high value ascribed to dentals throughout the archipelago of
+Mardi, and also from their convenient size, they are circulated as
+money; strings of teeth being regarded by these people very much as
+belts of wampum among the Winnebagoes of the North; or cowries, among
+the Bengalese. So, that in Valapee the very beggars are born with a snug
+investment in their mouths; too soon, however, to be appropriated by
+their lords; leaving them toothless for the rest of their days, and
+forcing them to diet on poee-pudding and banana blanc-mange.
+
+As a currency, teeth are far less clumsy than cocoanuts; which, among
+certain remote barbarians, circulate for coin; one nut being equivalent,
+perhaps, to a penny. The voyager who records the fact, chuckles over it
+hugely; as evincing the simplicity of those heathens; not knowing that
+he himself was the simpleton; since that currency of theirs was
+purposely devised by the men, to check the extravagance of their women;
+cocoanuts, for spending money, being such a burden to carry.
+
+It only remains to be added, that the most solemn oath of a native of
+Valapee is that sworn by his tooth. "By this tooth," said Bondo to
+Noojoomo, "by this tooth I swear to be avenged upon thee, oh Noojoomo!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX The Company Discourse, And Braid-Beard Rehearses A Legend
+
+
+Finding in Valapee no trace of her whom we sought, and but little
+pleased with the cringing demeanor of the people, and the wayward
+follies of Peepi their lord, we early withdrew from the isle.
+
+As we glided away, King Media issued a sociable decree. He declared it
+his royal pleasure, that throughout the voyage, all stiffness and state
+etiquette should be suspended: nothing must occur to mar the freedom of
+the party. To further this charming plan, he doffed his symbols of
+royalty, put off his crown, laid aside his scepter, and assured us that
+he would not wear them again, except when we landed; and not invariably,
+then.
+
+"Are we not all now friends and companions?" he said. "So companions and
+friends let us be. I unbend my bow; do ye likewise."
+
+"But are we not to be dignified?" asked Babbalanja.
+
+"If dignity be free and natural, be as dignified as you please; but away
+with rigidities."
+
+"Away they go," said Babbalanja; "and, my lord, now that you mind me of
+it, I have often thought, that it is all folly and vanity for any man to
+attempt a dignified carriage. Why, my lord,"--frankly crossing his legs
+where he lay--"the king, who receives his ambassadors with a majestic
+toss of the head, may have just recovered from the tooth-ache. That
+thought should cant over the spine he bears so bravely."
+
+"Have a care, sir! there is a king within hearing."
+
+"Pardon, my lord; I was merely availing myself of the immunity bestowed
+upon the company. Hereafter, permit a subject to rebel against your
+sociable decrees. I will not be so frank any more."
+
+"Well put, Babbalanja; come nearer; here, cross your legs by mine; you
+have risen a cubit in my regard. Vee-Vee, bring us that gourd of wine;
+so, pass it round with the cups. Now, Yoomy, a song!"
+
+And a song was sung.
+
+And thus did we sail; pleasantly reclining on the mats stretched out
+beneath the canopied howdah.
+
+At length, we drew nigh to a rock, called Pella, or The Theft. A high,
+green crag, toppling over its base, and flinging a cavernous shadow upon
+the lagoon beneath, bubbling with the moisture that dropped.
+
+Passing under this cliff was like finding yourself, as some sea-hunters
+unexpectedly have, beneath the open, upper jaw of a whale; which,
+descending, infallibly entombs you. But familiar with the rock, our
+paddlers only threw back their heads, to catch the cool, pleasant
+tricklings from the mosses above.
+
+Wiping away several glittering beads from his beard, old Mohi turning
+round where he sat, just outside the canopy, solemnly affirmed, that the
+drinking of that water had cured many a man of ambition.
+
+"How so, old man?" demanded Media.
+
+"Because of its passing through the ashes of ten kings, of yore buried
+in a sepulcher, hewn in the heart of the rock."
+
+"Mighty kings, and famous, doubtless," said Babbalanja, "whose bones
+were thought worthy of so noble and enduring as urn. Pray, Mohi, their
+names and terrible deeds."
+
+"Alas! their sepulcher only remains."
+
+"And, no doubt, like many others, they made that sepul for themselves.
+They sleep sound, my word for it, old man. But I very much question, if,
+were the rock rent, any ashes would be found. Mohi, I deny that those
+kings ever had any bones to bury."
+
+"Why, Babbalanja," said Media, "since you intimate that they never had
+ghosts to give up, you ignore them in toto; denying the very fact of
+their being even defunct."
+
+"Ten thousand pardons, my lord, no such discourtesy would I do the
+anonymous memory of the illustrious dead. But whether they ever lived or
+not, it is all the same with them now. Yet, grant that they lived; then,
+if death be a deaf-and-dumb death, a triumphal procession over their
+graves would concern them not. If a birth into brightness, then Mardi
+must seem to them the most trivial of reminiscences. Or, perhaps, theirs
+may be an utter lapse of memory concerning sublunary things; and they
+themselves be not themselves, as the butterfly is not the larva."
+
+Said Yoomy, "Then, Babbalanja, you account that a fit illustration of
+the miraculous change to be wrought in man after death?"
+
+"No; for the analogy has an unsatisfactory end. From its chrysalis
+state, the silkworm but becomes a moth, that very quickly expires. Its
+longest existence is as a worm. All vanity, vanity, Yoomy, to seek in
+nature for positive warranty to these aspirations of ours. Through all
+her provinces, nature seems to promise immortality to life, but
+destruction to beings. Or, as old Bardianna has it, if not against us,
+nature is not for us."
+
+Said Media, rising, "Babbalanja, you have indeed put aside the courtier;
+talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi-god! To
+renown, for your theme: a more agreeable topic."
+
+"Pardon, once again, my lord. And since you will, let us discourse of
+that subject. First, I lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that in
+itself all posthumous renown, which is the only renown, is valueless. Be
+not offended, my lord. To the nobly ambitious, renown hereafter may be
+something to anticipate. But analyzed, that feverish typhoid feeling of
+theirs may be nothing more than a flickering fancy, that now, while
+living, they are recognized as those who will be as famous in their
+shrouds, as in their girdles."
+
+Said Yoomy, "But those great and good deeds, Babbalanja, of which the
+philosophers so often discourse: must it not be sweet to believe that
+their memory will long survive us; and we ourselves in them?"
+
+"I speak now," said Babbalanja, "of the ravening for fame which even
+appeased, like thirst slaked in the desert, yields no felicity, but only
+relief; and which discriminates not in aught that will satisfy its
+cravings. But let me resume. Not an hour ago, Braid-Beard was telling us
+that story of prince Ottimo, who inodorous while living, expressed much
+delight at the prospect of being perfumed and embalmed, when dead. But
+was not Ottimo the most eccentric of mortals? For few men issue orders
+for their shrouds, to inspect their quality beforehand. Far more anxious
+are they about the texture of the sheets in which their living limbs
+lie. And, my lord, with some rare exceptions, does not all Mardi, by its
+actions, declare, that it is far better to be notorious now, than famous
+hereafter?"
+
+"A base sentiment, my lord," said Yoomy. "Did not poor Bonja, the
+unappreciated poet, console himself for the neglect of his
+contemporaries, by inspiriting thoughts of the future?"
+
+"In plain words by bethinking him of the glorious harvest of bravos his
+ghost would reap for him," said Babbalanja; "but Banjo,--Bonjo,--Binjo,--I never heard of him."
+
+"Nor I," said Mohi.
+
+"Nor I," said Media.
+
+"Poor fellow!" cried Babbalanja; "I fear me his harvest is not yet
+ripe."
+
+"Alas!" cried Yoomy; "he died more than a century ago."
+
+"But now that you speak of unappreciated poets, Yoomy," said Babbalanja,
+"Shall I give you a piece of my mind?" "Do," said Mohi, stroking his
+beard.
+
+"He, who on all hands passes for a cypher to-day, if at all remembered
+hereafter, will be sure to pass for the same. For there is more
+likelihood of being overrated while living, than of being underrated
+when dead. And to insure your fame, you must die."
+
+"A rather discouraging thought for your race. But answer: I assume that
+King Media is but a mortal like you; now, how may I best perpetuate my
+name?"
+
+Long pondered Babbalanja; then said, "Carve it, my lord, deep into a
+ponderous stone, and sink it, face downward, into the sea; for the
+unseen foundations of the deep are more enduring than the palpable tops
+of the mountains."
+
+Sailing past Pella, we gained a view of its farther side; and seated in
+a lofty cleft, beheld a lonely fisherman; solitary as a seal on an
+iceberg; his motionless line in the water.
+
+"What recks he of the ten kings," said Babbalanja.
+
+"Mohi," said Media, "methinks there is another tradition concerning that
+rock: let us have it."
+
+"In old times of genii and giants, there dwelt in barren lands, not very
+remote from our outer reef, but since submerged, a band of evil-minded,
+envious goblins, furlongs in stature, and with immeasurable arms; who
+from time to time cast covetous glances upon our blooming isles. Long
+they lusted; till at last, they waded through the sea, strode over the
+reef, and seizing the nearest islet, rolled it over and over, toward an
+adjoining outlet.
+
+"But the task was hard; and day-break surprised them in the midst of
+their audacious thieving; while in the very act of giving the devoted
+land another doughty surge and Somerset. Leaving it bottom upward and
+midway poised, gardens under water, its foundations in air, they
+precipitately fled; in their great haste, deserting a comrade, vainly
+struggling to liberate his foot caught beneath the overturned land."
+
+"This poor fellow now raised such an outcry, as to awaken the god Upi,
+or the Archer, stretched out on a long cloud in the East; who forthwith
+resolved to make an example of the unwilling lingerer. Snatching his
+bow, he let fly an arrow. But overshooting its mark, it pierced through
+and through, the lofty promontory of a neighboring island; making an
+arch in it, which remaineth even unto this day. A second arrow, however,
+accomplished its errand: the slain giant sinking prone to the bottom."
+
+"And now," added Mohi, "glance over the gunwale, and you will see his
+remains petrified into white ribs of coral."
+
+"Ay, there they are," said Yoomy, looking down into the water where they
+gleamed. "A fanciful legend, Braid-beard."
+
+"Very entertaining," said Media.
+
+"Even so," said Babbalanja. "But perhaps we lost time in listening to
+it; for though we know it, we are none the wiser."
+
+"Be not a cynic," said Media. "No pastime is lost time."
+
+Musing a moment, Babbalanja replied, "My lord, that maxim may be good as
+it stands; but had you made six words of it, instead of six syllables,
+you had uttered a better and a deeper."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle-Song; And A Message Is
+Received From Abroad
+
+
+From seaward now came a breeze so blithesome and fresh, that it made us
+impatient of Babbalanja's philosophy, and Mohi's incredible legends. One
+and all, we called upon the minstrel Yoomy to give us something in
+unison with the spirited waves wide-foaming around us.
+
+"If my lord will permit, we will give Taji the Paddle-Chant of the
+warriors of King Bello."
+
+"By all means," said Media.
+
+So the three canoes were brought side to side; their sails rolled up;
+and paddles in hand, our paddlers seated themselves sideways on the
+gunwales; Yoomy, as leader, occupying the place of the foremast, or Bow-Paddler of the royal barge.
+
+Whereupon the six rows of paddle-blades being uplifted, and every eye on
+the minstrel, this song was sung, with actions corresponding; the canoes
+at last shooting through the water, with a violent roll.
+
+(_All._) Thrice waved on high, Our paddles fly: Thrice round the head,
+thrice dropt to feet: And then well timed, Of one stout mind, All fall,
+and back the waters heap!
+
+(_Bow-Paddler._) Who lifts this chant? Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+(_All._) The wild sea song, to the billows' throng, Rising, falling,
+Hoarsely calling, Now high, now low, as fast we go, Fast on our flying
+foe!
+
+(_Bow-Paddler._) Who lifts this chant? Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+(_All._) Dip, dip, in the brine our paddles dip, Dip, dip, the fins of
+our swimming ship! How the waters part, As on we dart; Our sharp prows
+fly, And curl on high, As the upright fin of the rushing shark, Rushing
+fast and far on his flying mark! Like him we prey; Like him we slay;
+Swim on the fog, Our prow a blow!
+
+(_Bow-Paddler._) Who lifts this chant? Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+(_All._) Heap back; heap back; the waters back! Pile them high astern,
+in billows black; Till we leave our wake, In the slope we make; And rush
+and ride, On the torrent's tide!
+
+Here we were overtaken by a swift gliding canoe, which, bearing down
+upon us before the wind, lowered its sail when close by: its occupants
+signing our paddlers to desist.
+
+I started.
+
+The strangers were three hooded damsels the enigmatical Queen Hautia's
+heralds.
+
+Their pursuit surprised and perplexed me. Nor was there wanting a vague
+feeling of alarm to heighten these emotions. But perhaps I was mistaken,
+and this time they meant not me.
+
+Seated in the prow, the foremost waved her Iris flag. Cried Yoomy, "Some
+message! Taji, that Iris points to you."
+
+It was then, I first divined, that some meaning must have lurked in
+those flowers they had twice brought me before.
+
+The second damsel now flung over to me Circe flowers; then, a faded
+jonquil, buried in a tuft of wormwood leaves.
+
+The third sat in the shallop's stern, and as it glided from us, thrice
+waved oleanders.
+
+"What dumb show is this?" cried Media. "But it looks like poetry:
+minstrel, you should know."
+
+"Interpret then," said I.
+
+"Shall I, then, be your Flora's flute, and Hautia's dragoman? Held
+aloft, the Iris signified a message. These purple-woven Circe flowers
+mean that some spell is weaving. That golden, pining jonquil, which you
+hold, buried in those wormwood leaves, says plainly to you--Bitter love
+in absence."
+
+Said Media, "Well done, Taji, you have killed a queen." "Yet no Queen
+Hautia have these eyes beheld."
+
+Said Babbalanja, "The thrice waved oleanders, Yoomy; what meant they?"
+
+"Beware--beware--beware."
+
+"Then that, at least, seems kindly meant," said Babbalanja; "Taji,
+beware of Hautia."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI They Land Upon The Island Of Juam
+
+
+Crossing the lagoon, our course now lay along the reef to Juam; a name
+bestowed upon one of the largest islands hereabout; and also,
+collectively, upon several wooded isles engulfing it, which together
+were known as the dominions of one monarch. That monarch was Donjalolo.
+Just turned of twenty-five, he was accounted not only the handsomest man
+in his dominions, but throughout the lagoon. His comeliness, however,
+was so feminine, that he was sometimes called "Fonoo," or the Girl.
+
+Our first view of Juam was imposing. A dark green pile of cliffs,
+towering some one hundred toises; at top, presenting a range of steep,
+gable-pointed projections; as if some Titanic hammer and chisel had
+shaped the mass.
+
+Sailing nearer, we perceived an extraordinary rolling of the sea; which
+bursting into the lagoon through an adjoining breach in the reef, surged
+toward Juam in enormous billows. At last, dashing against the wall of
+the cliff; they played there in unceasing fountains. But under the brow
+of a beetling crag, the spray came and went unequally. There, the blue
+billows seemed swallowed up, and lost.
+
+Right regally was Juam guarded. For, at this point, the rock was pierced
+by a cave, into which the great waves chased each other like lions;
+after a hollow, subterraneous roaring issuing forth with manes
+disheveled.
+
+Cautiously evading the dangerous currents here ruffling the lagoon, we
+rounded the wall of cliff; and shot upon a smooth expanse; on one side,
+hemmed in by the long, verdent, northern shore of Juam; and across the
+water, sentineled by its tributary islets.
+
+With sonorous Vee-Vee in the shark's mouth, we swept toward the beach,
+tumultuous with a throng.
+
+Our canoes were secured. And surrounded by eager glances, we passed the
+lower ends of several populous valleys; and crossing a wide, open
+meadow, gradually ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs.
+Here, we wended our way down a narrow defile, almost cleaving this
+quarter of the island to its base. Black crags frowned overhead: among
+them the shouts of the Islanders reverberated. Yet steeper grew the
+defile, and more overhanging the crags till at last, the keystone of the
+arch seemed dropped into its place. We found ourselves in a subterranean
+tunnel, dimly lighted by a span of white day at the end.
+
+Emerging, what a scene was revealed! All round, embracing a circuit of
+some three leagues, stood heights inaccessible, here and there, forming
+buttresses, sheltering deep recesses between. The bosom of the place was
+vivid with verdure.
+
+Shining aslant into this wild hollow, the afternoon sun lighted up its
+eastern side with tints of gold. But opposite, brooded a somber shadow,
+double-shading the secret places between the salient spurs of the
+mountains. Thus cut in twain by masses of day and night, it seemed as if
+some Last Judgment had been enacted in the glen.
+
+No sooner did we emerge from the defile, than we became sensible of a
+dull, jarring sound; and Yoomy was almost tempted to turn and flee, when
+informed that the sea-cavern, whose mouth we had passed, was believed to
+penetrate deep into the opposite hills; and that the surface of the
+amphitheater was depressed beneath that of the lagoon. But all over the
+lowermost hillsides, and sloping into the glen, stood grand old groves;
+still and stately, as if no insolent waves were throbbing in the
+mountain's heart.
+
+Such was Willamilla, the hereditary abode of the young monarch of Juam.
+
+Was Yillah immured in this strange retreat? But from those around us
+naught could we learn.
+
+Our attention was now directed to the habitations of the glen; comprised
+in two handsome villages; one to the west, the other to the east; both
+stretching along the base of the cliffs.
+
+Said Media, "Had we arrived at Willamilla in the morning, we had found
+Donjalolo and his court in the eastern village; but being afternoon, we
+must travel farther, and seek him in his western retreat; for that is
+now in the shade."
+
+Wending our way, Media added, that aside from his elevated station as a
+monarch, Donjalolo was famed for many uncommon traits; but more
+especially for certain peculiar deprivations, under which he labored.
+
+Whereupon Braid-Beard unrolled his old chronicles; and regaled us with
+the history, which will be found in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi
+
+
+Many ages ago, there reigned in Juam a king called Teei. This Teei's
+succession to the sovereignty was long disputed by his brother Marjora;
+who at last rallying round him an army, after many vicissitudes,
+defeated the unfortunate monarch in a stout fight of clubs on the beach.
+
+In those days, Willamilla during a certain period of the year was a
+place set apart for royal games and diversions; and was furnished with
+suitable accommodations for king and court. From its peculiar position,
+moreover, it was regarded as the last stronghold of the Juam monarchy:
+in remote times having twice withstood the most desperate assaults from
+without. And when Roonoonoo, a famous upstart, sought to subdue all the
+isles in this part of the Archipelago, it was to Willamilla that the
+banded kings had repaired to take counsel together; and while there
+conferring, were surprised at the sudden onslaught of Roonoonoo in
+person. But in the end, the rebel was captured, he and all his army, and
+impaled on the tops of the hills.
+
+Now, defeated and fleeing for his life, Teei with his surviving
+followers was driven across the plain toward the mountains. But to cut
+him off from all escape to inland Willamilla, Marjora dispatched a fleet
+band of warriors to occupy the entrance of the defile. Nevertheless,
+Teei the pursued ran faster than his pursuers; first gained the spot;
+and with his chiefs, fled swiftly down the gorge, closely hunted by
+Marjora's men. But arriving at the further end, they in vain sought to
+defend it. And after much desperate fighting, the main body of the foe
+corning up with great slaughter the fugitives were driven into the glen.
+
+They ran to the opposite wall of cliff; where turning, they fought at
+bay, blood for blood, and life for life, till at last, overwhelmed by
+numbers, they were all put to the point of the spear.
+
+With fratricidal hate, singled out by the ferocious Marjora, Teei fell
+by that brother's hand. When stripping from the body the regal girdle,
+the victor wound it round his own loins; thus proclaiming himself king
+over Juam.
+
+Long torn by this intestine war, the island acquiesced in the new
+sovereignty. But at length a sacred oracle declared, that since the
+conqueror had slain his brother in deep Willamilla, so that Teei never
+more issued from that refuge of death; therefore, the same fate should
+be Marjora's; for never, thenceforth, from that glen, should he go
+forth; neither Marjora; nor any son of his girdled loins; nor his son's
+sons; nor the uttermost scion of his race.
+
+But except this denunciation, naught was denounced against the usurper;
+who, mindful of the tenure by which he reigned, ruled over the island
+for many moons; at his death bequeathing the girdle to his son.
+
+In those days, the wildest superstitions concerning the interference of
+the gods in things temporal, prevailed to a much greater extent than at
+present. Hence Marjora himself, called sometimes in the traditions of
+the island, The-Heart-of-Black-Coral, even unscrupulous Marjora had
+quailed before the oracle. "He bowed his head," say the legends. Nor was
+it then questioned, by his most devoted adherents, that had he dared to
+act counter to that edict, he had dropped dead, the very instant he went
+under the shadow of the defile. This persuasion also guided the conduct
+of the son of Marjora, and that of his grandson.
+
+But there at last came to pass a change in the popular fancies
+concerning this ancient anathema. The penalty denounced against the
+posterity of the usurper should they issue from the glen, came to be
+regarded as only applicable to an invested monarch, not to his
+relatives, or heirs.
+
+A most favorable construction of the ban; for all those related to the
+king, freely passed in and out of Willamilla.
+
+From the time of the usurpation, there had always been observed a
+certain ceremony upon investing the heir to the sovereignty with the
+girdle of Teei. Upon these occasions, the chief priests of the island
+were present, acting an important part. For the space of as many days,
+as there had reigned kings of Marjora's dynasty, the inner mouth of the
+defile remained sealed; the new monarch placing the last stone in the
+gap. This symbolized his relinquishment forever of all purpose of
+passing out of the glen. And without this observance, was no king
+girdled in Juam.
+
+It was likewise an invariable custom, for the heir to receive the regal
+investiture immediately upon the decease of his sire. No delay was
+permitted. And instantly upon being girdled, he proceeded to take part
+in the ceremony of closing the cave; his predecessor yet remaining
+uninterred on the purple mat where he died.
+
+In the history of the island, three instances were recorded; wherein,
+upon the vacation of the sovereignty, the immediate heir had voluntarily
+renounced all claim to the succession, rather than surrender the
+privilege of roving, to which he had been entitled, as a prince of the
+blood.
+
+Said Rani, one of these young princes, in reply to the remonstrances of
+his friends, "What! shall I be a king, only to be a slave? Teei's girdle
+would clasp my waist less tightly, than my soul would be banded by the
+mountains of Willamilla. A subject, I am free. No slave in Juam but its
+king; for all the tassels round his loins."
+
+To guard against a similar resolution in the mind of his only son, the
+wise sire of Donjalolo, ardently desirous of perpetuating his dignities
+in a child so well beloved, had from his earliest infancy, restrained
+the boy from passing out of the glen, to contract in the free air of the
+Archipelago, tastes and predilections fatal to the inheritance of the
+girdle.
+
+But as he grew in years, so impatient became young Donjalolo of the king
+his father's watchfulness over him, though hitherto a most dutiful son,
+that at last he was prevailed upon by his youthful companions to appoint
+a day, on which to go abroad, and visit Mardi. Hearing this
+determination, the old king sought to vanquish it. But in vain. And
+early on the morning of the day, that Donjalolo was to set out, he
+swallowed poison, and died; in order to force his son into the instant
+assumption of the honors thus suddenly inherited.
+
+The event, but not its dreadful circumstances, was communicated to the
+prince; as with a gay party of young chiefs, he was about to enter the
+mouth of the defile.
+
+"My sire dead!" cried Donjalolo. "So sudden, it seems a bolt from
+Heaven." And bursting into exclamations of grief, he wept upon the bosom
+of Talara his friend.
+
+But starting from his side:--"My fate converges to a point. If I but
+cross that shadow, my kingdom is lost. One lifting of my foot, and the
+girdle goes to my proud uncle Darfi, who would so joy to be my master.
+Haughty Dwarf! Oh Oro! would that I had ere this passed thee, fatal
+cavern; and seen for myself, what outer Mardi is. Say ye true, comrades,
+that Willamilla is less lovely than the valleys without? that there is
+bright light in the eyes of the maidens of Mina? and wisdom in the
+hearts of the old priests of Maramma; that it is pleasant to tread the
+green earth where you will; and breathe the free ocean air? Would, oh
+would, that I were but the least of yonder sun-clouds, that look down
+alike on Willamilla and all places besides, that I might determine
+aright. Yet why do I pause? did not Rani, and Atama, and Mardonna, my
+ancestors, each see for himself, free Mardi; and did they not fly the
+proffered girdle; choosing rather to be free to come and go, than bury
+themselves forever in this fatal glen? Oh Mardi! Mardi! art thou then so
+fair to see? Is liberty a thing so glorious? Yet can I be no king, and
+behold thee! Too late, too late, to view thy charms and then return. My
+sire! my sire! thou hast wrung my heart with this agony of doubt. Tell
+me, comrades,--for ye have seen it,--is Mardi sweeter to behold, than it
+is royal to reign over Juam? Silent, are ye? Knowing what ye do, were ye
+me, would ye be kings? Tell me, Talara.--No king: no king:--that were to
+obey, and not command. And none hath Donjalolo ere obeyed but the king
+his father. A king, and my voice may be heard in farthest Mardi, though
+I abide in narrow Willamilla. My sire! my sire! Ye flying clouds, what
+look ye down upon? Tell me, what ye see abroad? Methinks sweet spices
+breathe from out the cave."
+
+"Hail, Donjalolo, King of Juam," now sounded with acclamations from the
+groves.
+
+Starting, the young prince beheld a multitude approaching: warriors with
+spears, and maidens with flowers; and Kubla, a priest, lifting on high
+the tasseled girdle of Teei, and waving it toward him.
+
+The young chiefs fell back. Kubla, advancing, came close to the prince,
+and unclasping the badge of royalty, exclaimed, "Donjalolo, this instant
+it is king or subject with thee: wilt thou be girdled monarch?"
+
+Gazing one moment up the dark defile, then staring vacantly, Donjalolo
+turned and met the eager gaze of Darfi. Stripping off his mantle, the
+next instant he was a king.
+
+Loud shouted the multitude, and exulted; but after mutely assisting at
+the closing of the cavern, the new-girdled monarch retired sadly to his
+dwelling, and was not seen again for many days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII Something More Of The Prince
+
+
+Previous to recording our stay in his dominions, it only remains to be
+related of Donjalolo, that after assuming the girdle, a change came over
+him.
+
+During the lifetime of his father, he had been famed for his temperance
+and discretion. But when Mardi was forever shut out; and he remembered
+the law of his isle, interdicting abdication to its kings; he gradually
+fell into desperate courses, to drown the emotions at times distracting
+him.
+
+His generous spirit thirsting after some energetic career, found itself
+narrowed down within the little glen of Willamilla, where ardent
+impulses seemed idle. But these are hard to die; and repulsed all round,
+recoil upon themselves.
+
+So with Donjalolo; who, in many a riotous scene, wasted the powers which
+might have compassed the noblest designs.
+
+Not many years had elapsed since the death of the king, his father. But
+the still youthful prince was no longer the bright-eyed and elastic boy
+who at the dawn of day had sallied out to behold the landscapes of the
+neighboring isles.
+
+Not more effeminate Sardanapalus, than he. And, at intervals, he was the
+victim of unaccountable vagaries; haunted by specters, and beckoned to
+by the ghosts of his sires.
+
+At times, loathing his vicious pursuits, which brought him no solid
+satisfaction, but ever filled him with final disgust, he would resolve
+to amend his ways; solacing himself for his bitter captivity, by the
+society of the wise and discreet.
+
+But brief the interval of repentance. Anew, he burst into excesses, a
+hundred fold more insane than ever.
+
+Thus vacillating between virtue and vice; to neither constant, and
+upbraided by both; his mind, like his person in the glen, was
+continually passing and repassing between opposite extremes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo
+
+
+From the mouth of the cavern, a broad shaded way over-arched by
+fraternal trees embracing in mid-air, conducted us to a cross-path, on
+either hand leading to the opposite cliffs, shading the twin villages
+before mentioned.
+
+Level as a meadow, was the bosom of the glen. Here, nodding with green
+orchards of the Bread-fruit and the Palm; there, flashing with golden
+plantations of the Banana. Emerging from these, we came out upon a
+grassy mead, skirting a projection of the mountain. And soon we crossed
+a bridge of boughs, spanning a trench, thickly planted with roots of the
+Tara, like alligators, or Hollanders, reveling in the soft alluvial.
+Strolling on, the wild beauty of the mountains excited our attention.
+The topmost crags poured over with vines; which, undulating in the air,
+seemed leafy cascades; their sources the upland groves.
+
+Midway up the precipice, along a shelf of rock, sprouted the
+multitudinous roots of an apparently trunkless tree. Shooting from under
+the shallow soil, they spread all over the rocks below, covering them
+with an intricate net-work. While far aloft, great boughs--each a copse--clambered to the very summit of the mountain; then bending over, struck
+anew into the soil; forming along the verge an interminable colonnade;
+all manner of antic architecture standing against the sky.
+
+According to Mohi, this tree was truly wonderful; its seed having been
+dropped from the moon; where were plenty more similar forests, causing
+the dark spots on its surface.
+
+Here and there, the cool fluid in the veins of the mountains gushed
+forth in living springs; their waters received in green mossy tanks,
+half buried in grasses.
+
+In one place, a considerable stream, bounding far out from a wooded
+height, ere reaching the ground was dispersed in a wide misty shower,
+falling so far from the base of the cliff; that walking close
+underneath, you felt little moisture. Passing this fall of vapors, we
+spied many Islanders taking a bath.
+
+But what is yonder swaying of the foliage? And what now issues forth,
+like a habitation astir? Donjalolo drawing nigh to his guests.
+
+He came in a fair sedan; a bower, resting upon three long, parallel
+poles, borne by thirty men, gayly attired; five at each pole-end. Decked
+with dyed tappas, and looped with garlands of newly-plucked flowers,
+from which, at every step, the fragrant petals were blown; with a
+sumptuous, elastic motion the gay sedan came on; leaving behind it a
+long, rosy wake of fluttering leaves and odors.
+
+Drawing near, it revealed a slender, enervate youth, of pallid beauty,
+reclining upon a crimson mat, near the festooned arch of the bower. His
+anointed head was resting against the bosom of a girl; another stirred
+the air, with a fan of Pintado plumes. The pupils of his eyes were as
+floating isles in the sea. In a soft low tone he murmured "Media!"
+
+The bearers paused; and Media advancing; the Island Kings bowed their
+foreheads together.
+
+Through tubes ignited at the end, Donjaloln's reclining attendants now
+blew an aromatic incense around him. These were composed of the
+stimulating leaves of the "Aina," mixed with the long yellow blades of a
+sweet-scented upland grass; forming a hollow stem. In general, the
+agreeable fumes of the "Aina" were created by one's own inhalations; but
+Donjalolo deeming the solace too dearly purchased by any exertion of the
+royal lungs, regaled himself through those of his attendants, whose lips
+were as moss-rose buds after a shower.
+
+In silence the young prince now eyed us attentively; meanwhile gently
+waving his hand, to obtain a better view through the wreaths of vapor.
+He was about to address us, when chancing to catch a glimpse of Samoa,
+he suddenly started; averted his glance; and wildly commanded the
+warrior out of sight. Upon this, his attendants would have soothed him;
+and Media desired the Upoluan to withdraw.
+
+While we were yet lost in wonder at this scene, Donjalolo, with eyes
+closed, fell back into the arms of his damsels. Recovering, he fetched a
+deep sigh, and gazed vacantly around.
+
+It seems, that he had fancied Samoa the noon-day specter of his ancestor
+Marjora; the usurper having been deprived of an arm in the battle which
+gained him the girdle. Poor prince: this was one of those crazy
+conceits, so puzzling to his subjects.
+
+Media now hastened to assure Donjalolo, that Samoa, though no cherub to
+behold, was good flesh and blood, nevertheless. And soon the king
+unconcernedly gazed; his monomania having departed as a dream.
+
+But still suffering from the effects of an overnight feast, he presently
+murmured forth a desire to be left to his women; adding that his people
+would not fail to provide for the entertainment of his guests.
+
+The curtains of the sedan were now drawn; and soon it disappeared in the
+groves. Journeying on, ere long we arrived at the western side of the
+glen; where one of the many little arbors scattered among the trees, was
+assigned for our abode. Here, we reclined to an agreeable repast. After
+which, we strolled forth to view the valley at large; more especially
+the far-famed palaces of the prince.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV Time And Temples
+
+
+In the oriental Pilgrimage of the pious old Purchas, and in the fine old
+folio Voyages of Hakluyt, Thevenot, Ramusio, and De Bry, we read of many
+glorious old Asiatic temples, very long in erecting. And veracious
+Gaudentia di Lucca hath a wondrous narration of the time consumed in
+rearing that mighty three-hundred-and-seventy-five-pillared Temple of
+the Year, somewhere beyond Libya; whereof, the columns did signify days,
+and all round fronted upon concentric zones of palaces, cross-cut by
+twelve grand avenues symbolizing the signs of the zodiac, all radiating
+from the sun-dome in their midst. And in that wild eastern tale of his,
+Marco Polo tells us, how the Great Mogul began him a pleasure-palace on
+so imperial a scale, that his grandson had much ado to complete it.
+
+But no matter for marveling all this: great towers take time to
+construct.
+
+And so of all else.
+
+And that which long endures full-fledged, must have long lain in the
+germ. And duration is not of the future, but of the past; and eternity
+is eternal, because it has been, and though a strong new monument be
+builded to-day, it only is lasting because its blocks are old as the
+sun. It is not the Pyramids that are ancient, but the eternal granite
+whereof they are made; which had been equally ancient though yet in the
+quarry. For to make an eternity, we must build with eternities; whence,
+the vanity of the cry for any thing alike durable and new; and the folly
+of the reproach--Your granite hath come from the old-fashioned hills.
+For we are not gods and creators; and the controversialists have
+debated, whether indeed the All-Plastic Power itself can do more than
+mold. In all the universe is but one original; and the very suns must to
+their source for their fire; and we Prometheuses must to them for ours;
+which, when had, only perpetual Vestal tending will keep alive.
+
+But let us back from fire to store. No fine firm fabric ever yet grew
+like a gourd. Nero's House of Gold was not raised in a day; nor the
+Mexican House of the Sun; nor the Alhambra; nor the Escurial; nor
+Titus's Amphitheater; nor the Illinois Mounds; nor Diana's great columns
+at Ephesus; nor Pompey's proud Pillar; nor the Parthenon; nor the Altar
+of Belus; nor Stonehenge; nor Solomon's Temple; nor Tadmor's towers; nor
+Susa's bastions; nor Persepolis' pediments. Round and round, the Moorish
+turret at Seville was not wound heavenward in the revolution of a day;
+and from its first founding, five hundred years did circle, ere
+Strasbourg's great spire lifted its five hundred feet into the air. No:
+nor were the great grottos of Elephanta hewn out in an hour; nor did the
+Troglodytes dig Kentucky's Mammoth Cave in a sun; nor that of
+Trophonius, nor Antiparos; nor the Giant's Causeway. Nor were the
+subterranean arched sewers of Etruria channeled in a trice; nor the airy
+arched aqueducts of Nerva thrown over their values in the ides of a
+month. Nor was Virginia's Natural Bridge worn under in a year; nor, in
+geology, were the eternal Grampians upheaved in an age. And who shall
+count the cycles that revolved ere earth's interior sedimentary strata
+were crystalized into stone. Nor Peak of Piko, nor Teneriffe, were
+chiseled into obelisks in a decade; nor had Mount Athos been turned into
+Alexander's statue so soon. And the bower of Artaxerxes took a whole
+Persian summer to grow; and the Czar's Ice Palace a long Muscovite
+winter to cong�al. No, no: nor was the Pyramid of Cheops masoned in a
+month; though, once built, the sands left by the deluge might not have
+submerged such a pile. Nor were the broad boughs of Charles' Oak grown
+in a spring; though they outlived the royal dynasties of Tudor and
+Stuart. Nor were the parts of the great Iliad put together in haste;
+though old Homer's temple shall lift up its dome, when St. Peter's is a
+legend. Even man himself lives months ere his Maker deems him fit to be
+born; and ere his proud shaft gains its full stature, twenty-one long
+Julian years must elapse. And his whole mortal life brings not his
+immortal soul to maturity; nor will all eternity perfect him. Yea, with
+uttermost reverence, as to human understanding, increase of dominion
+seems increase of power; and day by day new planets are being added to
+elder-born Saturn, even as six thousand years ago our own Earth made one
+more in this system; so, in incident, not in essence, may the Infinite
+himself be not less than more infinite now, than when old Aldebaran
+rolled forth from his hand. And if time was, when this round Earth,
+which to innumerable mortals has seemed an empire never to be wholly
+explored; which, in its seas, concealed all the Indies over four
+thousand five hundred years; if time was, when this great quarry of
+Assyrias and Romes was not extant; then, time may have been, when the
+whole material universe lived its Dark Ages; yea, when the Ineffable
+Silence, proceeding from its unimaginable remoteness, espied it as an
+isle in the sea. And herein is no derogation. For the Immeasurable's
+altitude is not heightened by the arches of Mahomet's heavens; and were
+all space a vacuum, yet would it be a fullness; for to Himself His own
+universe is He.
+
+Thus deeper and deeper into Time's endless tunnel, does the winged soul,
+like a night-hawk, wend her wild way; and finds eternities before and
+behind; and her last limit is her everlasting beginning.
+
+But sent over the broad flooded sphere, even Noah's dove came back, and
+perched on his hand. So comes back my spirit to me, and folds up her
+wings.
+
+Thus, then, though Time be the mightiest of Alarics, yet is he the
+mightiest mason of all. And a tutor, and a counselor, and a physician,
+and a scribe, and a poet, and a sage, and a king.
+
+Yea, and a gardener, as ere long will be shown.
+
+But first must we return to the glen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI A Pleasant Place For A Lounge
+
+
+Whether the hard condition of their kingly state, very naturally
+demanding some luxurious requital, prevailed upon the monarchs of Juam
+to house themselves so delightfully as they did; whether buried alive in
+their glen, they sought to center therein a secret world of enjoyment;
+however it may have been, throughout the Archipelago this saying was a
+proverb--"You are lodged like the king in Willamilla." Hereby was
+expressed the utmost sumptuousness of a palace.
+
+A well warranted saying; for of all the bright places, where my soul
+loves to linger, the haunts of Donjalolo are most delicious.
+
+In the eastern quarter of the glen was the House of the Morning. This
+fanciful palace was raised upon a natural mound, many rods square,
+almost completely filling up a deep recess between deep-green and
+projecting cliffs, overlooking many abodes distributed in the shadows of
+the groves beyond.
+
+Now, if it indeed be, that from the time employed in its construction,
+any just notion may be formed of the stateliness of an edifice, it must
+needs be determined, that this retreat of Donjalolo could not be
+otherwise than imposing.
+
+Full five hundred moons was the palace in completing; for by some
+architectural arborist, its quadrangular foundations had been laid in
+seed-cocoanuts, requiring that period to sprout up into pillars. In
+front, these were horizontally connected, by elaborately carved beams,
+of a scarlet hue, inserted into the vital wood; which, swelling out, and
+over lapping, firmly secured them. The beams supported the rafters,
+inclining from the rear; while over the aromatic grasses covering the
+roof, waved the tufted tops of the Palms, green capitals to their dusky
+shafts.
+
+Through and through this vibrating verdure, bright birds flitted and
+sang; the scented and variegated thatch seemed a hanging-garden; and
+between it and the Palm tops, was leaf-hung an arbor in the air.
+
+Without these columns, stood a second and third colonnade, forming the
+most beautiful bowers; advancing through which, you fancied that the
+palace beyond must be chambered in a fountain, or frozen in a crystal.
+Three sparkling rivulets flowing from the heights were led across its
+summit, through great trunks half buried in the thatch; and emptying
+into a sculptured channel, running along the eaves, poured over in one
+wide sheet, plaited and transparent. Received into a basin beneath, they
+were thence conducted down the vale.
+
+The sides of the palace were hedged by Diomi bushes bearing a flower,
+from its perfume, called Lenora, or Sweet Breath; and within these
+odorous hedges, were heavy piles of mats, richly dyed and embroidered.
+
+Here lounging of a glowing noon, the plaited cascade playing, the
+verdure waving, and the birds melodious, it was hard to say, whether you
+were an inmate of a garden in the glen, or a grotto in the sea.
+
+But enough for the nonce, of the House of the Morning. Cross we the
+hollow, to the House of the Afternoon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII The House Of The Afternoon
+
+
+For the most part, the House of the Afternoon was but a wing built
+against a mansion wrought by the hand of Nature herself; a grotto
+running into the side of the mountain. From high over the mouth of this
+grotto, sloped a long arbor, supported by great blocks of stone, rudely
+chiseled into the likeness of idols, each bearing a carved lizard on its
+chest: a sergeant's guard of the gods condescendingly doing duty as
+posts.
+
+From the grotto thus vestibuled, issued hilariously forth the most
+considerable stream of the glen; which, seemingly overjoyed to find
+daylight in Willamilla, sprang into the arbor with a cheery, white
+bound. But its youthful enthusiasm was soon repressed; its waters being
+caught in a large stone basin, scooped out of the natural rock; whence,
+staid and decorous, they traversed sundry moats; at last meandering
+away, to join floods with the streams trained to do service at the other
+end of the vale.
+
+Truant streams: the livelong day wending their loitering path to the
+subterraneous outlet, flowing into which, they disappeared. But no
+wonder they loitered; passing such ravishing landscapes. Thus with life:
+man bounds out of night; runs and babbles in the sun; then returns to
+his darkness again; though, peradventure, once more to emerge.
+
+But the grotto was not a mere outlet to the stream. Flowing through a
+dark flume in the rock, on both sides it left a dry, elevated shelf, to
+which you ascend from the arbor by three artificially-wrought steps,
+sideways disposed, to avoid the spray of the rejoicing cataract.
+Mounting these, and pursuing the edge of the flume, the grotto gradually
+expands and heightens; your way lighted by rays in the inner distance.
+At last you come to a lofty subterraneous dome, lit from above by a
+cleft in the mountain; while full before you, in the opposite wall, from
+a low, black arch, midway up, and inaccessible, the stream, with a
+hollow ring and a dash, falls in a long, snowy column into a bottomless
+pool, whence, after many an eddy and whirl, it entered the flume, and
+away with a rush. Half hidden from view by an overhanging brow of the
+rock, the white fall looked like the sheeted ghost of the grotto.
+
+Yet gallantly bedecked was the cave, as any old armorial hall hung round
+with banners and arras. Streaming from the cleft, vines swung in the
+air; or crawled along the rocks, wherever a tendril could be fixed. High
+up, their leaves were green; but lower down, they were shriveled; and
+dyed of many colors; and tattered and torn with much rustling; as old
+banners again; sore raveled with much triumphing.
+
+In the middle of this hall in the hill was incarcerated the stone image
+of one Demi, the tutelar deity of Willamina. All green and oozy like a
+stone under water, poor Demi looked as if sore harassed with sciatics
+and lumbagos.
+
+But he was cheered from aloft, by the promise of receiving a garland all
+blooming on his crown; the Dryads sporting in the woodlands above,
+forever peeping down the cleft, and essaying to drop him a coronal.
+
+Now, the still, panting glen of Willamilla, nested so close by the
+mountains, and a goodly green mark for the archer in the sun, would have
+been almost untenable were it not for the grotto. Hereby, it breathed
+the blessed breezes of Omi; a mountain promontory buttressing the island
+to the east, receiving the cool stream of the upland Trades; much
+pleasanter than the currents beneath.
+
+At all times, even in the brooding noon-day, a gush of cool air came
+hand-in-hand with the cool waters, that burst with a shout into the
+palace of Donjalolo. And as, after first refreshing the king, as in
+loyalty bound, the stream flowed at large through the glen, and bathed
+its verdure; so, the blessed breezes of Omi, not only made pleasant the
+House of the Afternoon; but finding ample outlet in its wide, open
+front, blew forth upon the bosom of all Willamilla.
+
+"Come let us take the air of Omi," was a very common saying in the glen.
+And the speaker would hie with his comrade toward the grotto; and
+flinging himself on the turf, pass his hand through his locks, and
+recline; making a joy and a business of breathing; for truly the breezes
+of Omi were as air-wine to the lungs.
+
+Yet was not this breeze over-cool; though at times the zephyrs grew
+boisterous. Especially at the season of high sea, when the strong Trades
+drawn down the cleft in the mountain, rushed forth from the grotto with
+wonderful force. Crossing it then, you had much ado to keep your robe on
+your back.
+
+Thus much for the House of the Afternoon. Whither--after spending the
+shady morning under the eastern cliffs of the glen--daily, at a certain
+hour, Donjalolo in his palanquin was borne; there, finding new shades;
+and there tarrying till evening; when again he was transported whence he
+came: thereby anticipating the revolution of the sun. Thus dodging day's
+luminary through life, the prince hied to and fro in his dominions; on
+his smooth, spotless brow Sol's rays never shining.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII Babbalanja Solus
+
+
+Of the House of the Afternoon something yet remains to be said.
+
+It was chiefly distinguished by its pavement, where, according to the
+strange customs of the isle, were inlaid the reputed skeletons of
+Donjalolo's sires; each surrounded by a mosaic of corals,--red, white,
+and black, intermixed with vitreous stones fallen from the skies in a
+meteoric shower. These delineated the tattooing of the departed. Near
+by, were imbedded their arms: mace, bow, and spear, in similar
+marquetry; and over each skull was the likeness of a scepter.
+
+First and conspicuous lay the half-decayed remains of Marjora, the
+father of these Coral Kings; by his side, the storied, sickle-shaped
+weapon, wherewith he slew his brother Teei.
+
+"Line of kings and row of scepters," said Babbalanja as he gazed.
+"Donjalolo, come forth and ponder on thy sires. Here they lie, from
+dread Marjora down to him who fathered thee. Here are their bones, their
+spears, and their javelins; their scepters, and the very fashion of
+their tattooing: all that can be got together of what they were. Tell
+me, oh king, what are thy thoughts? Dotest thou on these thy sires? Art
+thou more truly royal, that they were kings? Or more a man, that they
+were men? Is it a fable, or a verity about Marjora and the murdered
+Teei? But here is the mighty conqueror,--ask him. Speak to him: son to
+sire: king to king. Prick him; beg; buffet; entreat; spurn; split the
+globe, he will not budge. Walk over and over thy whole ancestral line,
+and they will not start. They are not here. Ay, the dead are not to be
+found, even in their graves. Nor have they simply departed; for they
+willed not to go; they died not by choice; whithersoever they have gone,
+thither have they been dragged; and if so be, they are extinct, their
+nihilities went not more against their grain, than their forced quitting
+of Mardi. Either way, something has become of them that they sought not.
+Truly, had stout-hearted Marjora sworn to live here in Willamilla for
+ay, and kept the vow, _that_ would have been royalty indeed; but here he
+lies. Marjora! rise! Juam revolteth! Lo, I stamp upon thy scepter; base
+menials tread upon thee where thou hest! Up, king, up! What? no reply?
+Are not these bones thine? Oh, how the living triumph over the dead!
+Marjora! answer. Art thou? or art thou not? I see thee not; I hear thee
+not; I feel thee not; eyes, ears, hands, are worthless to test thy
+being; and if thou art, thou art something beyond all human thought to
+compass. We must have other faculties to know thee by. Why, thou art not
+even a sightless sound; not the echo of an echo; here are thy bones.
+Donjalolo, methinks I see thee fallen upon by assassins:--which of thy
+fathers riseth to the rescue? I see thee dying:--which of them telleth
+thee what cheer beyond the grave? But they have gone to the land
+unknown. Meet phrase. Where is it? Not one of Oro's priests telleth a
+straight story concerning it; 'twill be hard finding their paradises.
+Touching the life of Alma, in Mohi's chronicles, 'tis related, that a
+man was once raised from the tomb. But rubbed he not his eyes, and
+stared he not most vacantly? Not one revelation did he make. Ye gods! to
+have been a bystander there!
+
+"At best, 'tis but a hope. But will a longing bring the thing desired?
+Doth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative. The fire I
+shrink from, may consume me.--But dead, and yet alive; alive, yet dead;--thus say the sages of Maramma. But die we then living? Yet if our dead
+fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our unborn sons? For
+backward or forward, eternity is the same; already have we been the
+nothing we dread to be. Icy thought! But bring it home,--it will not
+stay. What ho, hot heart of mine: to beat thus lustily awhile, to feel
+in the red rushing blood, and then be ashes,--can this be so? But peace,
+peace, thou liar in me, telling me I am immortal--shall I not be as
+these bones? To come to this! But the balsam-dropping palms, whose boles
+run milk, whose plumes wave boastful in the air, they perish in their
+prime, and bow their blasted trunks. Nothing abideth; the river of
+yesterday floweth not to-day; the sun's rising is a setting; living is
+dying; the very mountains melt; and all revolve:--systems and asteroids;
+the sun wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a revolution. Ah
+gods! in all this universal stir, am _I_ to prove one stable thing?
+
+"Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dust of
+beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and filch
+their skulls. _This_, great Marjora's arm? No, some old paralytic's.
+_Ye_, kings? _ye_, men? Where are your vouchers? I do reject your
+brother-hood, ye libelous remains. But no, no; despise them not, oh
+Babbalanja! Thy own skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through
+this mortal life; and aye would view it, but for kind nature's screen;
+thou art death alive; and e'en to what's before thee wilt thou come. Ay,
+thy children's children will walk over thee: thou, voiceless as a calm."
+
+And over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX The Center Of Many Circumferences
+
+
+Like Donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we pace to
+the House of the Morning.
+
+In its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to less
+public apartments.
+
+Traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you to open
+ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of the prince: a
+square structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, as inscrutable. Down
+to the very ground, its walls are thatched; but on the farther side a
+passage-way opens, which you enter. But not yet are you within. Scarce a
+yard distant, stands an inner thatched wall, blank as the first. Passing
+along the intervening corridor, lighted by narrow apertures, you reach
+the opposite side, and a second opening is revealed. This entering,
+another corridor; lighted as the first, but more dim, and a third blank
+wall. And thus, three times three, you worm round and round, the
+twilight lessening as you proceed; until at last, you enter the citadel
+itself: the innermost arbor of a nest; whereof, each has its roof,
+distinct from the rest.
+
+The heart of the place is but small; illuminated by a range of open sky-lights, downward contracting.
+
+Innumerable as the leaves of an endless folio, multitudinous mats cover
+the floor; whereon reclining by night, like Pharaoh on the top of his
+patrimonial pile, the inmate looks heavenward, and heavenward only;
+gazing at the torchlight processions in the skies, when, in state, the
+suns march to be crowned.
+
+And here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered the
+universe-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef-sashed,
+mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped, self-hugged, indivisible Donjalolo, absolute monarch of Juam:--the husk-inhusked meat in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; the juice-nested
+seed in a goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in an effeminate
+peach; the insphered sphere of spheres.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
+
+
+To pretend to relate the manner in which Juam's ruler passed his captive
+days, without making suitable mention of his harem, would be to paint
+one's full-length likeness and omit the face. For it was his harem that
+did much to stamp the character of Donjalolo.
+
+And had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous, surely, to
+have overlooked the princess; much more, then, as it is; and by how-much
+the more, a plurality exceeds a unit.
+
+Exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the person of
+the king, he had wives thirty in number, corresponding in name to the
+nights of the moon. For, in Juam, time is not reckoned by days, but by
+nights; each night of the lunar month having its own designation; which,
+relatively only, is extended to the day.
+
+In uniform succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of the king's heart.
+An arrangement most wise and judicious; precluding much of that jealousy
+and confusion prevalent in ill-regulated seraglios. For as thirty
+spouses must be either more desirable, or less desirable than one; so is
+a harem thirty times more difficult to manage than an establishment with
+one solitary mistress. But Donjalolo's wives were so nicely drilled,
+that for the most part, things went on very smoothly. Nor were his brows
+much furrowed with wrinkles referable to domestic cares and
+tribulations. Although, as in due time will be seen, from these he was
+not altogether exempt.
+
+Now, according to Braid-Beard, who, among other abstruse political
+researches, had accurately informed himself concerning the internal
+administration of Donjalolo's harem, the following was the method
+pursued therein.
+
+On the Aquella, or First Night of the month, the queen of that name
+assumes her diadem, and reigns. So too with Azzolino the Second, and
+Velluvi the Third Night of the Moon; and so on, even unto the utter
+eclipse thereof; through Calends, Nones, and Ides.
+
+For convenience, the king is furnished with a card, whereon are copied
+the various ciphers upon the arms of his queens; and parallel thereto,
+the hieroglyphics significant of the corresponding Nights of the month.
+Glancing over this, Donjalolo predicts the true time of the rising and
+setting of all his stars.
+
+This Moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios, which few
+mortals beheld. For, so deeply were they buried in a grove; so
+overpowered with verdure; so overrun with vines; and so hazy with the
+incense of flowers; that they were almost invisible, unless closely
+approached. Certain it was, that it demanded no small enterprise,
+diligence, and sagacity, to explore the mysterious wood in search of
+them. Though a strange, sweet, humming sound, as of the clustering and
+swarming of warm bees among roses, at last hinted the royal honey at
+hand. High in air, toward the summit of the cliff, overlooking this side
+of the glen, a narrow ledge of rocks might have been seen, from which,
+rumor whispered, was to be caught an angular peep at the tip of the apex
+of the roof of the nearest seraglio. But this wild report had never been
+established. Nor, indeed, was it susceptible of a test. For was not that
+rock inaccessible as the eyrie of young eagles? But to guard against the
+possibility of any visual profanation, Donjalolo had authorized an
+edict, forever tabooing that rock to foot of man or pinion of fowl.
+Birds and bipeds both trembled and obeyed; taking a wide circuit to
+avoid the spot.
+
+Access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors leading from the
+palace. The seraglio to the right was denominated "Ravi" (Before), that
+to the left "Zono" (After). The meaning of which was, that upon the
+termination of her reign the queen wended her way to the Zono; there
+tarrying with her predecessors till the Ravi was emptied; when the
+entire Moon of wives, swallow-like, migrated back whence they came; and
+the procession was gone over again.
+
+In due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with their respective
+ciphers. In the Ravi, the mat of the queen-apparent, or next in
+succession, was spread by the portal. In the Zono, the newly-widowed
+queen reposed furthest from it.
+
+But alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned.
+Notwithstanding these excellent arrangements, the mature result of ages
+of progressive improvement in the economy of the royal seraglios in
+Willamilla, it must needs be related, that at times the order of
+precedence became confused, and was very hard to restore.
+
+At intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to the no small
+delight of the remainder; but to their equal vexation her place would
+soon after be supplied by some beautiful stranger; who assuming the
+denomination of the vacated Night of the Moon, thenceforth commenced her
+monthly revolutions in the king's infallible calendar.
+
+In constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone, thin of leg,
+and puny of frame; whose grateful task it was, to tarry in the garden of
+Donjalolo's delights, without ever touching the roses. Along with
+innumerable other duties, they were perpetually kept coming and going
+upon ten thousand errands; for they had it in strict charge to obey the
+slightest behests of the damsels; and with all imaginable expedition to
+run, fly, swim, or dissolve into impalpable air, at the shortest
+possible notice.
+
+So laborious their avocations, that none could discharge them for more
+than a twelvemonth, at the end of that period giving up the ghost out of
+pure exhaustion of the locomotive apparatus. It was this constant drain
+upon the stock of masculine old age in the glen, that so bethinned its
+small population of gray-beards and hoary-heads. And any old man
+hitherto exempted, who happened to receive a summons to repair to the
+palace, and there wait the pleasure of the king: this unfortunate, at
+once suspecting his doom, put his arbor in order; oiled and suppled his
+joints; took a long farewell of his friends; selected his burial-place;
+and going resigned to his fate, in due time expired like the rest.
+
+Had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance, he
+might possibly have derived some little consolation from the thought,
+that though a slave to the whims of thirty princesses, he was
+nevertheless one of their guardians, and as such, he might ingeniously
+have concluded, their superior. But small consolation this. For the
+damsels were as blithe as larks, more playful than kittens; never
+looking sad and sentimental, projecting clandestine escapes. But
+supplied with the thirtieth part of all that Aspasia could desire;
+glorying in being the spouses of a king; nor in the remotest degree
+anxious about eventual dowers; they were care-free, content, and
+rejoicing, as the rays of the morning.
+
+Poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of your fate, one
+drop of the balm of consolation. For, commissioned to watch over those
+who forever kept you on the trot, affording you no time to hunt up
+peccadilloes; was not this circumstance an aggravation of hard times? a
+sharpening and edge-giving to the steel in your souls?
+
+But much yet remains unsaid.
+
+To dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident to these
+attenuated old warders, they were intensely hated by the damsels.
+Inasmuch, as it was archly opined, for what ulterior purposes they were
+retained.
+
+Nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless old bronze
+dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old men ever and anon cried out
+mightily, by reason of sore pinches and scratches received in the dark:
+And tri-trebly-tri-triply girt about as he was, Donjalolo himself
+started from his slumbers, raced round and round through his ten
+thousand corridors; at last bursting all dizzy among his twenty-nine
+queens, to see what under the seventh-heavens was the matter. When, lo
+and behold! there lay the innocents all sound asleep; the dragons
+moaning over their mysterious bruises.
+
+Ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight and the
+torment of the days and nights of Donjalolo.
+
+And in one special matter was he either eminently miserable, or
+otherwise: for all his multiplicity of wives, he had never an heir. Not
+his, the proud paternal glance of the Grand Turk Solyman, looking round
+upon a hundred sons, all bone of his bone, and squinting with his
+squint.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXI Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In
+The Land Of Shades
+
+
+At our morning repast on the second day of our stay in the hollow, our
+party indulged in much lively discourse.
+
+"Samoa," said I, "those isles of yours, of whose beauty you so often
+make vauntful mention, can those isles, good Samoa, furnish a valley in
+all respects equal to Willamilla?"
+
+Disdainful answer was made, that Willamilla might be endurable enough
+for a sojourn, but as a permanent abode, any glen of his own natal isle
+was unspeakably superior.
+
+"In the great valley of Savaii," cried Samoa, "for every leaf grown here
+in Willamilla, grows a stately tree; and for every tree here waving, in
+Savaii flourishes a goodly warrior."
+
+Immeasurable was the disgust of the Upoluan for the enervated subjects
+of Donjalolo; and for Donjalolo himself; though it was shrewdly divined,
+that his annoying reception at the hands of the royalty of Juam, had
+something to do with his disdain.
+
+To Jarl, no similar question was put; for he was sadly deficient in a
+taste for the picturesque. But he cursorily observed, that in his blue-water opinion, Willamilla was next to uninhabitable, all view of the sea
+being intercepted.
+
+And here it may be well to relate a comical blunder on the part of
+honest Jarl; concerning which, Samoa, the savage, often afterward
+twitted him; as indicating a rusticity, and want of polish in his
+breeding. It rather originated, however, in his not heeding the
+conventionalities of the strange people among whom he was thrown.
+
+The anecdote is not an epic; but here it is.
+
+Reclining in our arbor, we breakfasted upon a marble slab; so frost-white, and flowingly traced with blue veins, that it seemed a little
+lake sheeted over with ice: Diana's virgin bosom cong�aled.
+
+Before each guest was a richly carved bowl and gourd, fruit and wine
+freighted also the empty hemisphere of a small nut, the purpose of which
+was a problem. Now, King Jarl scorned to admit the slightest degree of
+under-breeding in the matter of polite feeding. So nothing was a problem
+to him. At once reminded of the morsel of Arvaroot in his mouth, a
+substitute for another sort of sedative then unattainable, he was
+instantly illuminated concerning the purpose of the nut; and very
+complacently introduced each to the other; in the innocence of his
+ignorance making no doubt that he had acquitted himself with discretion;
+the little hemisphere plainly being intended as a place of temporary
+deposit for the Arva of the guests.
+
+The company were astounded: Samoa more than all. King Jarl, meanwhile,
+looking at all present with the utmost serenity. At length, one of the
+horrified attendants, using two sticks for a forceps, disappeared with
+the obnoxious nut, Upon which, the meal proceeded.
+
+This attendant was not seen again for many days; which gave rise to the
+supposition, that journeying to the sea-side, he had embarked for some
+distant strand; there, to bury out of sight the abomination with which
+he was freighted.
+
+Upon this, his egregious misadventure, calculated to do discredit to our
+party, and bring Media himself into contempt, Babbalanja had no scruples
+in taking Jarl roundly to task. He assured him, that it argued but
+little brains to evince a desire to be thought familiar with all things;
+that however desirable as incidental attainments, conventionalities, in
+themselves, were the very least of arbitrary trifles; the knowledge of
+them, innate with no man. "Moreover Jarl," he added, "in essence,
+conventionalities are but mimickings, at which monkeys succeed best.
+Hence, when you find yourself at a loss in these matters, wait
+patiently, and mark what the other monkeys do: and then follow suit. And
+by so doing, you will gain a vast reputation as an accomplished ape.
+Above all things, follow not the silly example of the young spark
+Karkeke, of whom Mohi was telling me. Dying, and entering the other
+world with a mincing gait, and there finding certain customs quite
+strange and new; such as friendly shades passing through each other by
+way of a salutation;--Karkeke, nevertheless, resolved to show no sign of
+embarrassment. Accosted by a phantom, with wings folded pensively,
+plumes interlocked across its chest, he off head; and stood obsequiously
+before it. Staring at him for an instant, the spirit cut him dead;
+murmuring to itself, 'Ah, some terrestrial bumpkin, I fancy,' and passed
+on with its celestial nose in the highly rarified air. But silly Karkeke
+undertaking to replace his head, found that it would no more stay on;
+but forever tumbled off; even in the act of nodding a salute; which
+calamity kept putting him out of countenance. And thus through all
+eternity is he punished for his folly, in having pretended to be wise,
+wherein he was ignorant. Head under arm, he wanders about, the scorn and
+ridicule of the other world."
+
+Our repast concluded, messengers arrived from the prince, courteously
+inviting our presence at the House of the Morning. Thither we went;
+journeying in sedans, sent across the hollow, for that purpose, by
+Donjalolo.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXII How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding Isles; With
+The Result
+
+
+Ere recounting what was beheld on entering the House of the Morning,
+some previous information is needful. Though so many of Donjalolo's days
+were consumed by sloth and luxury, there came to him certain intervals
+of thoughtfulness, when all his curiosity concerning the things of outer
+Mardi revived with augmented intensity. In these moods, he would send
+abroad deputations, inviting to Willamilla the kings of the neighboring
+islands; together with the most celebrated priests, bards, story-tellers, magicians, and wise men; that he might hear them converse of
+those things, which he could not behold for himself.
+
+But at last, he bethought him, that the various narrations he had heard,
+could not have been otherwise than unavoidably faulty; by reason that
+they had been principally obtained from the inhabitants of the countries
+described; who, very naturally, must have been inclined to partiality or
+uncandidness in their statements. Wherefore he had very lately
+dispatched to the isles special agents of his own; honest of heart, keen
+of eye, and shrewd of understanding; to seek out every thing that
+promised to illuminate him concerning the places they visited, and also
+to collect various specimens of interesting objects; so that at last he
+might avail himself of the researches of others, and see with their
+eyes.
+
+But though two observers were sent to every one of the neighboring
+lands; yet each was to act independently; make his own inquiries; form
+his own conclusions; and return with his own specimens; wholly
+regardless of the proceedings of the other.
+
+It so came to pass, that on the very day of our arrival in the glen,
+these pilgrims returned from their travels. And Donjalolo had set apart
+the following morning to giving them a grand public reception. And it
+was to this, that our party had been invited, as related in the chapter
+preceding.
+
+In the great Palm-hall of the House of the Morning, we were assigned
+distinguished mats, to the right of the prince; his chiefs, attendants,
+and subjects assembled in the open colonnades without.
+
+When all was in readiness, in marched the company of savans and
+travelers; and humbly standing in a semi-circle before the king, their
+numerous hampers were deposited at their feet.
+
+Donjalolo was now in high spirits, thinking of the rich store of
+reliable information about to be furnished.
+
+"Zuma," said he, addressing the foremost of the company, "you and
+Varnopi were directed to explore the island of Rafona. Proceed now, and
+relate all you know of that place. Your narration heard, we will list to
+Varnopi."
+
+With a profound inclination the traveler obeyed.
+
+But soon Donjalolo interrupted him. "What say you, Zuma, about the
+secret cavern, and the treasures therein? A very different account,
+this, from all I have heard hitherto; but perhaps yours is the true
+version. Go on."
+
+But very soon, poor Zuma was again interrupted by exclamations of
+surprise. Nay, even to the very end of his mountings.
+
+But when he had done, Donjalolo observed, that if from any cause Zuma
+was in error or obscure, Varnopi would not fail to set him right.
+
+So Varnopi was called upon.
+
+But not long had Varnopi proceeded, when Donjalolo changed color.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, "will ye contradict each other before our very
+face. Oh Oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! Fifty accounts
+have I had of Rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here, these two
+varlets, sent expressly to behold and report, these two lying knaves,
+speak crookedly both. How is it? Are the lenses in their eyes diverse-hued, that objects seem different to both; for undeniable is it, that
+the things they thus clashingly speak of are to be known for the same;
+though represented with unlike colors and qualities. But dumb things can
+not lie nor err. Unpack thy hampers, Zuma. Here, bring them close: now:
+what is this?"
+
+"That," tremblingly replied Zuma, "is a specimen of the famous reef-bar
+on the west side of the island of Rafona; your highness perceives its
+deep red dyes."
+
+Said Donjalolo, "Varnopi, hast thou a piece of this coral, also?"
+
+"I have, your highness," said Varnopi; "here it is."
+
+Taking it from his hand, Donjalolo gazed at its bleached, white hue;
+then dashing it to the pavement, "Oh mighty Oro! Truth dwells in her
+fountains; where every one must drink for himself. For me, vain all hope
+of ever knowing Mardi! Away! Better know nothing, than be deceived.
+Break up!"
+
+And Donjalolo rose, and retired.
+
+All present now broke out in a storm of vociferation; some siding with
+Zuma; others with Varnopi; each of whom, in turn, was declared the man
+to be relied upon.
+
+Marking all this, Babbalanja, who had been silently looking on, leaning
+against one of the palm pillars, quietly observed to Media:--"My lord, I
+have seen this same reef at Rafona. In various places, it is of various
+hues. As for Zuma and Varnopi, both are wrong, and both are right."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIII They Visit The Tributary Islets
+
+
+In Willamilla, no Yillah being found, on the third day we took leave of
+Donjalolo; who lavished upon us many caresses and, somewhat reluctantly
+on Media's part, we quitted the vale.
+
+One by one, we now visited the outer villages of Juam; and crossing the
+waters, wandered several days among its tributary isles. There we saw
+the viceroys of him who reigned in the hollow: chieftains of whom
+Donjalolo was proud; so honest, humble, and faithful; so bent upon
+ameliorating the condition of those under their rule. For, be it said,
+Donjalolo was a charitable prince; in his serious intervals, ever
+seeking the welfare of his subjects, though after an imperial view of
+his own. But alas, in that sunny donjon among the mountains, where he
+dwelt, how could Donjalolo be sure, that the things he decreed were
+executed in regions forever remote from his view. Ah! very bland, very
+innocent, very pious, the faces his viceroys presented during their
+monthly visits to Willamilla. But as cruel their visage, when, returned
+to their islets, they abandoned themselves to all the license of
+tyrants; like Verres reveling down the rights of the Sicilians.
+
+Like Carmelites, they came to Donjalolo, barefooted; but in their homes,
+their proud latchets were tied by their slaves. Before their king-belted
+prince, they stood rope-girdled like self-abased monks of St. Francis;
+but with those ropes, before their palaces, they hung Innocence and
+Truth.
+
+As still seeking Yillah, and still disappointed, we roved through the
+lands which these chieftains ruled, Babbalanja exclaimed--"Let us
+depart; idle our search, in isles that have viceroys for kings."
+
+At early dawn, about embarking for a distant land, there came to us
+certain messengers of Donjalolo, saying that their lord the king,
+repenting of so soon parting company with Media and Taji, besought them
+to return with all haste; for that very morning, in Willamilla, a regal
+banquet was preparing; to which many neighboring kings had been invited,
+most of whom had already arrived.
+
+Declaring that there was no alternative but compliance, Media acceded;
+and with the king's messengers we returned to the glen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIV Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five-And-Twenty Kings, And
+A Royal Time They Have
+
+
+It was afternoon when we emerged from the defile. And informed that our
+host was receiving his guests in the House of the Afternoon, thither we
+directed our steps.
+
+Soft in our face, blew the blessed breezes of Omi, stirring the leaves
+overhead; while, here and there, through the trees, showed the idol-bearers of the royal retreat, hand in hand, linked with festoons of
+flowers. Still beyond, on a level, sparkled the nodding crowns of the
+kings, like the constellation Corona-Borealis, the horizon just gained.
+
+Close by his noon-tide friend, the cascade at the mouth of the grotto,
+reposed on his crimson mat, Donjalolo:--arrayed in a vestment of the
+finest white tappa of Mardi, figured all over with bright yellow
+lizards, so curiously stained in the gauze, that he seemed overrun, as
+with golden mice.
+
+Marjora's girdle girdled his loins, tasseled with the congregated teeth
+of his sires. A jeweled turban-tiara, milk-white, surmounted his brow,
+over which waved a copse of Pintado plumes.
+
+But what sways in his hand? A scepter, similar to those likenesses of
+scepters, imbedded among the corals at his feet. A polished thigh-bone;
+by Braid-Beard declared once Teei's the Murdered. For to emphasize his
+intention utterly to rule, Marjora himself had selected this emblem of
+dominion over mankind.
+
+But even this last despite done to dead Teei had once been transcended.
+In the usurper's time, prevailed the belief, that the saliva of kings
+must never touch ground; and Mohi's Chronicles made mention, that during
+the life time of Marjora, Teei's skull had been devoted to the basest of
+purposes: Marjora's, the hate no turf could bury.
+
+Yet, traditions like these ever seem dubious. There be many who deny the
+hump, moral and physical, of Gloster Richard.
+
+Still advancing unperceived, in social hilarity we descried their
+Highnesses, chatting together like the most plebeian of mortals; full as
+merry as the monks of old. But marking our approach, all changed. A pair
+of potentates, who had been playfully trifling, hurriedly adjusted their
+diadems, threw themselves into attitudes, looking stately as statues.
+Phidias turned not out his Jupiter so soon.
+
+In various-dyed robes the five-and-twenty kings were arrayed; and
+various their features, as the rows of lips, eyes and ears in John
+Caspar Lavater's physiognomical charts. Nevertheless, to a king, all
+their noses were aquiline.
+
+There were long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins, like
+those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and
+wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was
+deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard.
+They were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat and
+lean, cunning and simple.
+
+With animated courtesy our host received us; assigning a neighboring
+bower for Babbalanja and the rest; and among so many right-royal, demi-divine guests, how could the demi-gods Media and Taji be otherwise than
+at home?
+
+The unwonted sprightliness of Donjalolo surprised us. But he was in one
+of those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his failures
+in efforts to amend his life. And the bootless issue of his late mission
+to outer Mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry. Nor had he lately
+shunned a wild wine, called Morando.
+
+A slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated
+freely.
+
+Not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the Morando much. A nutty, pungent
+flavor it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the Philippine
+isles. And a marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving the
+crystalization of the brain; leaving nothing but precious little drops
+of good humor, beading round the bowl of the cranium.
+
+Meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars, and
+stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended hangings of
+crimson tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the pavement they
+rustled in the breeze from the grot.
+
+Presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a
+porphyry hue, deep-hollowed out of a tree. Outside, were innumerable
+grotesque conceits; conspicuous among which, for a border, was an
+endless string of the royal lizards circumnavigating the basin in
+inverted chase of their tails.
+
+Peculiar to the groves of Willamilla, the yellow lizard formed part of
+the arms of Juam. And when Donjalolo's messenger went abroad, they
+carried its effigy, as the emblem of their royal master; themselves
+being known, as the Gentlemen of the Golden Lizard.
+
+The porphyry-hued basin planted full in our midst, the attendants
+forthwith filled the same with the living waters from the cascade; a
+proceeding, for which some of the company were at a loss to account,
+unless his highness, our host, with all the coolness of royalty,
+purposed cooling himself still further, by taking a bath in presence of
+his guests. A conjecture, most premature; for directly, the basin being
+filled to within a few inches of the lizards, the attendants fell to
+launching therein divers goodly sized trenchers, all laden with choice
+viands:--wild boar meat; humps of grampuses; embrowned bread-fruit,
+roasted in odoriferous fires of sandal wood, but suffered to cool; gold
+fish, dressed with the fragrant juices of berries; citron sauce; rolls
+of the baked paste of yams; juicy bananas, steeped in a saccharine oil;
+marmalade of plantains; jellies of guava; confections of the treacle of
+palm sap; and many other dainties; besides numerous stained calabashes
+of Morando, and other beverages, fixed in carved floats to make them
+buoyant.
+
+The guests assigned seats, by the woven handles attached to his purple
+mat, the prince, our host, was now gently moved by his servitors to the
+head of the porphyry-hued basin. Where, flanked by lofty crowned-heads,
+white-tiaraed, and radiant with royalty, he sat; like snow-turbaned Mont
+Blanc, at sunrise presiding over the head waters of the Rhone; to right
+and left, looming the gilded summits of the Simplon, the Gothard, the
+Jungfrau, the Great St. Bernard, and the Grand Glockner.
+
+Yet turbid from the launching of its freight, Lake Como tossed to and
+fro its navies of good cheer, the shadows of the king-peaks wildly
+flitting thereupon.
+
+But no frigid wine and fruit cooler, Lake Como; as at first it did seem;
+but a tropical dining table, its surface a slab of light blue St. Pons
+marble in a state of fluidity.
+
+Now, many a crown was doffed; scepters laid aside; girdles slackened;
+and among those verdant viands the bearded kings like goats did browse;
+or tusking their wild boar's meat, like mastiffs ate.
+
+And like unto some well-fought fight, beginning calmly, but pressing
+forward to a fiery rush, this well-fought feast did now wax warm.
+
+A few royal epicures, however, there were: epicures intent upon
+concoctions, admixtures, and masterly compoundings; who comported
+themselves with all due deliberation and dignity; hurrying themselves
+into no reckless deglutition of the dainties. Ah! admirable conceit,
+Lake Como: superseding attendants. For, from hand to hand the trenchers
+sailed; no sooner gaining one port, than dispatched over sea to another.
+
+Well suited they were for the occasion; sailing high out of water, to
+resist the convivial swell at times ruffling the sociable sea; and sharp
+at both ends, still better adapting them to easy navigation.
+
+But soon, the Morando, in triumphant decanters, went round, reeling like
+barks before a breeze. But their voyages were brief; and ere long, in
+certain havens, the accumulation of empty vessels threatened to bridge
+the lake with pontoons. In those directions, Trade winds were setting.
+But full soon, cut out were all unladen and unprofitable gourds; and
+replaced by jolly-bellied calabashes, for a time sailing deep, yawing
+heavily to the push.
+
+At last, the whole flotilla of trenchers--wrecks and all--were sent
+swimming to the further end of Lake Como; and thence removed, gave place
+to ruddy hillocks of fruit, and floating islands of flowers. Chief among
+the former, a quince-like, golden sphere, that filled the air with such
+fragrance, you thought you were tasting its flavor.
+
+Nor did the wine cease flowing. That day the Juam grape did bleed; that
+day the tendril ringlets of the vines, did all uncurl and grape by
+grape, in sheer dismay, the sun ripe clusters dropped. Grape-glad were
+five-and-twenty kings: five-and-twenty kings were merry.
+
+Morando's vintage had no end; nor other liquids, in the royal cellar
+stored, somewhere secret in the grot. Oh! where's the endless Niger's
+source? Search ye here, or search ye there; on, on, through ravine,
+vega, vale--no head waters will ye find. But why need gain the hidden
+spring, when its lavish stream flows by? At three-fold mouths that
+Delta-grot discharged; rivers golden, white, and red.
+
+But who may sing for aye? Down I come, and light upon the old and prosy
+plain.
+
+Among other decanters set afloat, was a pompous, lordly-looking
+demijohn, but old and reverend withal, that sailed about, consequential
+as an autocrat going to be crowned, or a treasure-freighted argosie
+bound home before the wind. It looked solemn, however, though it reeled;
+peradventure, far gone with its own potent contents.
+
+Oh! russet shores of Rhine and Rhone! oh, mellow memories of ripe old
+vintages! oh, cobwebs in the Pyramids! oh, dust on Pharaoh's tomb!--all,
+all recur, as I bethink me of that glorious gourd, its contents cogent
+as Tokay, itself as old as Mohi's legends; more venerable to look at
+than his beard. Whence came it? Buried in vases, so saith the label,
+with the heart of old Marjora, now dead one hundred thousand moons.
+Exhumed at last, it looked no wine, but was shrunk into a subtile syrup.
+
+This special calabash was distinguished by numerous trappings,
+caparisoned like the sacred bay steed led before the Great Khan of
+Tartary. A most curious and betasseled network encased it; and the royal
+lizard was jealously twisted about its neck, like a hand on a throat
+containing some invaluable secret.
+
+All Hail, Marzilla! King's Own Royal Particular! A vinous Percy! Dating
+back to the Conquest! Distilled of yore from purple berries growing in
+the purple valley of Ardair! Thrice hail.
+
+But the imperial Marzilla was not for all; gods only could partake; the
+Kings and demigods of the isles; excluding left-handed descendants of
+sad rakes of immortals, in old times breaking heads and hearts in Mardi,
+bequeathing bars-sinister to many mortals, who now in vain might urge a
+claim to a cup-full of right regal Marzilla.
+
+The Royal Particular was pressed upon me, by the now jovial Donjalolo.
+With his own sceptered hand charging my flagon to the brim, he declared
+his despotic pleasure, that I should quaff it off to the last lingering
+globule. No hard calamity, truly; for the drinking of this wine was as
+the singing of a mighty ode, or frenzied lyric to the soul.
+
+"Drink, Taji," cried Donjalolo, "drink deep. In this wine a king's heart
+is dissolved. Drink long; in this wine lurk the seeds of the life
+everlasting. Drink deep; drink long: thou drinkest wisdom and valor at
+every draught. Drink forever, oh Taji, for thou drinkest that which will
+enable thee to stand up and speak out before mighty Oro himself."
+
+"Borabolla," he added, turning round upon a domed old king at his left,
+"Was it not the god Xipho, who begged of my great-great-grandsire a
+draught of this same wine, saying he was about to beget a hero?"
+
+"Even so. And thy glorious Marzilla produced thrice valiant Ononna, who
+slew the giants of the reef."
+
+"Ha, ha, hear'st that, oh Taji?" And Donjalolo drained another cup.
+
+Amazing! the flexibility of the royal elbow, and the rigidity of the
+royal spine! More especially as we had been impressed with a notion of
+their debility. But, sometimes these seemingly enervated young blades
+approve themselves steadier of limb, than veteran revelers of very long
+standing.
+
+"Discharge the basin, and refill it with wine," cried Donjalolo. "Break
+all empty gourds! Drink, kings, and dash your cups at every draught."
+
+So saying, he started from his purple mat; and with one foot planted
+unknowingly upon the skull of Marjora; while all the skeletons grinned
+at him from the pavement; Donjalolo, holding on high his blood-red
+goblet, burst forth with the following invocation:--Ha, ha, gods and
+kings; fill high, one and all; Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad
+respond to the call! Fill fast, and fill frill; 'gainst the goblet ne'er
+sin; Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:--      Flood-tide,
+and soul-tide to the brim!
+
+Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his cares? Who sighs to be
+wise, when wine in him flares? Water sinks down below, in currents full
+slow; But wine mounts on high with its genial glow:--      Welling up,
+till the brain overflow!
+
+As the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul, Others golden, with
+music, revolve round the pole;
+
+So let our cups, radiant with many hued wines, Round and round in groups
+circle, our Zodiac's Signs:--      Round reeling, and ringing their
+chimes!
+
+Then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment brings; It bounds through the
+veins; there, jubilant sings. Let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never
+grows dim; Drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded rim:--Fill up,
+every cup, to the brim!
+
+
+Caught by all present, the chorus resounded again and again. The beaded
+wine danced on many a beard; the cataract lifted higher its voice; the
+grotto sent back a shout; the ghosts of the Coral Monarchs seemed
+starting from their insulted bones. But ha, ha, ha, roared forth the
+five-and-twenty kings--alive, not dead--holding both hands to their
+girdles, and baying out their laughter from abysses; like Nimrod's
+hounds over some fallen elk.
+
+Mad and crazy revelers, how ye drank and roared! but kings no more:
+vestures loosed; and scepters rolling on the ground.
+
+Glorious agrarian, thou wine! bringing all hearts on a level, and at
+last all legs to the earth; even those of kings, who, to do them
+justice, have been much maligned for imputed qualities not theirs. For
+whoso has touched flagons with monarchs, bear they their back bones
+never so stiffly on the throne, well know the rascals, to be at bottom
+royal good fellows; capable of a vinous frankness exceeding that of
+base-born men. Was not Alexander a boon companion? And daft Cambyses?
+and what of old Rowley, as good a judge of wine and other matters, as
+ever sipped claret or kisses.
+
+If ever Taji joins a club, be it a Beef-Steak Club of Kings!
+
+Donjalolo emptied yet another cup.
+
+The mirth now blew a gale; like a ship's shrouds in a Typhoon, every
+tendon vibrated; the breezes of Omi came forth with a rush; the hangings
+shook; the goblets danced fandangos; and Donjalolo, clapping his hands,
+called before him his dancing women.
+
+Forth came from the grotto a reed-like burst of song, making all start,
+and look that way to behold such enchanting strains. Sounds heralding
+sights! Swimming in the air, emerged the nymphs, lustrous arms
+interlocked like Indian jugglers' glittering snakes. Round the cascade
+they thronged; then paused in its spray. Of a sudden, seemed to spring
+from its midst, a young form of foam, that danced into the soul like a
+thought. At last, sideways floating off, it subsided into the grotto, a
+wave. Evening drawing on apace, the crimson draperies were lifted, and
+festooned to the arms of the idol-pillars, admitting the rosy light of
+the even.
+
+Yielding to the re-action of the banquet, the kings now reclined; and
+two mute damsels entered: one with a gourd of scented waters; the other
+with napkins. Bending over Donjalolo's steaming head, the first let fall
+a shower of aromatic drops, slowly aborbed by her companion. Thus, in
+turn, all were served; nothing heard but deep breathing.
+
+In a marble vase they now kindled some incense: a handful of spices.
+
+Shortly after, came three of the king's beautiful smokers; who, lighting
+their tubes at this odorous fire, blew over the company the sedative
+fumes of the Aina.
+
+Steeped in languor, I strove against it long; essayed to struggle out of
+the enchanted mist. But a syren hand seemed ever upon me, pressing me
+back.
+
+Half-revealed, as in a dream, and the last sight that I saw, was
+Donjalolo:--eyes closed, face pale, locks moist, borne slowly to his
+sedan, to cross the hollow, and wake in the seclusion of his harem.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXV After Dinner
+
+
+As in dreams I behold thee again, Willamila! as in dreams, once again I
+stroll through thy cool shady groves, oh fairest of the vallies of
+Mardi! the thought of that mad merry feasting steals over my soul till I
+faint.
+
+Prostrate here and there over the bones of Donjalolo's sires, the royal
+bacchanals lay slumbering till noon.
+
+"Which are the deadest?" said Babbalanja, peeping in, "the live kings,
+or the dead ones?"
+
+But the former were drooping flowers sought to be revived by watering.
+At intervals the sedulous attendants went to and fro, besprinkling their
+heads with the scented contents of their vases.
+
+At length, one by one, the five-and-twenty kings lifted their ambrosial
+curls; and shaking the dew therefrom, like eagles opened their right
+royal eyes, and dilated their aquiline nostrils, full upon the golden
+rays of the sun.
+
+But why absented himself, Donjalolo? Had he cavalierly left them to
+survive the banquet by themselves? But this apparent incivility was soon
+explained by heralds, announcing to their prone majesties, that through
+the over solicitude of his slaves, their lord the king had been borne to
+his harem, without being a party to the act. But to make amends, in his
+sedan, Donjalolo was even now drawing nigh. Not, however, again to make
+merry; but socially to sleep in company with his guests; for, together
+they had all got high, and together they must all lie low.
+
+So at it they went: each king to his bones, and slumbered like heroes
+till evening; when, availing themselves of the cool moonlight
+approaching, the royal guests bade adieu to their host; and summoning
+their followers, quitted the glen.
+
+Early next day, having determined to depart for our canoes, we proceeded
+to the House of the Morning, to take leave of Donjalolo.
+
+An amazing change, one night of solitude had wrought! Pale and languid,
+we found him reclining: one hand on his throbbing temples.
+
+Near an overturned vessel of wine, the royal girdle lay tossed at his
+feet. He had waved off his frightened attendants, who crouched out of
+sight.
+
+We advanced.
+
+"Do ye too leave me? Ready enough are ye to partake of my banquetings,
+which, to such as ye, are but mad incidents in one round of more
+tranquil diversions. But heed me not, Media;--I am mad. Oh, ye gods! am
+I forever a captive?--Ay, free king of Odo, when you list, condescend to
+visit the poor slave in Willamilla. I account them but charity, your
+visits; would fain allure ye by sumptuous fare. Go, leave me; go, and be
+rovers again throughout blooming Mardi. For, me, I am here for aye.--Bring me wine, slaves! quick! that I may pledge my guests fitly. Alas,
+Media, at the bottom of this cup are no sparkles as at top. Oh,
+treacherous, treacherous friend! full of smiles and daggers. Yet for
+such as me, oh wine, thou art e'en a prop, though it pierce the side;
+for man must lean. Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a
+foe to all. King Media, let us drink. More cups!--And now, farewell."
+
+Falling back, he averted his face; and silently we quitted the palace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVI Of Those Scamps The Plujii
+
+
+The beach gained, we embarked.
+
+In good time our party recovered from the seriousness into which we had
+been thrown; and a rather long passage being now before us, we whiled
+away the hours as best we might.
+
+Among many entertaining, narrations, old Braid-Beard, crossing his
+calves, and peaking his beard, regaled us with some account of certain
+invisible spirits, ycleped the Plujii, arrant little knaves as ever
+gulped moonshine.
+
+They were spoken of as inhabiting the island of Quelquo, in a remote
+corner of the lagoon; the innocent people of which island were sadly
+fretted and put out by their diabolical proceedings. Not to be wondered
+at; since, dwelling as they did in the air, and completely inaccessible,
+these spirits were peculiarly provocative of ire.
+
+Detestable Plujii! With malice aforethought, they brought about high
+winds that destroyed the banana plantations, and tumbled over the heads
+of its occupants many a bamboo dwelling. They cracked the calabashes;
+soured the "poee;" induced the colic; begat the spleen; and almost rent
+people in twain with stitches in the side. In short, from whatever evil,
+the cause of which the Islanders could not directly impute to their
+gods, or in their own opinion was not referable to themselves,--of that
+very thing must the invisible Plujii be guilty. With horrible dreams,
+and blood-thirsty gnats, they invaded the most innocent slumbers.
+
+All things they bedeviled. A man with a wry neck ascribed it to the
+Plujii; he with a bad memory railed against the Plujii; and the boy,
+bruising his finger, also cursed those abominable spirits.
+
+Nor, to some minds, at least, was there wanting strong presumptive
+evidence, that at times, with invisible fingers, the above mentioned
+Plujii did leave direct and tangible traces of their presence; pinching
+and pounding the unfortunate Islanders; pulling their hair; plucking
+their ears, and tweaking their beards and their noses. And thus
+perpetually vexing, incensing, tormenting, and exasperating their
+helpless victims, the atrocious Plujii reveled in their malicious
+dominion over the souls and bodies of the people of Quelquo.
+
+What it was, that induced them to enact such a part, Oro only knew; and
+never but once, it seems, did old Mohi endeavor to find out.
+
+Once upon a time, visiting Quelquo, he chanced to encounter an old woman
+almost doubled together, both hands upon her abdomen; in that manner
+running about distracted.
+
+"My good woman," said he, "what under the firmament is the matter?"
+
+"The Plujii! the Plujii!" affectionately caressing the field of their
+operations.
+
+"But why do they torment you?" he soothingly inquired. "How should I
+know? and what good would it do me if I did?"
+
+And on she ran.
+
+At this part of his narration, Mohi was interrupted by Media; who, much
+to the surprise of all present, observed, that, unbeknown to him (Braid-Beard), he happened to have been on that very island, at that very time,
+and saw that identical old lady in the very midst of those abdominal
+tribulations.
+
+"That she was really in great distress," he went on to say, "was plainly
+to be seen; but that in that particular instance, your Plujii had any
+hand in tormenting her, I had some boisterous doubts. For, hearing that
+an hour or two previous she had been partaking of some twenty unripe
+bananas, I rather fancied that that circumstance might have had
+something to do with her sufferings. But however it was, all the herb-leeches on the island would not have altered her own opinions on the
+subject."
+
+"No," said Braid-Beard; "a post-mortem examination would not have
+satisfied her ghost."
+
+"Curious to relate," he continued, "the people of that island never
+abuse the Plujii, notwithstanding all they suffer at their hands, unless
+under direct provocation; and a settled matter of faith is it, that at
+such times all bitter words and hasty objurgations are entirely
+overlooked, nay, pardoned on the spot, by the unseen genii against whom
+they are directed."
+
+"Magnanimous Plujii!" cried Media. "But, Babbalanja, do you, who run a
+tilt at all things, suffer this silly conceit to be uttered with
+impunity in your presence? Why so silent?"
+
+"I have been thinking, my lord," said Babbalanja, "that though the
+people of that island may at times err, in imputing their calamities to
+the Plujii, that, nevertheless, upon the whole, they indulge in a
+reasonable belief. For, Plujii or no Plujii, it is undeniable, that in
+ten thousand ways, as if by a malicious agency, we mortals are woefully
+put out and tormented; and that, too, by things in themselves so
+exceedingly trivial, that it would seem almost impiety to ascribe them
+to the august gods. No; there must exist some greatly inferior spirits;
+so insignificant, comparatively, as to be overlooked by the supernal
+powers; and through them it must be, that we are thus grievously
+annoyed. At any rate; such a theory would supply a hiatus in my system
+of meta-physics."
+
+"Well, peace to the Plujii," said Media; "they trouble not me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVII Nora-Bamma
+
+
+Still onward gliding, the lagoon a calm.
+
+Hours pass; and full before us, round and green, a Moslem turban by us
+floats--Nora-Bamma, Isle of Nods.
+
+Noon-tide rolls its flood. Vibrates the air, and trembles. And by
+illusion optical, thin-draped in azure haze, drift here and there the
+brilliant lands: swans, peacock-plumaged, sailing through the sky. Down
+to earth hath heaven come; hard telling sun-clouds from the isles.
+
+And high in air nods Nora-Bamma. Nid-nods its tufted summit like three
+ostrich plumes; its beetling crags, bent poppies, shadows, willowy
+shores, all nod; its streams are murmuring down the hills; its wavelets
+hush the shore.
+
+Who dwells in Nora-Bamma? Dreamers, hypochondriacs, somnambulists; who,
+from the cark and care of outer Mardi fleeing, in the poppy's jaded
+odors, seek oblivion for the past, and ecstasies to come.
+
+Open-eyed, they sleep and dream; on their roof-trees, grapes unheeded
+drop. In Nora-Bamma, whispers are as shouts; and at a zephyr's breath,
+from the woodlands shake the leaves, as of humming-birds, a flight.
+
+All this spake Braid-Beard, of the isle. How that none ere touched its
+strand, without rendering instant tribute of a nap; how that those who
+thither voyaged, in golden quest of golden gourds, fast dropped asleep,
+ere one was plucked; waking not till night; how that you must needs rub
+hard your eyes, would you wander through the isle; and how that silent
+specters would be met, haunting twilight groves, and dreamy meads;
+hither gliding, thither fading, end or purpose none.
+
+True or false, so much for Mohi's Nora Bamma.
+
+But as we floated on, it looked the place described. We yawned, and
+yawned, as crews of vessels may; as in warm Indian seas, their winnowing
+sails all swoon, when by them glides some opium argosie.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII In A Calm, Hautia's Heralds Approach
+
+
+"How still!" cried Babbalanja. "This calm is like unto Oro's everlasting
+serenity, and like unto man's last despair."
+
+But now the silence was broken by a strange, distant, intermitted melody
+in the water.
+
+Gazing over the side, we saw naught but a far-darting ray in its depths.
+
+Then Yoomy, before buried in a reverie, burst forth with a verse, sudden
+as a jet from a Geyser.
+
+Like the fish of the bright and twittering fin, Bright fish! diving deep
+as high soars the lark, So, far, far, far, doth the maiden swim, Wild
+song, wild light, in still ocean's dark.
+
+"What maiden, minstrel?" cried Media.
+
+"None of these," answered Yoomy, pointing out a shallop gliding near.
+
+"The damsels three:--Taji, they pursue you yet." That still canoe drew
+nigh, the Iris in its prow.
+
+Gliding slowly by, one damsel flung a Venus-car, the leaves yet fresh.
+
+Said Yoomy--"Fly to love."
+
+The second maiden flung a pallid blossom, buried in hemlock leaves.
+
+Said Yoomy, starting--"I have wrought a death."
+
+Then came showering Venus-cars, and glorious moss-roses numberless, and
+odorous handfuls of Verbena.
+
+Said Yoomy--"Yet fly, oh fly to me: all rosy joys and sweets are mine."
+
+Then the damsels floated on.
+
+"Was ever queen more enigmatical?" cried Media--"Love,--death,--joy, --fly to me? But what says Taji?"
+
+"That I turn not back for Hautia; whoe'er she be, that wild witch I
+contemn."
+
+"Then spread our pinions wide! a breeze! up sails! ply paddles all!
+Come, Flora's flute, float forth a song."
+
+To pieces picking the thorny roses culled from Hautia's gifts, and
+holding up their blighted cores, thus plumed and turbaned Yoomy sang,
+leaning against the mast:--Oh! royal is the rose, But barbed with many a
+dart; Beware, beware the rose, 'Tis cankered at the heart.
+
+Sweet, sweet the sunny down, Oh! lily, lily, lily down! Sweet, sweet,
+Verbena's bloom! Oh! pleasant, gentle, musky bloom!
+
+Dread, dread the sunny down; Lo! lily-hooded asp; Blooms, blooms no more
+Verbena; White-withered in your clasp.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIX Braid-Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues
+
+
+Judge not things by their names. This, the maxim illustrated respecting
+the isle toward which we were sailing.
+
+Ohonoo was its designation, in other words the Land of Rogues. So what
+but a nest of villains and pirates could one fancy it to be: a downright
+Tortuga, swarming with "Brethren of the coast,"--such as Montbars,
+L'Ollonais, Bartolomeo, Peter of Dieppe, and desperadoes of that kidney.
+But not so. The men of Ohonoo were as honest as any in Mardi. They had a
+suspicious appellative for their island, true; but not thus seemed it to
+them. For, upon nothing did they so much plume themselves as upon this
+very name. Why? Its origin went back to old times; and being venerable
+they gloried therein; though they disclaimed its present applicability
+to any of their race; showing, that words are but algebraic signs,
+conveying no meaning except what you please. And to be called one thing,
+is oftentimes to be another.
+
+But how came the Ohonoose by their name?
+
+Listen, and Braid-Beard, our Herodotus, will tell.
+
+Long and long ago, there were banished to Ohonoo all the bucaniers,
+flibustiers, thieves, and malefactors of the neighboring islands; who,
+becoming at last quite a numerous community, resolved to make a stand
+for their dignity, and number one among the nations of Mardi. And even
+as before they had been weeded out of the surrounding countries; so now,
+they went to weeding out themselves; banishing all objectionable persons
+to still another island.
+
+These events happened at a period so remote, that at present it was
+uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second
+exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their
+comparative honesty. If the latter, then must the residue have been a
+precious enough set of scoundrels.
+
+However it was, the commonwealth of knaves now mustered together their
+gray-beards, and wise-pates, and knowing-ones, of which last there was a
+plenty, chose a king to rule over them, and went to political
+housekeeping for themselves.
+
+And in the fullness of time, this people became numerous and mighty. And
+the more numerous and mighty they waxed, by so much the more did they
+take pride and glory in their origin, frequently reverting to it with
+manifold boastings. The proud device of their monarch was a hand with
+the forefinger crooked, emblematic of the peculatory propensities of his
+ancestors.
+
+And all this, at greater length, said Mohi.
+
+"It would seem, then, my lord," said Babbalanja, reclining, "as if these
+men of Ohonoo had canonized the derelictions of their progenitors,
+though the same traits are deemed scandalous among themselves. But it is
+time that makes the difference. The knave of a thousand years ago seems
+a fine old fellow full of spirit and fun, little malice in his soul;
+whereas, the knave of to-day seems a sour-visaged wight, with nothing to
+redeem him. Many great scoundrels of our Chronicler's chronicles are
+heroes to us:--witness, Marjora the usurper. Ay, time truly works
+wonders. It sublimates wine; it sublimates fame; nay, is the creator
+thereof; it enriches and darkens our spears of the Palm; enriches and
+enlightens the mind; it ripens cherries and young lips; festoons old
+ruins, and ivies old heads; imparts a relish to old yams, and a pungency
+to the Ponderings of old Bardianna; of fables distills truths; and
+finally, smooths, levels, glosses, softens, melts, and meliorates all
+things. Why, my lord, round Mardi itself is all the better for its
+antiquity, and the more to be revered; to the cozy-minded, more
+comfortable to dwell in. Ah! if ever it lay in embryo like a green seed
+in the pod, what a damp, shapeless thing it must have been, and how
+unpleasant from the traces of its recent creation. The first man, quoth
+old Bardianna, must have felt like one going into a new habitation,
+where the bamboos are green. Is there not a legend in Maramma, that his
+family were long troubled with influenzas and catarrhs?"
+
+"Oh Time, Time, Time!" cried Yoomy--"it is Time, old midsummer Time,
+that has made the old world what it is. Time hoared the old mountains,
+and balded their old summits, and spread the old prairies, and built the
+old forests, and molded the old vales. It is Time that has worn glorious
+old channels for the glorious old rivers, and rounded the old lakes, and
+deepened the old sea! It is Time--"
+
+"Ay, full time to cease," cried Media. "What have you to do with
+cogitations not in verse, minstrel? Leave prose to Babbalanja, who is
+prosy enough."
+
+"Even so," said Babbalanja, "Yoomy, you  have overstepped your province.
+My lord Media well knows, that your business is to make the metal in you
+jingle in tags, not ring in the ingot."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC Rare Sport At Ohonoo
+
+
+Approached from the northward, Ohonoo, midway cloven down to the sea,
+one half a level plain; the other, three mountain terraces--Ohonoo looks
+like the first steps of a gigantic way to the sun. And such, if Braid-Beard spoke truth, it had formerly been.
+
+"Ere Mardi was made," said that true old chronicler, "Vivo, one of the
+genii, built a ladder of mountains whereby to go up and go down. And of
+this ladder, the island of Ohonoo was the base. But wandering here and
+there, incognito in a vapor, so much wickedness did Vivo spy out, that
+in high dudgeon he hurried up his ladder, knocking the mountains from
+under him as he went. These here and there fell into the lagoon, forming
+many isles, now green and luxuriant; which, with those sprouting from
+seeds dropped by a bird from the moon, comprise all the groups in the
+reef."
+
+Surely, oh, surely, if I live till Mardi be forgotten by Mardi, I shall
+not forget the sight that greeted us, as we drew nigh the shores of this
+same island of Ohonoo; for was not all Ohonoo bathing in the surf of the
+sea?
+
+But let the picture be painted.
+
+Where eastward the ocean rolls surging against the outer reef of Mardi,
+there, facing a flood-gate in the barrier, stands cloven Ohonoo; her
+plains sloping outward to the sea, her mountains a bulwark behind. As at
+Juam, where the wild billows from seaward roll in upon its cliffs; much
+more at Ohonoo, in billowy battalions charge they hotly into the lagoon,
+and fall on the isle like an army from the deep. But charge they never
+so boldly, and charge they forever, old Ohonoo gallantly throws them
+back till all before her is one scud and rack. So charged the bright
+billows of cuirassiers at Waterloo: so hurled them off the long line of
+living walls, whose base was as the sea-beach, wreck-strown, in a gale.
+
+Without the break in the reef wide banks of coral shelve off, creating
+the bar, where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in water-bolts, that shake the whole reef, till its very spray trembles. And then
+is it, that the swimmers of Ohonoo most delight to gambol in the surf.
+
+For this sport, a surf-board is indispensable: some five feet in length;
+the width of a man's body; convex on both sides; highly polished; and
+rounded at the ends. It is held in high estimation; invariably oiled
+after use; and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling of the owner.
+
+Ranged on the beach, the bathers, by hundreds dash in; and diving under
+the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the
+comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here, throwing
+themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that
+suits. Snatching them up, it hurries them landward, volume and speed
+both increasing, till it races along a watery wall, like the smooth,
+awful verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll, looking down from it
+as from a precipice, the bathers halloo; every limb in motion to
+preserve their place on the very crest of the wave. Should they fall
+behind, the squadrons that follow would whelm them; dismounted, and
+thrown forward, as certainly would they be run over by the steed they
+ride. 'Tis like charging at the head of cavalry: you must on.
+
+An expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank; now half striding
+it; and anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in the
+scud, coming on like a man in the air.
+
+At last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts
+like a bomb. Adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out; and
+like seals at the Orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore.
+
+Landing in smooth water, some distance from the scene, we strolled
+forward; and meeting a group resting, inquired for Uhia, their king. He
+was pointed out in the foam. But presently drawing nigh, he embraced
+Media, bidding all welcome.
+
+The bathing over, and evening at hand, Uhia and his subjects repaired to
+their canoes; and we to ours.
+
+Landing at another quarter of the island, we journeyed up a valley
+called Monlova, and were soon housed in a very pleasant retreat of our
+host.
+
+Soon supper was spread. But though the viands were rare, and the red
+wine went round and round like a foaming bay horse in the ring; yet we
+marked, that despite the stimulus of his day's good sport, and the
+stimulus of his brave good cheer, Uhia our host was moody and still.
+
+Said Babbalanja "My lord, he fills wine cups for others to quaff."
+
+But whispered King Media, "Though Uhia be sad, be we merry, merry men."
+
+And merry some were, and merrily went to their mats.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI Of King Uhia And His Subjects
+
+
+As beseemed him, Uhia was royally lodged. Ample his roof. Beneath it a
+hundred attendants nightly laying their heads. But long since, he had
+disbanded his damsels.
+
+Springing from syren embrace--"They shall sap and mine me no more" he
+cried "my destiny commands me. I will don my manhood. By Keevi! no more
+will I clasp a waist."
+
+"From that time forth," said Braid-Beard, "young Uhia spread like the
+tufted top of the Palm; his thigh grew brawny as the limb of the Banian;
+his arm waxed strong as the back bone of the shark; yea, his voice grew
+sonorous as a conch."
+
+"And now he bent his whole soul to the accomplishment of the destiny
+believed to be his. Nothing less than bodily to remove Ohonoo to the
+center of the lagoon, in fulfillment of an old prophecy running thus--When a certain island shall stir from its foundations and stand in the
+middle of the still water, then shall the ruler of that island be ruler
+of all Mardi."
+
+The task was hard, but how glorious the reward! So at it he went, and
+all Ohonoo helped him. Not by hands, but by calling in the magicians.
+Thus far, nevertheless, in vain. But Uhia had hopes.
+
+Now, informed of all this, said Babbalanja to Media, "My lord, if the
+continual looking-forward to something greater, be better than an
+acquiescence in things present; then, wild as it is, this belief of
+Uhia's he should hug to his heart, as erewhile his wives. But my lord,
+this faith it is, that robs his days of peace; his nights of sweet
+unconsciousness. For holding himself foreordained to the dominion of the
+entire Archipelago, he upbraids the gods for laggards, and curses
+himself as deprived of his rights; nay, as having had wrested from him,
+what he never possessed. Discontent dwarfs his horizon till he spans it
+with his hand. 'Most miserable of demi-gods,' he cries, 'here am I
+cooped up in this insignificant islet, only one hundred leagues by
+fifty, when scores of broad empires own me not for their lord.' Yet Uhia
+himself is envied. 'Ah!' cries Karrolono, one of his chieftains, master
+of a snug little glen, 'Here am I cabined in this paltry cell among the
+mountains, when that great King Uhia is lord of the whole island, and
+every cubic mile of matter therein.' But this same Karrolono is envied.
+'Hard, oh beggarly lot is mine,' cries Donno, one of his retainers.
+'Here am I fixed and screwed down to this paltry plantation, when my
+lord Karrolono owns the whole glen, ten long parasangs from cliff to
+sea.' But Donno too is envied. 'Alas, cursed fate!' cries his servitor
+Flavona. 'Here am I made to trudge, sweat, and labor all day, when Donno
+my master does nothing but command.' But others envy Flavona; and those
+who envy him are envied in turn; even down to poor bed-ridden Manta, who
+dying of want, groans forth, 'Abandoned wretch that I am! here I
+miserably perish, while so many beggars gad about and live!' But surely;
+none envy Manta! Yes; great Uhia himself. 'Ah!' cries the king. 'Here am
+I vexed and tormented by ambition; no peace night nor day; my temples
+chafed sore by this cursed crown that I wear; while that ignoble wight
+Manta, gives up the ghost with none to molest him.'"
+
+In vain we wandered up and down in this isle, and peered into its
+innermost recesses: no Yillah was there.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCII The God Keevi And The Precipice Op Mondo
+
+
+One object of interest in Ohonoo was the original image of Keevi the god
+of Thieves; hence, from time immemorial, the tutelar deity of the isle.
+
+His shrine was a natural niche in a cliff, walling in the valley of
+Monlova And here stood Keevi, with his five eyes, ten hands, and three
+pair of legs, equipped at all points for the vocation over which he
+presided. Of mighty girth, his arms terminated in hands, every finger a
+limb, spreading in multiplied digits: palms twice five, and fifty
+fingers.
+
+According to the legend, Keevi fell from a golden cloud, burying himself
+to the thighs in the earth, tearing up the soil all round. Three
+meditative mortals, strolling by at the time, had a narrow escape.
+
+A wonderful recital; but none of us voyagers durst flout it. Did they
+not show us the identical spot where the idol fell? We descended into
+the hollow, now verdant. Questionless, Keevi himself would have vouched
+for the truth of the miracle, had he not been unfortunately dumb. But by
+far the most cogent, and pointed argument advanced in support of this
+story, is a spear which the priests of Keevi brought forth, for
+Babbalanja to view.
+
+"Let me look at it closer," said Babbalanja.
+
+And turning it over and over and curiously inspecting it, "Wonderful
+spear," he cried. "Doubtless, my reverends, this self-same spear must
+have persuaded many recusants!"
+
+"Nay, the most stubborn," they answered.
+
+"And all afterward quoted as additional authority for the truth of the
+legend?"
+
+"Assuredly."
+
+From the sea to the shrine of this god, the fine valley of Monlova
+ascends with a gentle gradation, hardly perceptible; but upon turning
+round toward the water, one is surprised to find himself high elevated
+above its surface. Pass on, and the same silent ascent deceives you; and
+the valley contracts; and on both sides the cliffs advance; till at last
+you come to a narrow space, shouldered by buttresses of rock. Beyond,
+through this cleft, all is blue sky. If the Trades blow high, and you
+came unawares upon the spot, you would think Keevi himself pushing you
+forward with all his hands; so powerful is the current of air rushing
+through this elevated defile. But expostulate not with the tornado that
+blows you along; sail on; but soft; look down; the land breaks off in
+one sheer descent of a thousand feet, right down to the wide plain
+below. So sudden and profound this precipice, that you seem to look off
+from one world to another. In a dreamy, sunny day, the spangled plain
+beneath assumes an uncertain fleeting aspect. Had you a deep-sea-lead
+you would almost be tempted to sound the ocean-haze at your feet.
+
+This, mortal! is the precipice of Mondo.
+
+From this brink, spear in hand, sprang fifty rebel warriors, driven back
+into the vale by a superior force. Finding no spot to stand at bay, with
+a fierce shout they took the fatal leap.
+
+Said Mohi, "Their souls ascended, ere their bodies touched."
+
+This tragical event took place many generations gone by, and now a
+dizzy, devious way conducts one, firm of foot, from the verge to the
+plain. But none ever ascended. So perilous, indeed, is the descent
+itself, that the islanders venture not the feat, without invoking
+supernatural aid. Flanking the precipice beneath beetling rocks, stand
+the guardian deities of Mondo; and on altars before them, are placed the
+propitiatory offerings of the traveler.
+
+To the right of the brink of the precipice, and far over it, projects a
+narrow ledge. The test of legitimacy in the Ohonoo monarchs is to stand
+hereon, arms folded, and javelins darting by.
+
+And there in his youth Uhia stood.
+
+"How felt you, cousin?" asked Media.
+
+"Like the King of Ohonoo," he replied. "As I _shall_ again feel; when
+King of all Mardi."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy
+Relates A Legend
+
+
+Embarking from Ohonoo, we at length found ourselves gliding by the
+pleasant shores of Tupia, an islet which according to Braid-Beard had
+for ages remained uninhabited by man. Much curiosity being expressed to
+know more of the isle, Mohi was about to turn over his chronicles, when,
+with modesty, the minstrel Yoomy interposed; saying, that if my Lord
+Media permitted, he himself would relate the legend. From its nature,
+deeming the same pertaining to his province as poet; though, as yet, it
+had not been versified. But he added, that true pearl shells rang
+musically, though not strung upon a cord.
+
+Upon this presumptuous interference, Mohi looked highly offended; and
+nervously twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about
+frippery young poetasters being too full of silly imaginings to tell a
+plain tale.
+
+Said Yoomy, in reply, adjusting his turban,  "Old Mohi, let us not
+clash. I honor your calling; but, with submission, your chronicles are
+more wild than my cantos. I deal in pure conceits of my own; which have
+a shapeliness and a unity, however unsubstantial; but you, Braid-Beard,
+deal in mangled realities. In all your chapters, you yourself grope in
+the dark. Much truth is not in thee, historian. Besides, Mohi: my songs
+perpetuate many things which you sage scribes entirely overlook. Have
+you not oftentimes come to me, and my ever dewy ballads for information,
+in which you and your musty old chronicles were deficient?"
+
+"In much that is precious, Mohi, we poets are the true historians; we
+embalm; you corrode."
+
+To this Mohi, with some ire, was about to make answer, when, flinging
+over his shoulder a new fold of his mantle, Babbalanja spoke thus:
+"Peace, rivals. As Bardianna has it, like all who dispute upon
+pretensions of their own, you are each nearest the right, when you speak
+of the other; and furthest therefrom, when you speak of yourselves."
+
+Said Mohi and Yoomy in a breath, "Who sought your opinion, philosopher?
+you filcher from old Bardianna, and monger of maxims!"
+
+"You, who have so long marked the vices of Mardi, that you flatter
+yourself you have none of your own," added Braid-Beard.
+
+"You, who only seem wise, because of the contrasting follies of others,
+and not of any great wisdom in yourself," continued the minstrel, with
+unwonted asperity."
+
+"Now here," said Babballanja, "am I charged upon by a bearded old ram,
+and a lamb. One butting with his carious and brittle old frontlet; the
+other pushing with its silly head before its horns are sprouted. But
+this comes of being impartial. Had I espoused the cause of Yoomy versus
+Mohi, or that of Mohi versus Yoomy, I had been sure to have had at least
+one voice in my favor. The impartialist insulteth all sides, saith old
+Bardianna; but smite with but one hand, and the other shall be kissed.--Oh incomparable Bardianna!"
+
+"Will no one lay that troubled old ghost," exclaimed Media, devoutly.
+"Proceed with thy legend, Yoomy; and see to it, that it be brief; for I
+mistrust me, these legends do but test the patience of the hearers. But
+draw a long breath, and begin."
+
+"A long bow," muttered Mohi.
+
+And Yoomy began.
+
+"It is now about ten hundred thousand moons--"
+
+"Great Oro! How long since, say you?" cried Mohi, making Gothic arches
+of his brows.
+
+Looking at him disdainfully, but vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy began over
+again.
+
+"It is now above ten hundred thousand moons, since there died the last
+of a marvelous race, once inhabiting the very shores by which we are
+sailing. They were a very diminutive people, only a few inches high--"
+
+"Stop, minstrel," cried Mohi; "how many pennyweights did they weigh?"
+
+Continued Yoomy, unheedingly, "They were covered all over with a soft,
+silky down, like that on the rind of the Avee; and there grew upon their
+heads a green, lance-leaved vine, of a most delicate texture. For
+convenience, the manikins reduced their tendrils, sporting, nothing but
+coronals. Whereas, priding themselves upon the redundancy of their
+tresses, the little maidens assiduously watered them with the early dew
+of the morning; so that all wreathed and festooned with verdure, they
+moved about in arbors, trailing after them trains."
+
+"I can hear no more," exclaimed Mohi, stopping his ears.
+
+Continued Yoomy, "The damsels lured to their bowers, certain red-plumaged insect-birds, and taught them to nestle therein, and warble;
+which, with the pleasant vibrating of the leaves, when the little
+maidens moved, produced a strange blending of sweet, singing sounds. The
+little maidens embraced not with their arms, but with their viny locks;
+whose tendrils instinctively twined about their lovers, till both were
+lost in the bower."
+
+"And what then?" asked Mohi, who, notwithstanding the fingers in his
+ears, somehow contrived to listen; "What then?"
+
+Vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy went on.
+
+"At a certain age, but while yet the maidens were very young, their
+vines bore blossoms. Ah! fatal symptoms. For soon as they burst, the
+maidens died in their arbors; and were buried in the valleys; and their
+vines spread forth; and the flowers bloomed; but the maidens themselves
+were no more. And now disdaining the earth, the vines shot upward:
+climbing to the topmost boughs of the trees; and flowering in the
+sunshine forever and aye."
+
+Yoomy here paused for a space; but presently continued:
+
+"The little eyes of the people of Tupia were very strange to behold:
+full of stars, that shone from within, like the Pleiades, deep-bosomed
+in blue. And like the stars, they were intolerant of sunlight; and
+slumbering through the day, the people of Tupia only went abroad by
+night. But it was chiefly when the moon was at full, that they were
+mostly in spirits.
+
+"Then the little manikins would dive down into the sea, and rove about
+in the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. Or, racing round, make
+a mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:--plucking the reverend
+mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells; worrying
+the sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the touchy torpedos.
+Sometimes they went prying about with the starfish, that have an eye at
+the end of each ray; and often with coral files in their hands stole
+upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their weapons. In short, these
+stout little manikins were passionately fond of the sea, and swore by
+wave and billow, that sooner or later they would embark thereon in
+nautilus shells, and spend the rest of their roving days thousands of
+inches from Tupia. Too true, they were shameless little rakes. Oft would
+they return to their sweethearts, sporting musky girdles of sea-kelp,
+tasseled with green little pouches of grass, brimful of seed-pearls; and
+jingling their coin in the ears of the damsels, throw out inuendoes
+about the beautiful and bountiful mermaids: how wealthy and amorous they
+were, and how they delighted in the company of the brave gallants of
+Tupia. Ah! at such heartless bravadoes, how mourned the poor little
+nymphs. Deep into their arbors they went; and their little hearts burst
+like rose-buds, and filled the whole air with an odorous grief. But when
+their lovers were gentle and true, no happier maidens haunted the lilies
+than they. By some mystical process they wrought minute balls of light:
+touchy, mercurial globules, very hard to handle; and with these, at
+pitch and toss, they played in the groves. Or mischievously inclined,
+they toiled all night long at braiding the moon-beams together, and
+entangling the plaited end to a bough; so that at night, the poor planet
+had much ado to set."
+
+Here Yoomy once more was mute.
+
+"Pause you to invent as you go on?" said old Mohi, elevating his chin,
+till his beard was horizontal.
+
+Yoomy resumed.
+
+"Little or nothing more, my masters, is extant of the legend; only it
+must be mentioned, that these little people were very tasteful in their
+personal adornings; the manikins wearing girdles of fragrant leaves, and
+necklaces of aromatic seeds; and the little damsels, not content with
+their vines, and their verdure, sporting pearls in their ears; bracelets
+of wee little porpoise teeth; and oftentimes dancing with their mates in
+the moonlit glades, coquettishly fanned themselves with the transparent
+wings of the flying fish."
+
+"Now, I appeal to you, royal Media; to you, noble Taji; to you,
+Babbalanja;" said the chronicler, with an impressive gesture, "whether
+this seems a credible history: Yoomy has invented."
+
+"But perhaps he has entertained, old Mohi," said Babbalanja.
+
+"He has not spoken the truth," persisted the chronicler.
+
+"Mohi," said Babbalanja, "truth is in things, and not in words: truth is
+voiceless; so at least saith old Bardianna. And I, Babbalanja, assert,
+that what are vulgarly called fictions are as much realities as the
+gross mattock of Dididi, the digger of trenches; for things visible are
+but conceits of the eye: things imaginative, conceits of the fancy. If
+duped by one, we are equally duped by the other."
+
+"Clear as this water," said Yoomy.
+
+"Opaque as this paddle," said Mohi, "But, come now, thou oracle, if all
+things are deceptive, tell us what is truth?"
+
+"The old interrogatory; did they not ask it when the world began? But
+ask it no more. As old Bardianna hath it, that question is more final
+than any answer."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIV Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of
+His, Mondoldo; And Of The Fish-Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish
+
+
+Drawing near Mondoldo, our next place of destination, we were greeted by
+six fine canoes, gayly tricked out with streamers, and all alive with
+the gestures of their occupants. King Borabolla and court were hastening
+to welcome our approach; Media, unbeknown to all, having notified him at
+the Banquet of the Five-and-Twenty Kings, of our intention to visit his
+dominions.
+
+Soon, side by side, these canoes floated with ours; each barge of Odo
+courteously flanked by those of Mondoldo.
+
+Not long were we in identifying Borabolla: the portly, pleasant old
+monarch, seated cross-legged upon a dais, projecting over the bow of the
+largest canoe of the six, close-grappling to the side of the Sea
+Elephant.
+
+Was he not a goodly round sight to behold? Round all over; round of eye
+and of head; and like the jolly round Earth, roundest and biggest about
+the Equator. A girdle of red was his Equinoctial Line, giving a
+compactness to his plumpness.
+
+This old Borabolla permitted naught to come between his head and the
+sun; not even gray hairs. Bald as a gourd, right down on his brazen
+skull, the rays of the luminary converged.
+
+He was all hilarity; full of allusions to the feast at Willamilla, where
+he had done royal execution. Rare old Borabolla! thou wert made for
+dining out; thy ample mouth an inlet for good cheer, and a sally-port
+for good humor.
+
+Bustling about on his dais, he now gave orders for the occupants of our
+canoes to be summarily emptied into his own; saying, that in that manner
+only did he allow guests to touch the beach of Mondoldo.
+
+So, with no little trouble--for the waves were grown somewhat riotous--we proceeded to comply; bethinking ourselves all the while, how annoying
+is sometimes an over-strained act of hospitality.
+
+We were now but little less than a mile from the shore. But what of
+that? There was plenty of time, thought Borabolla, for a hasty lunch,
+and the getting of a subsequent appetite ere we effected a landing. So
+viands were produced; to which the guests were invited to pay heedful
+attention; or take the consequences, and famish till the long voyage in
+prospect was ended.
+
+Soon the water shoaled (approaching land is like nearing truth in
+metaphysics), and ere we yet touched the beach, Borabolla declared, that
+we were already landed. Which paradoxical assertion implied, that the
+hospitality of Mondoldo was such, that in all directions it radiated far
+out upon the lagoon, embracing a great circle; so that no canoe could
+sail by the island, without its occupants being so long its guests.
+
+In most hospitable vicinity to the water, was a fine large structure,
+inclosed by a stockade; both rather dilapidated; as if the cost of
+entertaining its guests, prevented outlays for repairing the place. But
+it was one of Borabolla's maxims, that generally your tumble-down old
+homesteads yield the most entertainment; their very dilapidation
+betokening their having seen good service in hospitality; whereas,
+spruce-looking, finical portals, have a phiz full of meaning; for
+niggards are oftentimes neat.
+
+Now, after what has been said, who so silly as to fancy, that because
+Borabolla's mansion was inclosed by a stockade, that the same was
+intended as a defense against guests? By no means. In the palisade was a
+mighty breach, not an entrance-way, wide enough to admit six Daniel
+Lamberts abreast.
+
+"Look," cried Borabolla, as landing we stepped toward the place. "Look
+Media! look all. These gates, you here see, lashed back with osiers,
+have been so lashed during my life-time; and just where they stand,
+shall they rot; ay, they shall perish wide open."
+
+"But why have them at all?" inquired Media.
+
+"Ah! there you have old Borabolla," cried the other.
+
+"No," said Babbalanja, "a fence whose gate is ever kept open, seems
+unnecessary, I grant; nevertheless, it gives a notable hint, otherwise
+not so aptly conveyed; for is not the open gate the sign of the open
+heart?"
+
+"Right, right," cried Borabolla; "so enter both, cousin Media;" and with
+one hand smiting his chest, with the other he waved us on.
+
+But if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure within seemed
+only a roof; for nothing but a slender pillar here and there, supported
+it.
+
+"This is my mode of building," said Borabolla; "I will have no outside
+to my palaces. Walls are superfluous. And to a high-minded guest, the
+entering a narrow doorway is like passing under a yoke; every time he
+goes in, or comes out, it reminds him, that he is being entertained at
+the cost of another. So storm in all round."
+
+Within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we looked up to endless
+rows of brown calabashes, and trenchers suspended along the rafters;
+promissory of ample cheer as regiments of old hams in a baronial
+refectory.
+
+They were replenished with both meat and drink; the trenchers readily
+accessible by means of cords; but the gourds containing arrack,
+suspended neck downward, were within easy reach where they swung.
+
+Seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a cautious young
+bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making, Taji stood on his guard.
+And when Borabolla urged him to empty a gourd or two, by way of making
+room in him for the incidental repast about to be served, Taji civilly
+declined; not wishing to cumber the floor, before the cloth was laid.
+
+Jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of the unities of
+time and place, went freely about, from gourd to gourd, concocting in
+him a punch. At which, Samoa expressed much surprise, that he should be
+so unobservant as not to know, that in Mardi, guests might be pressed to
+demean themselves, without its being expected that so they would do. A
+true toss-pot himself, he bode his time.
+
+The second lunch over, Borabolla placed both hands to the ground, and
+giving the sigh of the fat man, after three vigorous efforts, succeeded
+in gaining his pins; which pins of his, were but small for his body;
+insomuch that they hugely staggered about, under the fine old load they
+carried.
+
+The specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture, was to
+put himself in motion, and conduct us to his fish-ponds, famous
+throughout the Archipelago as the hobby of the king of Mondoldo.
+Furthermore, as the great repast of the day, yet to take place, was to
+be a grand piscatory one, our host was all anxiety, that we should have
+a glimpse of our fish, while yet alive and hearty.
+
+We were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors were preparing to
+accompany us with trenchers of edibles. It begat the notion, that our
+trip to the fish-ponds was to prove a long journey. But they were not
+three hundred yards distant; though Borabolla being a veteran traveler,
+never stirred from his abode without his battalion of butlers.
+
+The ponds were four in number, close bordering the water, embracing
+about an acre each, and situated in a low fen, draining several valleys.
+The excavated soil was thrown up in dykes, made tight by being beaten
+all over, while in a soft state, with the heavy, flat ends of Palm
+stalks. Lying side by side, by three connecting trenches, these ponds
+could be made to communicate at pleasure; while two additional canals
+afforded means of letting in upon them the salt waters of the lagoon on
+one hand, or those of an inland stream on the other. And by a third
+canal with four branches, together or separately, they could be
+partially drained. Thus, the waters could be mixed to suit any gills;
+and the young fish taken from the sea, passed through a stated process
+of freshening; so that by the time they graduated, the salt was well out
+of them, like the brains out of some diplomaed collegians.
+
+Fresh-water fish are only to be obtained in Mondoldo by the artificial
+process above mentioned; as the streams and brooks abound not in trout
+or other Waltonian prey.
+
+Taken all floundering from the sea, Borabolla's fish, passing through
+their regular training for the table, and daily tended by their keepers,
+in course of time became quite tame and communicative. To prove which,
+calling his Head Ranger, the king bade him administer the customary
+supply of edibles.
+
+Accordingly, mouthfuls were thrown into the ponds.  Whereupon, the fish
+darted in a shoal toward the margin; some leaping out of the water in
+their eagerness. Crouching on the bank, the Ranger now called several by
+name, patted their scales, carrying on some heathenish nursery-talk,
+like St. Anthony, in ancient Coptic, instilling virtuous principles into
+his finny flock on the sea shore.
+
+But alas, for the hair-shirted old dominie's backsliding disciples. For,
+of all nature's animated kingdoms, fish are the most unchristian,
+inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures. At least, so
+seem they to strangers; though at bottom, somehow, they must be all
+right. And truly it is not to be wondered at, that the very reverend
+Anthony strove after the conversion of fish. For, whoso shall
+Christianize, and by so doing, humanize the sharks, will do a greater
+good, by the saving of human life in all time to come, than though he
+made catechumens of the head-hunting Dyaks of Borneo, or the blood-bibbing Battas of Sumatra. And are these Dyaks and Battas one whit
+better than tiger-sharks? Nay, are they so good? Were a Batta your
+intimate friend, you would often mistake an orang-outang for him; and
+have orang-outangs immortal souls? True, the Battas believe in a
+hereafter; but of what sort? Full of Blue-Beards and bloody bones. So,
+also, the sharks; who hold that Paradise is one vast Pacific, ploughed
+by navies of mortals, whom an endless gale forever drops into their
+maws.
+
+Not wholly a surmise. For, does it not appear a little unreasonable to
+imagine, that there is any creature, fish, flesh, or fowl, so little in
+love with life, as not to cherish hopes of a future state? Why does man
+believe in it? One reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he desires it. Who
+shall say, then, that the leviathan this day harpooned on the coast of
+Japan, goes not straight to his ancestor, who rolled all Jonah, as a
+sweet morsel, under his tongue?
+
+Though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best hold
+themselves in a state of philosophical suspense. Say they--"That
+catastrophe took place in the Mediterranean; and the only whales
+frequenting the Mediterranean, are of a sort having not a swallow large
+enough to pass a man entire; for those Mediterranean whales feed upon
+small things, as horses upon oats." But hence, the sailors draw a rash
+inference. Are not the Straits of Gibralter wide enough to admit a
+sperm-whale, even though none have sailed through, since Nineveh and the
+gourd in its suburbs dried up?
+
+As for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature eighty feet long
+without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist before dinner, is not
+inconsiderately to be consigned to annihilation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCV That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His
+Face
+
+
+"A very good palace, this, coz, for you and me," said waddling old
+Borabolla to Media, as, returned from our excursion, he slowly lowered
+himself down to his mat, sighing like a grampus.
+
+By this, he again made known the vastness of his hospitality, which led
+him for the nonce to parcel out his kingdom with his guests.
+
+But apart from these extravagant expressions of good feeling, Borabolla
+was the prince of good fellows. His great tun of a person was
+indispensable to the housing of his bullock-heart; under which, any lean
+wight would have sunk. But alas! unlike Media and Taji, Borabolla,
+though a crowned king, was accounted no demi-god; his obesity excluding
+him from that honor. Indeed, in some quarters of Mardi, certain pagans
+maintain, that no fat man can be even immortal. A dogma! truly, which
+should be thrown to the dogs. For fat men are the salt and savor of the
+earth; full of good humor, high spirits, fun, and all manner of jollity.
+Their breath clears the atmosphere: their exhalations air the world. Of
+men, they are the good measures; brimmed, heaped, pressed down, piled
+up, and running over. They are as ships from Teneriffe; swimming deep,
+full of old wine, and twenty steps down into their holds. Soft and
+susceptible, all round they are easy of entreaty. Wherefore, for all
+their rotundity, they are too often circumnavigated by hatchet-faced
+knaves. Ah! a fat uncle, with a fat paunch, and a fat purse, is a joy
+and a delight to all nephews; to philosophers, a subject of endless
+speculation, as to how many droves of oxen and Lake Eries of wine might
+have run through his great mill during the full term of his mortal
+career. Fat men not immortal! This very instant, old Lambert is rubbing
+his jolly abdomen in Paradise.
+
+Now, to the fact of his not being rated a demi-god, was perhaps
+ascribable the circumstance, that Borabolla comported himself with less
+dignity, than was the wont of their Mardian majesties. And truth to say,
+to have seen him regaling himself with one of his favorite cuttle-fish,
+its long snaky arms and feelers instinctively twining round his head as
+he ate; few intelligent observers would have opined that the individual
+before them was the sovereign lord of Mondoldo.
+
+But what of the banquet of fish? Shall we tell how the old king
+ungirdled himself thereto; how as the feast waxed toward its close, with
+one sad exception, he still remained sunny-sided all round; his disc of
+a face joyous as the South Side of Madeira in the hilarious season of
+grapes? Shall we tell how we all grew glad and frank; and how the din of
+the dinner was heard far into night?
+
+We will.
+
+When Media ate slowly, Borabolla took him to task, bidding him dispatch
+his viands more speedily.
+
+Whereupon said Media "But Borabolla, my round fellow, that would abridge
+the pleasure."
+
+"Not at all, my dear demi-god; do like me: eat fast and eat long."
+
+In the middle of the feast, a huge skin of wine was brought in. The
+portly peltry of a goat; its horns embattling its effigy head; its mouth
+the nozzle; and its long beard flowed to its jet-black hoofs. With many
+ceremonial salams, the attendants bore it along, placing it at one end
+of the convivial mats, full in front of Borabolla; where seated upon its
+haunches it made one of the party.
+
+Brimming a ram's horn, the mellowest of bugles, Borabolla bowed to his
+silent guest, and thus spoke--"In this wine, which yet smells of the
+grape, I pledge you my reverend old toper, my lord Capricornus; you
+alone have enough; and here's full skins to the rest!"
+
+"How jolly he is," whispered Media to Babbalanja.
+
+"Ay, his lungs laugh loud; but is laughing, rejoicing?"
+
+"Help! help!" cried Borabolla "lay me down! lay me down! good gods, what
+a twinge!"
+
+The goblet fell from his hand; the purple flew from his wine to his
+face; and Borabolla fell back into the arms of his servitors. "That
+gout! that gout!" he groaned. "Lord! lord! no more cursed wine will I
+drink!"
+
+Then at ten paces distant, a clumsy attendant let fall a trencher--"Take
+it off my foot, you knave!"
+
+Afar off another entered gallanting a calabash--"Look out for my toe,
+you hound!"
+
+During all this, the attendants tenderly nursed him. And in good time,
+with its thousand fangs, the gout-fiend departed for a while.
+
+Reprieved, the old king brightened up; by degrees becoming jolly as
+ever.
+
+"Come! let us be merry again," he cried, "what shall we eat? and what
+shall we drink? that infernal gout is gone; come, what will your
+worships have?"
+
+So at it once more we went.
+
+But of our feast, little more remains to be related than this;--that out
+of it, grew a wondrous kindness between Borabolla and Jarl. Strange to
+tell, from the first our fat host had regarded my Viking with a most
+friendly eye. Still stranger to add, this feeling was returned. But
+though they thus fancied each other, they were very unlike; Borabolla
+and Jarl. Nevertheless, thus is it ever. And as the convex fits not into
+the convex, but into the concave; so do men fit into their opposites;
+and so fitted Borabolla's arched paunch into Jarl's, hollowed out to
+receive it.
+
+But how now? Borabolla was jolly and loud: Jarl demure and silent;
+Borabolla a king: Jarl only a Viking;--how came they together? Very
+plain, to repeat:--because they were heterogeneous; and hence the
+affinity. But as the affinity between those chemical opposites chlorine
+and hydrogen, is promoted by caloric; so the affinity between Borabolla
+and Jarl was promoted by the warmth of the wine that they drank at this
+feast. For of all blessed fluids, the juice of the grape is the greatest
+foe to cohesion. True, it tightens the girdle; but then it loosens the
+tongue, and opens the heart.
+
+In sum, Borabolla loved Jarl; and Jarl, pleased with this sociable
+monarch, for all his garrulity, esteemed him the most sensible old
+gentleman and king he had as yet seen in Mardi. For this reason,
+perhaps; that his talkativeness favored that silence in listeners, which
+was my Viking's delight in himself.
+
+Repeatedly during the banquet, our host besought Taji to allow his
+henchman to remain on the island, after the rest of our party should
+depart; and he faithfully promised to surrender Jarl, whenever we should
+return to claim him.
+
+But though I harbored no distrust of Borabolla's friendly intentions, I
+could not so readily consent to his request; for with Jarl for my one
+only companion, had I not both famished and feasted? was he not my only
+link to things past?
+
+Things past!--Ah Yillah! for all its mirth, and though we hunted wide,
+we found thee not in Mondoldo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVI Samoa A Surgeon
+
+
+The second day of our stay in Mondoldo was signalized by a noteworthy
+exhibition of the surgical skill of Samoa; who had often boasted, that
+though well versed in the science of breaking men's heads, he was
+equally an adept in mending their crockery.
+
+Overnight, Borabolla had directed his corps of sea-divers to repair
+early on the morrow, to a noted section of the great Mardian reef, for
+the purpose of procuring for our regalement some of the fine Hawk's-bill
+turtle, whose secret retreats were among the cells and galleries of that
+submerged wall of coral, from whose foamy coping no plummet dropped ever
+yet touched bottom.
+
+These turtles were only to be obtained by diving far down under the
+surface; and then swimming along horizontally, and peering into the
+coral honeycomb; snatching at a flipper when seen, as at a pinion in a
+range of billing dove-cotes.
+
+As the king's divers were thus employed, one of them, Karhownoo by name,
+perceived a Devil-shark, so called, swimming wistfully toward him from
+out his summer grotto in the reef. No way petrified by the sight, and
+pursuing the usual method adopted by these divers in such emergencies,
+Karhownoo, splashing the water, instantly swam toward the stranger. But
+the shark, undaunted, advanced: a thing so unusual, and fearful, that,
+in an agony of fright, the diver shot up for the surface. Heedless, he
+looked not up as he went; and when within a few inches of the open air,
+dashed his head against a projection of the reef. He would have sank
+into the live tomb beneath, were it not that three of his companions,
+standing on the brink, perceived his peril, and dragged him into safety.
+
+Seeing the poor fellow was insensible, they endeavored, ineffectually,
+to revive him; and at last, placing him in their canoe, made all haste
+for the shore. Here a crowd soon gathered, and the diver was borne to a
+habitation, close adjoining Borabolla's; whence, hearing of the
+disaster, we sallied out to render assistance.
+
+Upon entering the hut, the benevolent old king commanded it to be
+cleared; and then proceeded to examine the sufferer.
+
+The skull proved to be very badly fractured; in one place, splintered.
+
+"Let me mend it," said Samoa, with ardor.
+
+And being told of his experience in such matters, Borabolla surrendered
+the patient.
+
+With a gourd of water, and a tappa cloth, the one-armed Upoluan
+carefully washed the wound; and then calling for a sharp splinter of
+bamboo, and a thin, semi-transparent cup of cocoa-nut shell, he went
+about the operation: nothing less than the "Tomoti" (head-mending), in
+other words the trepan.
+
+The patient still continuing insensible, the fragments were disengaged
+by help of a bamboo scalpel; when a piece of the drinking cup--previously dipped in the milk of a cocoanut--was nicely fitted into the
+vacancy, the skin as nicely adjusted over it, and the operation was
+complete.
+
+And now, while all present were crying out in admiration of Samoa's
+artistic skill, and Samoa himself stood complacently regarding his
+workmanship, Babbalanja suggested, that it might be well to ascertain
+whether the patient survived. When, upon sounding his heart, the diver
+was found to be dead.
+
+The bystanders loudly lamented; but declared the surgeon a man of
+marvelous science.
+
+Returning to Borabolla's, much conversation ensued, concerning the sad
+scene we had witnessed, which presently branched into a learned
+discussion upon matters of surgery at large.
+
+At length, Samoa regaled the company with a story; for the truth of
+which no one but him can vouch, for no one but him was by, at the time;
+though there is testimony to show that it involves nothing at variance
+with the customs of certain barbarous tribes.
+
+Read on.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVII Faith And Knowledge
+
+
+A thing incredible is about to be related; but a thing may be incredible
+and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true. And
+many infidels but disbelieve the least incredible things; and many
+bigots reject the most obvious. But let us hold fast to all we have; and
+stop all leaks in our faith; lest an opening, but of a hand's breadth,
+should sink our seventy-fours. The wide Atlantic can rush in at one
+port-hole; and if we surrender a plank, we surrender the fleet.
+Panoplied in all the armor of St. Paul, morion, hauberk, and greaves,
+let us fight the Turks inch by inch, and yield them naught but our
+corpse.
+
+But let us not turn round upon friends, confounding them with foes. For
+dissenters only assent to more than we. Though Milton was a heretic to
+the creed of Athanasius, his faith exceeded that of Athanasius himself;
+and the faith of Athanasius that of Thomas, the disciple, who with his
+own eyes beheld the mark of the nails. Whence it comes that though we be
+all Christians now, the best of us had perhaps been otherwise in the
+days of Thomas.
+
+The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity:
+Gabriel rejects more than we, but out-believes us all. The greatest
+marvels are first truths; and first truths the last unto which we
+attain. Things nearest are furthest off. Though your ear be next-door to
+your brain, it is forever removed from your sight. Man has a more
+comprehensive view of the moon, than the man in the moon himself. We
+know the moon is round; he only infers it. It is because we ourselves
+are in ourselves, that we know ourselves not. And it is only of our easy
+faith, that we are not infidels throughout; and only of our lack of
+faith, that we believe what we do.
+
+In some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers. Do you
+believe that you lived three thousand years ago? That you were at the
+taking of Tyre, were overwhelmed in Gomorrah? No. But for me, I was at
+the subsiding of the Deluge, and helped swab the ground, and build the
+first house. With the Israelites, I fainted in the wilderness; was in
+court, when Solomon outdid all the judges before him. I, it was, who
+suppressed the lost work of Manetho, on the Egyptian theology, as
+containing mysteries not to be revealed to posterity, and things at war
+with the canonical scriptures; I, who originated the conspiracy against
+that purple murderer, Domitian; I, who in the senate moved, that great
+and good Aurelian be emperor. I instigated the abdication of Diocletian,
+and Charles the Fifth; I touched Isabella's heart, that she hearkened to
+Columbus. I am he, that from the king's minions hid the Charter in the
+old oak at Hartford; I harbored Goffe and Whalley: I am the leader of
+the Mohawk masks, who in the Old Commonwealth's harbor, overboard threw
+the East India Company's Souchong; I am the Vailed Persian Prophet; I,
+the man in the iron mask; I, Junius.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVIII The Tale Of A Traveler
+
+
+It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a
+traveler. But stay-at-homes say travelers lie. Yet a voyage to Ethiopia
+would cure them of that; for few skeptics are travelers; fewer travelers
+liars, though the proverb respecting them lies. It is false, as some
+say, that Bruce was cousin-german to Baron Munchausen; but true, as
+Bruce said, that the Abysinnians cut live steaks from their cattle. It
+was, in good part, his villainous transcribers, who made monstrosities
+of Mandeville's travels. And though all liars go to Gehenna; yet,
+assuming that Mandeville died before Dante; still, though Dante took the
+census of Hell, we find not Sir John, under the likeness of a roasted
+neat's tongue, in that infernalest of infernos, The Inferno.
+
+But let not the truth be postponed. To the stand, Samoa, and through
+your interpreter, speak.
+
+Once upon a time, during his endless sea-rovings, the Upoluan was called
+upon to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a desperate
+fight of slings.
+
+Upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as the
+cranium itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being over,
+part of its live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan accomplished
+with cocoanut shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured.
+
+This man died not, but lived. But from being a warrior of great sense
+and spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing many
+of the characteristics of his swinish grafting. He survived the
+operation more than a year; at the end of that period, however, going
+mad, and dying in his delirium.
+
+Stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some
+present. But Babbalanja held out to the last.
+
+"Yet, if this story be true," said he, "and since it is well settled,
+that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why
+human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium
+the contents of a man's. I have long thought, that men, pigs, and
+plants, are but curious physiological experiments; and that science
+would at last enable philosophers to produce new species of beings, by
+somehow mixing, and concocting the essential ingredients of various
+creatures; and so forming new combinations. My friend Atahalpa, the
+astrologer and alchymist, has long had a jar, in which he has been
+endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being compounded according
+to a receipt of his own."
+
+But little they heeded Babbalanja. It was the traveler's tale that most
+arrested attention.
+
+Tough the thews, and tough the tales of Samoa.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIX "Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee"
+
+During the afternoon of the day of the diver's decease, preparations
+were making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying them
+by torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in Odo, so was the
+custom here.
+
+Meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally arrayed,
+beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying--"A man is dead; let
+no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh Oro!--Let no canoes put to sea till
+the burial. This night, oh Oro!--Let no food be cooked."
+
+And ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire;
+with castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang--Be
+merry, oh men of Mondoldo, A maiden this night is to wed: Be merry, oh
+damsels of Mardi,--      Flowers, flowers for the bridal bed.
+
+Informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we
+repaired to the arbor, whither the body had been removed.
+
+Arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed,
+between its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough.
+
+The relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so that
+blood flowed, and spotted their vesture.
+
+Upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the wife
+of the diver, she exclaimed, "Yes; great is the pain, but greater my
+affliction."
+
+Another, the deaf sire of the dead, went staggering about, and groping;
+saying, that he was now quite blind; for some months previous he had
+lost one eye in the death of his eldest son and now the other was gone.
+
+"I am childless," he cried; "henceforth call me Roi Mori," that is,
+Twice-Blind.
+
+While the relatives were thus violently lamenting, the rest of the
+company occasionally scratched themselves with their shells; but very
+slightly, and mostly on the soles of their feet; from long exposure,
+quite callous. This was interrupted, however, when the real mourners
+averted their eyes; though at no time was there any deviation in the
+length of their faces.
+
+But on all sides, lamentations afresh broke forth, upon the appearance
+of a person who had been called in to assist in solemnizing the
+obsequies, and also to console the afflicted.
+
+In rotundity, he was another Borabolla. He puffed and panted.
+
+As he approached the corpse, a sobbing silence ensued; when holding the
+hand of the dead, between his, the stranger thus spoke:--"Mourn not, oh
+friends of Karhownoo, that this your brother lives not. His wounded head
+pains him no more; he would not feel it, did a javelin pierce him. Yea;
+Karhownoo is exempt from all the ills and evils of this miserable
+Mardi!"
+
+Hereupon, the Twice-Blind, who being deaf, heard not what was said, tore
+his gray hair, and cried, "Alas! alas! my boy; thou wert the merriest
+man in Mardi, and now thy pranks are over!"
+
+But the other proceeded--"Mourn not, I say, oh friends of Karhownoo; the
+dead whom ye deplore is happier than the living; is not his spirit in
+the aerial isles?"
+
+"True! true!" responded the raving wife, mingling her blood with her
+tears, "my own poor hapless Karhownoo is thrice happy in Paradise!" And
+anew she wailed, and lacerated her cheeks.
+
+"Rave not, I say."
+
+But she only raved the more.
+
+And now the good stranger departed; saying, he must hie to a wedding,
+waiting his presence in an arbor adjoining.
+
+Understanding that the removal of the body would not take place till
+midnight, we thought to behold the mode of marrying in Mondoldo.
+
+Drawing near the place, we were greeted by merry voices, and much
+singing, which greatly increased when the good stranger was perceived.
+
+Gayly arrayed in fine robes, with plumes on their heads, the bride and
+groom stood in the middle of a joyous throng, in readiness for the
+nuptial bond to be tied.
+
+Standing before them, the stranger was given a cord, so bedecked with
+flowers, as to disguise its stout fibers; and taking: the bride's hands,
+he bound them together to a ritual chant; about her neck, in festoons,
+disposing the flowery ends of the cord. Then turning to the groom, he
+was given another, also beflowered; but attached thereto was a great
+stone, very much carved, and stained; indeed, so every way disguised,
+that a person not knowing what it was, and lifting it, would be greatly
+amazed at its weight. This cord being attached to the waist of the
+groom, he leaned over toward the bride, by reason of the burden of the
+drop.
+
+All present now united in a chant, and danced about the happy pair, who
+meanwhile looked ill at ease; the one being so bound by the hands, and
+the other solely weighed down by his stone.
+
+A pause ensuing, the good stranger, turning them back to back, thus
+spoke:--"By thy flowery gyves, oh bride, I make thee a wife; and by thy
+burdensome stone, oh groom, I make thee a husband. Live and be happy,
+both; for the wise and good Oro hath placed us in Mardi to be glad. Doth
+not all nature rejoice in her green groves and her flowers? and woo and
+wed not the fowls of the air, trilling their bliss in their bowers? Live
+then, and be happy, oh bride and groom; for Oro is offended with the
+unhappy, since he meant them to be gay."
+
+And the ceremony ended with a joyful feast.
+
+But not all nuptials in Mardi were like these. Others were wedded with
+different rites; without the stone and flowery gyves. These were they
+who plighted their troth with tears not smiles, and made responses in
+the heart.
+
+Returning from the house of the merry to the house of the mournful, we
+lingered till midnight to witness the issuing forth of the body.
+
+By torch light, numerous canoes, with paddlers standing by, were drawn
+up on the beach, to accommodate those who purposed following the poor
+diver to his home.
+
+The remains embarked, some confusion ensued concerning the occupancy of
+the rest of the shallops. At last the procession glided off, our party
+included. Two by two, forming a long line of torches trailing round the
+isle, the canoes all headed toward the opening in the reef.
+
+For a time, a decorous silence was preserved; but presently, some
+whispering was heard; perhaps melancholy discoursing touching the close
+of the diver's career. But we were shocked to discover, that poor
+Karhownoo was not much in their thoughts; they were conversing about the
+next bread-fruit harvest, and the recent arrival of King Media and party
+at Mondoldo. From far in advance, however, were heard the lamentations
+of the true mourners, the relatives of the diver.
+
+Passing the reef, and sailing a little distance therefrom, the canoes
+were disposed in a circle; the one bearing the corpse in the center.
+Certain ceremonies over, the body was committed to the waves; the white
+foam lighting up the last, long plunge of the diver, to see sights more
+strange than ever he saw in the brooding cells of the Turtle Reef.
+
+And now, while in the still midnight, all present were gazing down into
+the ocean, watching the white wake of the corpse, ever and anon
+illuminated by sparkles, an unknown voice was heard, and all started and
+vacantly stared, as this wild song was sung:--We drop our dead in the
+sea, The bottomless, bottomless sea; Each bubble a hollow sigh, As it
+sinks forever and aye.
+
+We drop our dead in the sea,--      The dead reek not of aught; We drop
+our dead in the sea,--      The sea ne'er gives it a thought.
+
+Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink, Far down in the bottomless sea, Where
+the unknown forms do prowl, Down, down in the bottomless sea.
+
+'Tis night above, and night all round, And night will it be with thee;
+As thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye, Deeper down in the bottomless sea.
+
+The mysterious voice died away; no sign of the corpse was now seen; and
+mute with amaze, the company long listed to the low moan of the billows
+and the sad sough of the breeze.
+
+At last, without speaking, the obsequies were concluded by sliding into
+the ocean a carved tablet of Palmetto, to mark the place of the burial.
+But a wave-crest received it, and fast it floated away.
+
+Returning to the isle, long silence prevailed. But at length, as if the
+scene in which they had just taken part, afresh reminded them of the
+mournful event which had called them together, the company again
+recurred to it; some present, sadly and incidentally alluding to
+Borabolla's banquet of turtle, thereby postponed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER C The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
+
+
+Next morning, when much to the chagrin of Borabolla we were preparing to
+quit his isle, came tidings to the palace, of a wonderful event,
+occurring in one of the "Motoos," or little islets of the great reef;
+which "Motoo" was included in the dominions of the king.
+
+The men who brought these tidings were highly excited; and no sooner did
+they make known what they knew, than all Mondoldo was in a tumult of
+marveling.
+
+Their story was this.
+
+Going at day break to the Motoo to fish, they perceived a strange proa
+beached on its seaward shore; and presently were hailed by voices; and
+saw among the palm trees, three specter-like men, who were not of Mardi.
+
+The first amazement of the fishermen over, in reply to their eager
+questions, the strangers related, that they were the survivors of a
+company of men, natives of some unknown island to the northeast; whence
+they had embarked for another country, distant three days' sail to the
+southward of theirs. But falling in with a terrible adventure, in which
+their sire had been slain, they altered their course to pursue the
+fugitive who murdered him; one and all vowing, never more to see home,
+until their father's fate was avenged. The murderer's proa outsailing
+theirs, soon ran out of sight; yet after him they blindly steered by day
+and by night: steering by the blood-red star in Bootes. Soon, a violent
+gale overtook them; driving them to and fro; leaving them they knew not
+where. But still struggling against strange currents, at times
+counteracting their sailing, they drifted on their way; nigh to
+famishing for water; and no shore in sight. In long calms, in vain they
+held up their dry gourds to heaven, and cried "send us a breeze, sweet
+gods!" The calm still brooded; and ere it was gone, all but three
+gasped; and dead from thirst, were plunged into the sea. The breeze
+which followed the calm, soon brought them in sight of a low,
+uninhabited isle; where tarrying many days, they laid in good store of
+cocoanuts and water, and again embarked.
+
+The next land they saw was Mardi; and they landed on the Motoo, still
+intent on revenge.
+
+This recital filled Taji with horror.
+
+Who could these avengers be, but the sons of him I had slain. I had
+thought them far hence, and myself forgotten; and now, like adders, they
+started up in my path, as I hunted for Yillah.
+
+But I dissembled my thoughts.
+
+Without waiting to hear more, Borabolla, all curiosity to behold the
+strangers, instantly dispatched to the Motoo one of his fleetest canoes,
+with orders to return with the voyagers.
+
+Ere long they came in sight; and perceiving that strange pros in tow of
+the king's, Samoa cried out: "Lo! Taji, the canoe that was going to
+Tedaidee!"
+
+Too true; the same double-keeled craft, now sorely broken, the fatal
+dais in wild disarray: the canoe, the canoe of Aleema! And with it came
+the spearmen three, who, when the Chamois was fleeing from their bow,
+had poised their javelins. But so wan their aspect now, their faces
+looked like skulls.
+
+Then came over me the wild dream of Yillah; and, for a space, like a
+madman, I raved. It seemed as if the mysterious damsel must still be
+there; the rescue yet to be achieved. In my delirium I rushed upon the
+skeletons, as they landed--"Hide not the maiden!" But interposing, Media
+led me aside; when my transports abated.
+
+Now, instantly, the strangers knew who I was; and, brandishing their
+javelins, they rushed upon me, as I had on them, with a yell. But
+deeming us all mad, the crowd held us apart; when, writhing in the arms
+that restrained them, the pale specters foamed out their curses again
+and again: "Oh murderer! white curses upon thee! Bleached be thy soul
+with our hate! Living, our brethren cursed thee; and dying, dry-lipped,
+they cursed thee again. They died not through famishing for water, but
+for revenge upon thee! Thy blood, their thirst would have slaked!"
+
+I lay fainting against the hard-throbbing heart of Samoa, while they
+showered their yells through the air. Once more, in my thoughts, the
+green corpse of the priest drifted by.
+
+Among the people of Mondoldo, a violent commotion now raged. They were
+amazed at Taji's recognition by the strangers, and at the deadly
+ferocity they betrayed.
+
+Rallying upon this, and perceiving that by divulging all they knew,
+these sons of Aleema might stir up the Islanders against me, I resolved
+to anticipate their story; and, turning to Borabolla, said--"In these
+strangers, oh, king! you behold the survivors of a band we encountered
+on our voyage. From them I rescued a maiden, called Yillah, whom they
+were carrying captive. Little more of their history do I know."
+
+"Their maledictions?" exclaimed Borabolla.
+
+"Are they not delirious with suffering?" I cried. "They know not what
+they say."
+
+So, moved by all this, he commanded them to be guarded, and conducted
+within his palisade; and having supplied them with cheer, entered into
+earnest discourse. Yet all the while, the pale strangers on me fixed
+their eyes; deep, dry, crater-like hollows, lurid with flames, reflected
+from the fear-frozen glacier, my soul.
+
+But though their hatred appalled, spite of that spell, again the sweet
+dream of Yillah stole over me, with all the mysterious things by her
+narrated, but left unexplained. And now, before me were those who might
+reveal the lost maiden's whole history, previous to the fatal affray.
+
+Thus impelled, I besought them to disclose what they knew.
+
+But, "Where now is your Yillah?" they cried. "Is the murderer wedded and
+merry? Bring forth the maiden!"
+
+Yet, though they tore out my heart's core, I told them not of my loss.
+
+Then, anxious, to learn the history of Yillah, all present commanded
+them to divulge it; and breathlessly I heard what follows.
+
+"Of Yillah, we know only this:--that many moons ago, a mighty canoe,
+full of beings, white, like this murderer Taji, touched at our island of
+Amma. Received with wonder, they were worshiped as gods; were feasted
+all over the land. Their chief was a tower to behold; and with him, was
+a being, whose cheeks were of the color of the red coral; her eye,
+tender as the blue of the sky. Every day our people brought her
+offerings of fruit and flowers; which last she would not retain for
+herself; but hung them round the neck of her child, Yillah; then only an
+infant in her mother's arms; a bud, nestling close to a flower, full-blown. All went well between our people and the gods, till at last they
+slew three of our countrymen, charged with stealing from their great
+canoe. Our warriors retired to the hills, brooding over revenge. Three
+days went by; when by night, descending to the plain, in silence they
+embarked; gained the great vessel, and slaughtered every soul but
+Yillah. The bud was torn from the flower; and, by our father Aleema, was
+carried to the Valley of Ardair; there set apart as a sacred offering
+for Apo, our deity. Many moons passed; and there arose a tumult, hostile
+to our sire's longer holding custody of Yillah; when, foreseeing that
+the holy glen would ere long be burst open, he embarked the maiden in
+yonder canoe, to accelerate her sacrifice at the great shrine of Apo, in
+Tedaidee.--The rest thou knowest, murderer!"
+
+"Yillah! Yillah!" now hunted again that sound through my soul. "Oh,
+Yillah! too late, too late have I learned what thou art!"
+
+Apprised of the disappearance of their former captive, the meager
+strangers exulted; declaring that Apo had taken her to himself. For me,
+ere long, my blood they would quaff from my skull.
+
+But though I shrunk from their horrible threats, I dissembled anew; and
+turning, again swore that they raved.
+
+"Ay!" they retorted, "we rave and raven for you; and your white heart
+will we have!"
+
+Perceiving the violence of their rage, and persuaded from what I said,
+that much suffering at sea must have maddened them; Borabolla thought
+fit to confine them for the present; so that they could not molest me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CI The Iris
+
+
+That evening, in the groves, came to me three gliding forms:--Hautia's
+heralds: the Iris mixed with nettles. Said Yoomy, "A cruel message!"
+
+With the right hand, the second syren presented glossy, green wax-myrtle
+berries, those that burn like tapers; the third, a lily of the valley,
+crushed in its own broad leaf.
+
+This done, they earnestly eyed Yoomy; who, after much pondering, said--"I speak for Hautia; who by these berries says, I will enlighten you."
+
+"Oh, give me then that light! say, where is Yillah?" and I rushed upon
+the heralds.
+
+But eluding me, they looked reproachfully at Yoomy; and seemed offended.
+
+"Then, I am wrong," said Yoomy. "It is thus:--Taji, you have been
+enlightened, but the lily you seek is crushed."
+
+Then fell my heart, and the phantoms nodded; flinging upon me
+bilberries, like rose pearls, which bruised against my skin, left
+stains.
+
+Waving oleanders, they retreated.
+
+"Harm! treachery! beware!" cried Yoomy.
+
+Then they glided through the wood: one showering dead leaves along the
+path I trod, the others gayly waving bunches of spring-crocuses, yellow,
+white, and purple; and thus they vanished.
+
+Said Yoomy, "Sad your path, but merry Hautia's."
+
+"Then merry may she be, whoe'er she is; and though woe be mine, I turn
+not from that to Hautia; nor ever will I woo her, though she woo me till
+I die;--though Yillah never bless my eyes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CII They Depart From Mondoldo
+
+
+Night passed; and next morning we made preparations for leaving Mondoldo
+that day.
+
+But fearing anew, lest after our departure, the men of Amma might stir
+up against me the people of the isle, I determined to yield to the
+earnest solicitations of Borabolla, and leave Jarl behind, for a
+remembrance of Taji; if necessary, to vindicate his name. Apprised
+hereof, my follower was loth to acquiesce. His guiltless spirit feared
+not the strangers: less selfish considerations prevailed. He was willing
+to remain on the island for a time, but not without me. Yet, setting
+forth my reasons; and assuring him, that our tour would not be long in
+completing, when we would not fail to return, previous to sailing for
+Odo, he at last, but reluctantly, assented.
+
+At Mondoldo, we also parted with Samoa. Whether it was, that he feared
+the avengers, whom he may have thought would follow on my track; or
+whether the islands of Mardi answered not in attractiveness to the
+picture his fancy had painted; or whether the restraint put upon him by
+the domineering presence of King Media, was too irksome withal; or
+whether, indeed, he relished not those disquisitions with which
+Babbalanja regaled us: however it may have been, certain it was, that
+Samoa was impatient of the voyage. He besought permission to return to
+Odo, there to await my return; and a canoe of Mondoldo being about to
+proceed in that direction, permission was granted; and departing for the
+other side of the island, from thence he embarked.
+
+Long after, dark tidings came, that at early dawn he had been found dead
+in the canoe: three arrows in his side.
+
+Yoomy was at a loss to account for the departure of Samoa; who, while
+ashore, had expressed much desire to roam.
+
+Media, however, declared that he must be returning to some inamorata.
+
+But Babbalanja averred, that the Upoluan was not the first man, who had
+turned back, after beginning a voyage like our own.
+
+To this, after musing, Yoomy assented. Indeed, I had noticed, that
+already the Warbler had abated those sanguine assurances of success,
+with which he had departed from Odo. The futility of our search thus
+far, seemed ominous to him, of the end.
+
+On the eve of embarking, we were accompanied to the beach by Borabolla;
+who, with his own hand, suspended from the shark's mouth of Media's
+canoe, three red-ripe bunches of plantains, a farewell gift to his
+guests.
+
+Though he spoke not a word, Jarl was long in taking leave. His eyes
+seemed to say, I will see you no more.
+
+At length we pushed from the strand; Borabolla waving his adieus with a
+green leaf of banana; our comrade ruefully eyeing the receding canoes;
+and the multitude loudly invoking for us a prosperous voyage.
+
+But to my horror, there suddenly dashed through the crowd, the three
+specter sons of Aleema, escaped from their prison. With clenched hands,
+they stood in the water, and cursed me anew. And with that curse in our
+sails, we swept off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CIII As They Sail
+
+
+As the canoes now glided across the lagoon, I gave myself up to reverie;
+and revolving over all that the men of Amma had rehearsed of the history
+of Yillah, I one by one unriddled the mysteries, before so baffling.
+Now, all was made plain: no secret remaining, but the subsequent event
+of her disappearance. Yes, Hautia! enlightened I had been but where was
+Yillah?
+
+Then I recalled that last interview with Hautia's messengers, so full of
+enigmas; and wondered, whether Yoomy had interpreted aright. Unseen, and
+unsolicited; still pursuing me with omens, with taunts, and with
+wooings, mysterious Hautia appalled me. Vaguely I began to fear her. And
+the thought, that perhaps again and again, her heralds would haunt me,
+filled me with a nameless dread, which I almost shrank from
+acknowledging. Inwardly I prayed, that never more they might appear.
+
+While full of these thoughts, Media interrupted them by saying, that the
+minstrel was about to begin one of his chants, a thing of his own
+composing; and therefore, as he himself said, all critics must be
+lenient; for Yoomy, at times, not always, was a timid youth, distrustful
+of his own sweet genius for poesy.
+
+The words were about a curious hereafter, believed in by some people in
+Mardi: a sort of nocturnal Paradise, where the sun and its heat are
+excluded: one long, lunar day, with twinkling stars to keep company.
+
+THE SONG Far off in the sea is Marlena, A land of shades and streams, A
+land of many delights. Dark and bold, thy shores, Marlena; But green,
+and timorous, thy soft knolls, Crouching behind the woodlands. All shady
+thy hills; all gleaming thy springs, Like eyes in the earth looking at
+you. How charming thy haunts Marlena!--    Oh, the waters that flow
+through Onimoo: Oh, the leaves that rustle through Ponoo: Oh, the roses
+that blossom in Tarma: Come, and see the valley of Vina: How sweet, how
+sweet, the Isles from Hind: 'Tis aye afternoon of the full, full moon,
+And ever the season of fruit, And ever the hour of flowers, And never
+the time of rains and gales, All in and about Marlena. Soft sigh the
+boughs in the stilly air, Soft lap the beach the billows there; And in
+the woods or by the streams, You needs must nod in the Land of Dreams.
+
+"Yoomy," said old Mohi with a yawn, "you composed that song, then, did
+you?"
+
+"I did," said Yoomy, placing his turban a little to one side.
+
+"Then, minstrel, you shall sing me to sleep every night, especially with
+that song of Marlena; it is soporific as the airs of Nora-Bamma."
+
+"Mean you, old man, that my lines, setting forth the luxurious repose to
+be enjoyed hereafter, are composed with such skill, that the description
+begets the reality; or would you ironically suggest, that the song is a
+sleepy thing itself?"
+
+"An important discrimination," said Media; "which mean you, Mohi?"
+
+"Now, are you not a silly boy," said Babbalanja, "when from the
+ambiguity of his speech, you could so easily have derived something
+flattering, thus to seek to extract unpleasantness from it? Be wise,
+Yoomy; and hereafter, whenever a remark like that seems equivocal, be
+sure to wrest commendation from it, though you torture it to the quick."
+
+"And most sure am I, that I would ever do so; but often I so incline to
+a distrust of my powers, that I am far more keenly alive to censure,
+than to praise; and always deem it the more sincere of the two; and no
+praise so much elates me, as censure depresses."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CIV Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And, In His
+Own Person, Proves It
+
+
+"A truce!" cried Media, "here comes a gallant before the wind.--Look,
+Taji!"
+
+Turning, we descried a sharp-prowed canoe, dashing on, under the
+pressure of an immense triangular sail, whose outer edges were streaming
+with long, crimson pennons. Flying before it, were several small craft,
+belonging to the poorer sort of Islanders.
+
+"Out of his way there, ye laggards," cried Media, "or that mad prince,
+Tribonnora, will ride over ye with a rush!"
+
+"And who is Tribonnora," said Babbalanja, "that he thus bravely diverts
+himself, running down innocent paddlers?"
+
+"A harum-scarum young chief," replied Media, "heir to three islands; he
+likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at."
+
+"He must be possessed by a devil," said Mohi.
+
+Said Babbalanja, "Then he is only like all of us." "What say you?" cried
+Media.
+
+"I say, as old Bardianna in the Nine hundred and ninety ninth book of
+his immortal Ponderings saith, that all men--"
+
+"As I live, my lord, he has swamped three canoes," cried Mohi, pointing
+off the beam.
+
+But just then a fiery fin-back whale, having broken into the paddock of
+the lagoon, threw up a high fountain of foam, almost under Tribonnora's
+nose; who, quickly turning about his canoe, cur-like slunk off; his
+steering-paddle between his legs.
+
+Comments over; "Babbalanja, you were going to quote," said Media.
+"Proceed."
+
+"Thank you, my lord. Says old Bardianna, 'All men are possessed by
+devils; but as these devils are sent into men, and kept in them, for an
+additional punishment; not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in a
+bridewell; so, it may be more just to say, that the devils themselves
+are possessed by men, not men by them.'"
+
+"Faith!" cried Media, "though sometimes a bore, your old Bardianna is a
+trump."
+
+"I have long been of that mind, my lord. But let me go on. Says
+Bardianna, 'Devils are divers;--strong devils, and weak devils; knowing
+devils, and silly devils; mad devils, and mild devils; devils, merely
+devils; devils, themselves bedeviled; devils, doubly bedeviled."
+
+"And in the devil's name, what sort of a devil is yours?" cried Mohi.
+
+"Of him anon; interrupt me not, old man. Thus, then, my lord, as devils
+are divers, divers are the devils in men. Whence, the wide difference we
+see. But after all, the main difference is this:--that one man's devil
+is only more of a devil than another's; and be bedeviled as much as you
+will; yet, may you perform the most bedeviled of actions with impunity,
+so long as you only bedevil yourself. For it is only when your deviltry
+injures another, that the other devils conspire to confine yours for a
+mad one. That is to say, if you be easily handled. For there are many
+bedeviled Bedlamites in Mardi, doing an infinity of mischief, who are
+too brawny in the arms to be tied."
+
+"A very devilish doctrine that," cried Mohi. "I don't believe it."
+
+"My lord," said Babbalanja, "here's collateral proof;--the sage lawgiver
+Yamjamma, who flourished long before Bardianna, roundly asserts, that
+all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good is happiness;
+happiness the object of living; and evil is not good."
+
+"If the sage Yamjamma said that," said old Mohi, "the sage Yamjamma
+might have bettered the saying; it's not quite so plain as it might be."
+
+"Yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended by
+mortals. Like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings. But old Bardianna
+was of another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to the point
+like a javelin; especially when he laid it down for a universal maxim,
+that minus exceptions, all men are bedeviled."
+
+"Of course, then," said Media, "you include yourself among the number."
+
+"Most assuredly; and so did old Bardianna; who somewhere says, that
+being thoroughly bedeviled himself, he was so much the better qualified
+to discourse upon the deviltries of his neighbors. But in another place
+he seems to contradict himself, by asserting, that he is not so sensible
+of his own deviltry as of other people's."
+
+"Hold!" cried Media, "who have we here?" and he pointed ahead of our
+prow to three men in the water, urging themselves along, each with a
+paddle.
+
+We made haste to overtake them.
+
+"Who are you?" said Media, "where from, and where bound?"
+
+"From Variora," they answered, "and bound to Mondoldo." "And did that
+devil Tribonnora swamp your canoe?" asked Media, offering to help them
+into ours.
+
+"We had no such useless incumbrance to lose," they replied, resting on
+their backs, and panting with their exertions. "If we had had a canoe,
+we would have had to paddle it along with us; whereas we have only our
+bodies to paddle."
+
+"You are a parcel of loons," exclaimed Media. "But go your ways, if you
+are satisfied with your locomotion, well and good."
+
+"Now, it is an extreme case, I grant," said Babbalanja, "but those poor
+devils there, help to establish old Bardianna's position. They belong to
+that species of our bedeviled race, called simpletons; but their devils
+harming none but themselves, are permitted to be at large with the fish.
+Whereas, Tribonnora's devil, who daily runs down canoes, drowning their
+occupants, belongs to the species of out and out devils; but being high
+in station, and strongly backed by kith and kin, Tribonnora can not be
+mastered, and put in a strait jacket. For myself, I think my devil is
+some where between these two extremes; at any rate, he belongs to that
+class of devils who harm not other devils."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," retorted Media. "Methinks this doctrine of
+yours, about all mankind being bedeviled, will work a deal of mischief;
+seeing that by implication it absolves you mortals from moral
+accountability. Further-more; as your doctrine is exceedingly evil, by
+Yamjamma's theory it follows, that you must be proportionably bedeviled;
+and since it harms others, your devil is of the number of those whom it
+is best to limbo; and since he is one of those that can be limboed,
+limboed he shall be in you."
+
+And so saying, he humorously commanded his attendants to lay hands upon
+the bedeviled philosopher, and place a bandage upon his mouth, that he
+might no more disseminate his devilish doctrine.
+
+Against this, Babbalanja demurred, protesting that he was no orang-outang, to be so rudely handled.
+
+"Better and better," said Media, "you but illustrate Bardianna's theory;
+that men are not sensible of their being bedeviled."
+
+Thus tantalized, Babbalanja displayed few signs of philosophy.
+
+Whereupon, said Media, "Assuredly his devil is foaming; behold his
+mouth!" And he commanded him to be bound hand and foot.
+
+At length, seeing all resistance ineffectual, Babbalanja submitted; but
+not without many objurgations.
+
+Presently, however, they released him; when Media inquired, how he
+relished the application of his theory; and whether he was still' of old
+Bardianna's mind?
+
+To which, haughtily adjusting his robe, Babbalanja replied, "The strong
+arm, my lord, is no argument, though it overcomes all logic."
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol.
+I (of 2), by Herman Melville
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER, ***
+
+***** This file should be named 13720.txt or 13720.zip ***** This and
+all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/7/2/13720/
+
+Produced by Geoff Palmer
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
+renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one
+owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and
+you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission
+and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth in the
+General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
+distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the
+PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project Gutenberg is a
+registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks,
+unless you receive specific permission.  If you do not charge anything
+for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy.  You
+may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative
+works, reports, performances and research.  They may be modified and
+printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING with public
+domain eBooks.  Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
+especially commercial redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU
+DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
+any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works
+in the collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you
+from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating
+derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project
+Gutenberg are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the
+Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic
+works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with
+the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name
+associated with the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this
+agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with
+others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to
+the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of
+obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form.  Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the
+use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method you
+already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is owed to the
+owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has agreed to donate
+royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation.  Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each
+date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
+periodic tax returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such
+and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to the
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you
+in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not
+agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License.  You must
+require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
+possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access
+to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth
+in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the
+owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the Foundation as
+set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm collection.
+Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, and the
+medium on which they may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but
+not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription
+errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a
+defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees.
+YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY,
+BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN
+PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND
+ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
+ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES
+EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will remain
+freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. To
+learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and
+how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
+Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state
+of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue
+Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification number is
+64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official page
+at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information: Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive
+and Director gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
+number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely
+distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of
+equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations ($1 to
+$5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with
+the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations where
+we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
+visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
+statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside
+the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other ways
+including including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. unless
+a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks
+in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, including
+how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to
+our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/old/13720.zip b/old/old/13720.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..161cdf8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/13720.zip
diff --git a/old/old/20041014-13720.txt b/old/old/20041014-13720.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c74e195
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/20041014-13720.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11838 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2)
+by Herman Melville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2)
+
+Author: Herman Melville
+
+Release Date: October 12, 2004 [EBook #13720]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER, ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geoff Palmer
+
+
+
+
+MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER
+
+BY HERMAN MELVILLE
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES
+
+VOL. I
+
+
+1864
+
+
+DEDICATED TO My Brother, ALLAN MELVILLE.
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the
+Pacific, which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity,
+the thought occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian
+adventure, and publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction
+might not, possibly, be received for a verity: in some degree the
+reverse of my previous experience.
+
+This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in Mardi.
+New York, January, 1849.
+
+
+
+
+MARDI.
+
+CONTENTS
+VOL. I
+
+CHAPTER
+  1. Foot in Stirrup
+  2. A Calm
+  3. A King for a Comrade
+  4. A Chat in the Clouds
+  5. Seats secured and Portmanteaus packed
+  6. Eight Bells
+  7. A Pause
+  8. They push off, Velis et Bemis
+  9. The Watery World is all before Them
+ 10. They arrange their Canopies and Lounges, and try to make Things
+       comfortable
+ 11. Jarl afflicted with the Lockjaw
+ 12. More about being in an open Boat
+ 13. Of the Chondropterygii, and other uncouth Hordes infesting the
+       South Seas
+ 14. Jarl's Misgivings
+ 15. A Stitch in time saves Nine
+ 16. They are Becalmed
+ 17. In high Spirits they push on for the Terra Incognita
+ 18. My Lord Shark and his Pages
+ 19. Who goes there?
+ 20. Noises and Portents
+ 21. Man ho!
+ 22. What befel the Brigantine at the Pearl Shell Islands
+ 23. Sailing from the Island they pillage the Cabin
+ 24. Dedicated to the College of Physicians and Surgeons
+ 25. Peril a Peace-maker
+ 26. Containing a Pennyweight of Philosophy
+ 27. In which the past History of the Parki is concluded
+ 28. Suspicions laid, and something about the Calmuc
+ 29. What they lighted upon in further searching the Craft, and the
+       Resolution they came to
+ 30. Hints for a full length of Samoa
+ 31. Rovings Alow and Aloft
+ 32. Xiphius Platypterus
+ 33. Otard
+ 34. How they steered on their Way
+ 35. Ah, Annatoo!
+ 36. The Parki gives up the Ghost
+ 37. Once more they take to the Chamois
+ 38. The Sea on Fire
+ 39. They fall in with Strangers
+ 40. Sire and Sons
+ 41. A Fray
+ 42. Remorse
+ 43. The Tent entered
+ 44. Away!
+ 45. Reminiscences
+ 46. The Chamois with a roving Commission
+ 47. Yillah, Jarl, and Samoa
+ 48. Something under the Surface
+ 49. Yillah
+ 50. Yillah in Ardair
+ 51. The Dream begins to fade
+ 52. World ho!
+ 53. The Chamois Ashore
+ 54. A Gentleman from the Sun
+ 55. Tiffin in a Temple
+ 56. King Media a Host
+ 57. Taji takes Counsel with himself
+ 58. Mardi by Night and Yillah by Day
+ 59. Their Morning Meal
+ 60. Belshazzar on the Bench
+ 61. An Incognito
+ 62. Taji retires from the World
+ 63. Odo and its Lord
+ 64. Yillah a Phantom
+ 65. Taji makes three Acquaintances
+ 66. With a fair Wind at Sunrise they sail
+ 67. Little King Peepi
+ 68. How Teeth were regarded in Valapee
+ 69. The Company discourse, and Braid-Beard rehearses a Legend
+ 70. The Minstrel leads of with a Paddle-Song; and a Message is received
+       from Abroad
+ 71. They land upon the Island of Juam
+ 72. A Book from the Chronicles of Mohi
+ 73. Something more of the Prince
+ 74. Advancing deeper into the Vale, they encounter Donjalolo
+ 75. Time and Temples
+ 76. A pleasant Place for a Lounge
+ 77. The House of the Afternoon
+ 78. Babbalanja solus
+ 79. The Center of many Circumferences
+ 80. Donjalolo in the Bosom of his Family
+ 81. Wherein Babbalanja relates the Adventure of one Karkeke in the Land
+       of Shades
+ 82. How Donjalolo, sent Agents to the surrounding Isles; with the Result
+ 83. They visit the Tributary Islets
+ 84. Taji sits down to Dinner with five-and-twenty Kings, and a royal Time
+       they have
+ 85. After Dinner
+ 86. Of those Scamps the Plujii
+ 87. Nora-Bamma
+ 88. In a Calm, Hautia's Heralds approach
+ 89. Braid-Beard rehearses the Origin of the Isle of Rogues
+ 90. Rare Sport at Ohonoo
+ 91. Of King Uhia and his Subjects
+ 92. The God Keevi and the Precipice of Mondo
+ 93. Babbalanja steps in between Mohi and Yoomy; and Yoomy relates a
+      Legend
+ 94. Of that jolly old Lord, Borabolla; and that jolly Island of his,
+       Mondoldo; and of the Fish-ponds, and the Hereafters of Fish
+ 95. That jolly old Lord Borabolla laughs on both Sides of his Face
+ 96. Samoa a Surgeon
+ 97. Faith and Knowledge
+ 98. The Tale of a Traveler
+ 99. "Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee."
+100. The Pursuer himself is pursued
+101. The Iris
+102. They depart from Mondoldo
+103. As they sail
+104. Wherein Babbalanja broaches a diabolical Theory, and in his own
+       Person proves it
+
+
+
+MARDI
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+Foot In Stirrup
+
+
+We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor
+swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the
+breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out
+spreads the canvas--alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with
+many a stun' sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow
+the sea with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.
+
+But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
+
+We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from
+the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn's
+island, where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had
+stepped ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a
+cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
+
+And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the
+Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies
+there met.
+
+Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the
+Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or
+sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds.
+
+But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the
+sea-gull, straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of
+the trade winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of
+Ravavai are fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles
+or so. First, in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste
+to the south; and there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they
+stand for the main: then, making their easting, up helm, and away
+down the coast, toward the Line.
+
+This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a
+weary one it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous;
+thank fate, never since.
+
+But bravo! in two weeks' time, an event. Out of the gray of the
+morning, and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out
+of the sea; standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling
+aloft, and creamy breakers frothing round its base.--We turned aside,
+and, at length, when day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass,
+we spied two or three hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a
+ravine; and presently, a signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond.
+Well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or
+three noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no
+mind to comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may
+have erred in not sending a boat off with his card.
+
+A few days more and we "took the trades." Like favors snappishly
+conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp
+squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our
+fat old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to
+leeward.
+
+In good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few
+leagues west of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing
+across the Line, to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey. For
+some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in
+Peru, run in veins through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and
+week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal
+intersection of the self-same Line; till we were almost ready to
+swear that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed
+that imaginary locality.
+
+At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way
+straight along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right,
+and peering left, but seeing naught.
+
+It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms
+of that bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately
+led to the adventures herein recounted.
+
+But hold you! Not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew.
+The sailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had
+shipped at the islands included. Nevertheless, they were not
+precisely to my mind. There was no soul a magnet to mine; none with
+whom to mingle sympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we
+were now and then overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came.
+Under other and livelier auspices the tarry knaves might have
+developed qualities more attractive. Had we sprung a leak, been
+"stove" by a whale, or been blessed with some despot of a captain
+against whom to stir up some spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine
+might have proved limber lads, and men of mettle. But as it was,
+there was naught to strike fire from their steel.
+
+There were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board
+very hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood
+upon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me
+do him justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in
+particular; was sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand
+at the helm. But what of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy?
+Not a bit. His library was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and
+Hamilton Moore.
+
+And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a
+quotation from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were
+flat repetitions of long-drawn yams, and the everlasting stanzas
+of Black-eyed Susan sung by our full forecastle choir? Staler
+than stale ale.
+
+Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly
+dull. Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have
+borne; but in every other respect. The days went slowly round and
+round, endless and uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time-
+pieces; How many centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it
+swung to the ship's dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred
+forever be the Areturion's fore-hatch--alas! sea-moss is over it
+now--and rusty forever the bolts that held together that old sea
+hearth-stone, about which we so often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost
+and leaden hours, I will rail at ye while life lasts.
+
+Well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel's stories
+were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed
+into each other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad's songs were
+sung till the echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts
+of the sails. My poor patience was clean gone.
+
+But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line
+in high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.
+
+But whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of sun-
+strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far
+worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory
+concerning the damned and the comets;--hurried from equinoctial heats
+to arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe,
+our skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation,
+he was bent upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor'-West Coast
+and in the Bay of Kamschatska.
+
+To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this
+juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say:
+that Right whaling on the Nor'-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs,
+the sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like Hartz forest
+logs on the Rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned
+bullocks to the knife; this horrid and indecent Right whaling,
+I say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly Cachalot in
+southern and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon
+blank Greenland icebergs to zebra hunting in Caffraria, where the
+lively quarry bounds before you through leafy glades.
+
+Now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to
+measure the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit
+contravention of the agreement between us. That agreement needs not
+to be detailed. And having shipped but for a single cruise, I had
+embarked aboard his craft as one might put foot in stirrup for a
+day's following of the hounds. And here, Heaven help me, he was going
+to carry me off to the Pole! And on such a vile errand too! For there
+was something degrading in it. Your true whaleman glories in keeping
+his harpoon unspotted by blood of aught but Cachalot. By my halidome,
+it touched the knighthood of a tar. Sperm and spermaceti! It was
+unendurable.
+
+"Captain," said I, touching my sombrero to him as I stood at the
+wheel one day, "It's very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory.
+I shipped to go elsewhere."
+
+"Yes, and so did I," was his reply. "But it can't be helped. Sperm
+whales are not to be had. We've been out now three years, and
+something or other must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and
+her hold a gulf to look into. But cheer up my boy; once in the Bay of
+Kamschatka, and we'll be all afloat with what we want, though it be
+none of the best."
+
+Worse and worse! The oleaginous prospect extended into an immensity of
+Macassar. "Sir," said I, "I did not ship for it; put me ashore
+somewhere, I beseech." He stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a
+moment I thought I had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain,
+to the prejudice of the more kindly nature of the man.
+
+But not so. Taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand
+on the wheel, and said, "Right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must.
+Putting you ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till
+this ship is full to the combings of her hatchways. However, you may
+leave her if you can." And so saying he entered his cabin, like
+Julius Caesar into his tent.
+
+He may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear
+like a bravado. It savored of the turnkey's compliments to the
+prisoner in Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.
+
+"Leave the ship if I can!" Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore
+was in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done.
+For on board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall
+fellows, whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in
+an open boat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a
+long yarn about being the only survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to
+the water's edge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they
+were keepers of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some
+ugly craft still afloat and hearty, and stolen away from her, off
+soundings. Among seamen in the Pacific such adventures not seldom
+occur. Nor are they accounted great wonders. They are but incidents,
+not events, in the career of the brethren of the order of South Sea
+rovers. For what matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a
+good whale-boat be under foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas
+before? And herein lies the difference between the Atlantic and
+Pacific:--that once within the Tropics, the bold sailor who has a
+mind to quit his ship round Cape Horn, waits not for port. He regards
+that ocean as one mighty harbor.
+
+Nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I
+resolved to weigh well the chances. It's worth noticing, this way we
+all have of pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for
+others, we hold a bagatelle.
+
+My first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the
+right or wrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to
+split no hairs on this point, let me say, that were I placed in the
+same situation again, I would repeat the thing I did then. The
+captain well knew that he was going to detain me unlawfully: against
+our agreement; and it was he himself who threw out the very hint,
+which I merely adopted, with many thanks to him.
+
+In some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my
+allotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a
+day, serene and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and
+away, away, illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were
+was perhaps the most unfrequented and least known portion of these
+seas. Westward, however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid
+down upon the charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land.
+But soon these regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze
+exchanged for cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern
+voyaging.
+
+I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding
+ship, silent from stem to stern; then abroad.
+
+In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon
+high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and
+minarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast
+Alhambra. Vistas seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all
+over the towers of this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds.
+Watching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch,
+and was lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in with it; for
+directly, as in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows
+laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of
+maidens, and the lulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all
+blended together.
+
+Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has
+up aloft. But coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so,
+that thenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short
+of a frenzy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+A Calm
+
+
+Next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience
+of the ship. And, furthermore, by certain nameless associations
+revived in me my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman
+this phenomenon of the sea. Those impressions may merit a page.
+
+To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his
+abdomen, but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in
+the eternal fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of
+him.
+
+At first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of
+existence where existence itself seems suspended. He shakes himself
+in his coat, to see whether it be empty or no. He closes his eyes, to
+test the reality of the glassy expanse. He fetches a deep breath, by
+way of experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. If a
+reader of  books, Priestley on Necessity occurs to him; and he
+believes in that old Sir Anthony Absolute to the very last chapter.
+His faith in Malte Brun, however, begins to fail; for the geography,
+which from boyhood he had implicitly confided in, always assured him,
+that though expatiating all over the globe, the sea was at least
+margined by land. That over against America, for example, was Asia.
+But it is a calm, and he grows madly skeptical.
+
+To his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically
+what they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round
+the earth's surface.
+
+The log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is
+a liar; for no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity,
+is to be lighted upon in the watery waste.
+
+At length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain's competency
+to navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and
+drifted into the outer confines of creation, the region of the
+everlasting lull, introductory to a positive vacuity.
+
+Thoughts of eternity thicken. He begins to feel anxious concerning
+his soul.
+
+The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange
+and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big
+for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming
+in him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of
+reverberations. The hollows of his very bones are as whispering
+galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the
+man in the bass drum.
+
+But more than all else is the consciousness of his utter
+helplessness. Succor or sympathy there is none. Penitence for
+embarking avails not. The final satisfaction of despairing may not be
+his with a relish. Vain the idea of idling out the calm. He may sleep
+if he can, or purposely delude himself into a crazy fancy, that he is
+merely at leisure. All this he may compass; but he may not lounge;
+for to lounge is to be idle; to be idle implies an absence of any
+thing to do; whereas there is a calm to be endured: enough to attend
+to, Heaven knows.
+
+His physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes
+a fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. Even his
+undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of
+volition, become as naught. For of what use? He wills to go: to get
+away from the calm: as ashore he would avoid the plague. But he can
+not; and how foolish to revolve expedients. It is more hopeless than
+a bad marriage in a land where there is no Doctors' Commons. He has
+taken the ship to wife, for better or for worse, for calm or
+for gale; and she is not to be shuffled off.  With yards akimbo, she
+says unto him scornfully, as the old beldam said to the little
+dwarf:--"Help yourself"
+
+And all this, and more than this, is a calm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+A King For A Comrade
+
+
+At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than
+sixty degrees to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a
+desirable longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic
+destination: around us one wide sea.
+
+But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and
+south an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but
+little known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go
+almost every where. Beginning at the southerly termination of this
+great chain, it comprises the islands loosely known as Ellice's
+group; then, the Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and Mulgrave
+clusters. These islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral
+formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. The
+language of the people was said to be very similar to that or the
+Navigator's islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have
+emigrated.
+
+And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of
+the islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all;
+and that our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a
+reliable Trade-wind. The distance, though great, was merely an
+extension of water; so much blankness to be sailed over; and in a
+craft, too, that properly managed has been known to outlive great
+ships in a gale. For this much is true of a whale-boat, the
+cunningest thing in its way ever fabricated by man.
+
+Upon one of the Kingsmill islands, then, I determined to plant
+my foot, come what come would. And I was equally determined that one
+of the ship's boats should float me thither. But I had no idea of
+being without a companion. It would be a weary watch to keep all by
+myself, with naught but the horizon in sight.
+
+Now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one Jarl; how old, no one
+could tell, not even himself. Forecastle chronology is ever vague and
+defective. "Man and boy," said honest Jarl, "I have lived ever since
+I can remember." And truly, who may call to mind when he was not? To
+ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. Whence it comes, that it
+is so hard to die, ere the world itself is departed.
+
+Jarl hailed from the isle of Skye, one of the constellated Hebrides.
+Hence, they often called him the Skyeman. And though he was far from
+being piratical of soul, he was yet an old Norseman to behold. His
+hands were brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm
+roaring round the old peak of Mull; and his long yellow hair waved
+round his head like a sunset. My life for it, Jarl, thy ancestors
+were Vikings, who many a time sailed over the salt German sea and the
+Baltic; who wedded their Brynhildas in Jutland; and are now quaffing
+mead in the halls of Valhalla, and beating time with their cans to
+the hymns of the Scalds. Ah! how the old Sagas run through me!
+
+Yet Jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless
+mariner on the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he
+led. But so it has been, and forever will be. What yeoman shall swear
+that he is not descended from Alfred? what dunce, that he is not
+sprung of old Homer? King Noah, God bless him! fathered us all. Then
+hold up your heads, oh ye Helots, blood potential flows through your
+veins. All of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and
+archangels for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of God
+did verily wed with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve.
+Thus all generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one
+kin: the hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones
+and principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout
+space; the nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one
+and all, brothers in essence--oh, be we then brothers indeed! All
+things form but one whole; the universe a Judea, and God Jehovah its
+head. Then no more let us start with affright. In a theocracy, what
+is to fear? Let us compose ourselves to death as fagged horsemen
+sleep in the saddle. Let us welcome even ghosts when they rise. Away
+with our stares and grimaces. The New Zealander's tattooing is not a
+prodigy; nor the Chinaman's ways an enigma. No custom is strange; no
+creed is absurd; no foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. In
+heaven, at last, our good, old, white-haired father Adam will greet
+all alike, and sociality forever prevail. Christian shall join hands
+between Gentile and Jew; grim Dante forget his Infernos, and shake
+sides with fat Rabelais; and monk Luther, over a flagon of old
+nectar, talk over old times with Pope Leo. Then, shall we sit by the
+sages, who of yore gave laws to the Medes and Persians in the sun; by
+the cavalry captains in Perseus, who cried, "To horse!" when waked by
+their Last Trump sounding to the charge; by the old hunters, who
+eternities ago, hunted the moose in Orion; by the minstrels, who sang
+in the Milky Way when Jesus our Saviour was born. Then shall we list
+to no shallow gossip of Magellans and Drakes; but give ear to the
+voyagers who have circumnavigated the Ecliptic; who rounded the Polar
+Star as Cape Horn. Then shall the Stagirite and Kant be forgotten,
+and another folio than theirs be turned over for wisdom; even the
+folio now spread with horoscopes as yet undeciphered, the heaven of
+heavens on high.
+
+Now, in old Jarl's lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal
+tar is too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with
+seamen of all tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo-Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and
+Danes, wear away in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink
+your clan; down goes your nation; you speak a world's language,
+jovially jabbering in the Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.
+
+True to his calling, the Skyeman was very illiterate; witless of
+Salamanca, Heidelberg, or Brazen-Nose; in Delhi, had never turned
+over the books of the Brahmins. For geography, in which sailors
+should be adepts, since they are forever turning over and over the
+great globe of globes, poor Jarl was deplorably lacking. According to
+his view of the matter, this terraqueous world had been formed in the
+manner of a tart; the land being a mere marginal crust, within which
+rolled the watery world proper. Such seemed my good Viking's theory
+of cosmography. As for other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full
+as much as Chrysostom.
+
+Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the
+secret operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle
+workings of Spinoza's.
+
+Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn,
+and but seldom will speak for himself.
+
+Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for
+he loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.
+
+It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive
+a very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an
+attachment so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless
+originating in that heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as
+they grow aged; impelling them to fasten upon some chance object of
+regard. But however it was, my Viking, thy unbidden affection was the
+noblest homage ever paid me. And frankly, I am more inclined to think
+well of myself, as in some way deserving thy devotion, than from the
+rounded compliments of more cultivated minds.
+
+Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they
+are. No school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of
+one man with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You
+wear your character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain
+all endeavors to assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you
+possess. Incognitos, however desirable, are out of the question. And
+thus aboard of all ships in which I have sailed, I have invariably
+been known by a sort of thawing-room title. Not,--let me hurry to
+say,--that I put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended
+the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better
+than my vocation; and mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest,
+and as hard a hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. And never did
+shipmate of mine upbraid me with a genteel disinclination to duty,
+though it carried me to truck of main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the
+most wolfish blast that ever howled.
+
+Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most
+assuredly was. It was because of something in me that could not be
+hidden; stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise
+incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions
+to Belles-Lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.
+
+But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Areturion's
+crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a
+"nob." But Jarl seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one
+of the House of Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles
+Edward the Pretender, who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a
+vagrant. At any rate, his loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my
+laundress and tailor; a most expert one, too; and when at meal-times
+my turn came round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the
+wheel, he catered for me among the "kids" in the forecastle with
+unwearied assiduity. Many's the good lump of "duff" for which I was
+indebted to my good Viking's good care of me. And like Sesostris I
+was served by a monarch. Yet in some degree the obligation was
+mutual. For be it known that, in sea-parlance, we were _chummies._
+
+Now this _chummying_ among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting
+between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. It is a
+Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership
+of chests and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual
+championship of the absent one. True, my nautical reminiscenses
+remind me of sundry lazy, ne'er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable
+chummies; chummies, who at meal times were last at the "kids," when
+their unfortunate partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who
+affected awkwardness at the needle, and conscientious scruples about
+dabbling in the suds; so that chummy the simple was made to do all
+the work of the firm, while chummy the cunning played the sleeping
+partner in his hammock. Out upon such chummies!
+
+But I appeal to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning.
+Never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan
+charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the
+frightful gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which
+thou calledst "ducks;"--Didst thou not expressly declare, that all
+these things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint
+thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of a whale? Nay; could I even
+wrest from thy willful hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it
+steaming in an unsavory pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated
+cask? Full well thou knowest, Jarl, that these things are true; and I
+am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking desire to reap advantage
+from thy great good nature.
+
+Now my Viking for me, thought I, when I cast about for a comrade; and
+my Viking alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+A Chat In The Clouds
+
+
+The Skyeman seemed so earnest and upright a seaman, that to tell the
+plain truth, in spite of his love for me, I had many misgivings as to
+his readiness to unite in an undertaking which apparently savored of
+a moral dereliction. But all things considered, I deemed my own
+resolution quite venial; and as for inducing another to join me, it
+seemed a precaution so indispensable, as to outweigh all other
+considerations.
+
+Therefore I resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special
+purpose paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air,
+he happened to be perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on
+the lookout for whales never seen.
+
+Now this standing upon a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a
+time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the
+Channel in a balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have
+a fellow feeling for the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up
+there, smoking our dwarfish "dudeens," any sea-gull passing by might
+have taken us for Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing
+their after-dinner Bagdads, bound to Calais, via Heaven, from Dover.
+Honest Jarl, I acquainted with all: my conversation with the captain,
+the hint implied in his last words, my firm resolve to quit the ship
+in one of her boats, and the facility with which I thought the thing
+could be done. Then I threw out many inducements, in the shape of
+pleasant anticipations of bearing right down before the wind upon the
+sunny isles under our lee.
+
+He listened attentively; but so long remained silent that I almost
+fancied there was something in Jarl which would prove too much for me
+and my eloquence.
+
+At last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he
+had never known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case
+the runaways had never afterwards been heard of. He entreated me to
+renounce my determination, not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to
+the ship, and go home in her like a man. Verily, my Viking talked to
+me like my uncle.
+
+But to all this I turned a deaf ear; affirming that my mind was made
+up; and that as he refused to accompany me, and I fancied no one else
+for a comrade, I would go stark alone rather than not at all. Upon
+this, seeing my resolution immovable, he bluntly swore that he would
+follow me through thick and thin.
+
+Thanks, Jarl! thou wert one of those devoted fellows who will wrestle
+hard to convince one loved of error; but failing, forthwith change
+their wrestling to a sympathetic hug.
+
+But now his elderly prudence came into play. Casting his eye over
+the boundless expanse below, he inquired how far off were the islands
+in question.
+
+"A thousand miles and no less."
+
+"With a fair trade breeze, then, and a boat sail, that is a good
+twelve days' passage, but calms and currents may make it a month,
+perhaps more." So saying, he shook his old head, and his yellow hair
+streamed.
+
+But trying my best to chase away these misgivings, he at last gave
+them over. He assured me I might count upon him to his uttermost
+keel.
+
+My Viking secured, I felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered
+how the enterprise might best be accomplished.
+
+There was no time to be lost. Every hour was carrying us farther and
+farther from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our
+route to the westward. So, with all possible dispatch, I
+matured my plans, and communicated them to Jarl, who gave several old
+hints--having ulterior probabilities in view--which were not
+neglected.
+
+Strange to relate, it was not till my Viking, with a rueful face,
+reminded me of the fact, that I bethought me of a circumstance
+somewhat alarming at the first blush. We must push off without chart
+or quadrant; though, as will shortly be seen, a compass was by no
+means out of the question. The chart, to be sure, I did not so much
+lay to heart; but a quadrant was more than desirable. Still, it was
+by no means indispensable. For this reason. When we started, our
+latitude would be exactly known; and whether, on our voyage westward,
+we drifted north or south therefrom, we could not, by any
+possibility, get so far out of our reckoning, as to fail in striking
+some one of a long chain of islands, which, for many degrees, on both
+sides of the equator, stretched right across our track.
+
+For much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage
+we daily knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the
+place we desired to reach. So what could be plainer than this: that
+if westward we patiently held on our way, we must eventually achieve
+our destination?
+
+As for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they
+intimidated us not. In a boat that drew but a few inches of water,
+but an indifferent look-out would preclude all danger on that score.
+At all events, the thing seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old
+Jarl's superstitious reverence for nautical instruments, and the
+philosophical objections which might have been urged by a pedantic
+disciple of Mercator.
+
+Very often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most
+startling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no
+alarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun--"Be thou, old pilot,
+our guide!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+Seats Secured And Portmanteaus Packed
+
+
+But thoughts of sextants and quadrants were the least of our cares.
+
+Right from under the very arches of the eyebrows of thirty men--
+captain, mates, and crew--a boat was to be abstracted; they knowing
+nothing of the event, until all knowledge would prove unavailing.
+
+Hark ye:
+
+At sea, the boats of a South Sea-man (generally four in number, spare
+ones omitted,) are suspended by tackles, hooked above, to curved
+timbers called "davits," vertically fixed to the ship's sides.
+
+Now, no fair one with golden locks is more assiduously waited upon,
+or more delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale-
+boat by her crew. And out of its element, it seems fragile enough to
+justify the utmost solicitude. For truly, like a fine lady, the fine
+whale-boat is most delicate when idle, though little coy at a pinch.
+
+Besides the "davits," the following supports are provided Two small
+cranes are swung under the keel, on which the latter rests,
+preventing the settling of the boat's middle, while hanging suspended
+by the bow and stern. A broad, braided, hempen band, usually worked
+in a tasteful pattern, is also passed round both gunwales; and
+secured to the ship's bulwarks, firmly lashes the craft to its place.
+Being elevated above the ship's rail, the boats are in plain sight
+from all parts of the deck.
+
+Now, one of these boats was to be made way with. No facile
+matter, truly. Harder than for any dashing young Janizary to run off
+with a sultana from the Grand Turk's seraglio. Still, the thing could
+be done, for, by Jove, it had been.
+
+What say you to slyly loosing every thing by day; and when night
+comes, cast off the band and swing in the cranes? But how lower the
+tackles, even in the darkest night, without a creaking more fearful
+than the death rattle? Easily avoided. Anoint the ropes, and they
+will travel deftly through the subtle windings of the blocks.
+
+But though I had heard of this plan being pursued, there was a degree
+of risk in it, after all, which I was far from fancying. Another plan
+was hit upon; still bolder; and hence more safe. What it was, in the
+right place will be seen.
+
+In selecting my craft for this good voyage, I would fain have
+traversed the deck, and eyed the boats like a cornet choosing his
+steed from out a goodly stud. But this was denied me. And the "bow
+boat" was, perforce, singled out, as the most remote from the
+quarter-deck, that region of sharp eyes and relentless purposes.
+
+Then, our larder was to be thought of; also, an abundant supply of
+water; concerning which last I determined to take good heed. There
+were but two to be taken care of; but I resolved to lay in sufficient
+store of both meat and drink for four; at the same time that the
+supplemental twain thus provided for were but imaginary. And if it
+came to the last dead pinch, of which we had no fear, however, I was
+food for no man but Jarl.
+
+Little time was lost in catering for our mess. Biscuit and salt beef
+were our sole resource; and, thanks to the generosity of the
+Areturion's owners, our ship's company had a plentiful supply. Casks
+of both, with heads knocked out, were at the service of all. In bags
+which we made for the purpose, a sufficiency of the biscuit was
+readily stored away, and secreted in a corner of easy access. The
+salt beef was more difficult to obtain; but, little by little,
+we managed to smuggle out of the cask enough to answer our purpose.
+
+As for water, most luckily a day or two previous several "breakers"
+of it had been hoisted from below for the present use of the ship's
+company.
+
+These "breakers" are casks, long and slender, but very strong. Of
+various diameters, they are made on purpose to stow into spaces
+intervening between the immense butts in a ship's hold.
+
+The largest we could find was selected, first carefully examining it
+to detect any leak. On some pretense or other, we then rolled them
+all over to that side of the vessel where our boat was suspended, the
+selected breaker being placed in their middle.
+
+Our compendious wardrobes were snugly packed into bundles and laid
+aside for the present. And at last, by due caution, we had every
+thing arranged preliminary to the final start. Let me say, though,
+perhaps to the credit of Jarl, that whenever the most strategy was
+necessary, he seemed ill at ease, and for the most part left the
+matter to me. It was well that he did; for as it was, by his untimely
+straight-forwardness, he once or twice came near spoiling every
+thing. Indeed, on one occasion he was so unseasonably blunt, that
+curiously enough, I had almost suspected him of taking that odd sort
+of interest in one's welfare, which leads a philanthropist, all other
+methods failing, to frustrate a project deemed bad; by pretending
+clumsily to favor it. But no inuendoes; Jarl was a Viking, frank as
+his fathers; though not so much of a bucanier.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+Eight Bells
+
+
+The moon must be monstrous coy, or some things fall out opportunely,
+or else almanacs are consulted by nocturnal adventurers; but so it
+is, that when Cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds
+are done. Though true it may be, that of moonlight nights, jewelers'
+caskets and maidens' hearts have been burglariously broken into--and
+rifled, for aught Copernicus can tell.
+
+The gentle planet was in her final quarter, and upon her slender horn
+I hung my hopes of withdrawing from the ship undetected.
+
+Now, making a tranquil passage across the ocean, we kept at this time
+what are called among whalemen "boatscrew-watches." That is, instead
+of the sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on
+deck every four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a
+boat's crew, the "headsman" (always one of the mates) excepted. To
+the officers, this plan gives uninterrupted repose--"all-night-in,"
+as they call it, and of course greatly lightens the duties of the crew.
+
+The harpooneers head the boats' crews, and are responsible for the
+ship during the continuance of their watches.
+
+Now, my Viking being a stalwart seaman, pulled the midship oar of the
+boat of which I was bowsman. Hence, we were in the same watch; to
+which, also, three others belonged, including Mark, the harpooner.
+One of these seamen, however, being an invalid, there were only two
+left for us to manage.
+
+Voyaging in these seas, you may glide along for weeks without
+starting tack or sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and
+constant are the Trades. At night, the watch seldom trouble
+themselves with keeping much of a look-out; especially, as a strange
+sail is almost a prodigy in these lonely waters. In some ships, for
+weeks in and weeks out, you are puzzled to tell when your nightly
+turn on deck really comes round; so little heed is given to the
+standing of watches, where in the license of presumed safety, nearly
+every one nods without fear.
+
+But remiss as you may be in the boats-crew-watch of a heedless
+whaleman, the man who heads it is bound to maintain his post on the
+quarter-deck until regularly relieved. Yet drowsiness being
+incidental to all natures, even to Napoleon, beside his own sentry
+napping in the snowy bivouac; so, often, in snowy moonlight, or ebon
+eclipse, dozed Mark, our harpooneer. Lethe be his portion this
+blessed night, thought I, as during the morning which preceded our
+enterprise, I eyed the man who might possibly cross my plans.
+
+But let me come closer to this part of my story. During what are
+called at sea the "dog-watches" (between four o'clock and eight in
+the evening), sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits
+even flow far into the first of the long "night-watches;" but upon
+its expiration at "eight bells" (midnight), silence begins to reign;
+if you hear a voice it is no cherub's: all exclamations are oaths.
+
+At eight bells, the mariners on deck, now relieved from their cares,
+crawl out from their sleepy retreats in old monkey jackets, or coils
+of rigging, and he to their hammocks, almost without interrupting
+their dreams: while the sluggards below lazily drag themselves up the
+ladder to resume their slumbers in the open air.
+
+For these reasons then, the moonless sea midnight was just the time
+to escape. Hence, we suffered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting
+for the night, when the star board-quarter-boats'-watch, to
+which we belonged, would be summoned on deck at the eventful eight of
+the bell.
+
+But twenty-four hours soon glide away; and "Starboleens ahoy; eight
+bells there below;" at last started me from a troubled doze.
+
+I sprang from my hammock, and would have lighted my pipe. But the
+forecastle lamp had gone out. An old sea-dog was talking about sharks
+in his sleep. Jarl and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way
+into their trowsers. And little was heard but the humming of the
+still sails aloft; the dash of the waves against the bow; and the
+deep breathing of the dreaming sailors around.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+A Pause
+
+
+Good old Arcturion! Maternal craft; that rocked me so often in thy
+heart of oak, I grieve to tell how I deserted thee on the broad deep.
+So far from home, with  such a motley crew, so many islanders, whose
+heathen babble echoing through thy Christian hull, must have grated
+harshly on every carline.
+
+Old ship! where sails thy lone ghost now? For of the stout Arcturion
+no word was ever heard, from the dark hour we pushed from her fated
+planks. In what time of tempest, to what seagull's scream, the
+drowning eddies did their work, knows no mortal man. Sunk she
+silently, helplessly, into the calm depths of that summer sea,
+assassinated by the ruthless blade of the swordfish? Such things have
+been. Or was hers a better fate? Stricken down while gallantly
+battling with the blast; her storm-sails set; helm manned; and every
+sailor at his post; as sunk the Hornet, her men at quarters, in some
+distant gale.
+
+But surmises are idle. A very old craft, she may have foundered; or
+laid her bones upon some treacherous reef; but as with many a far
+rover, her fate is a mystery.
+
+Pray Heaven, the spirit of that lost vessel roaming abroad through
+the troubled mists of midnight gales--as old mariners believe of
+missing ships--may never haunt my future path upon the waves.
+Peacefully may she rest at the bottom of the sea; and sweetly sleep
+my shipmates in the lowest watery zone, where prowling sharks come
+not, nor billows roll.
+
+By quitting the Arcturion when we did, Jarl and I unconsciously
+eluded a sailor's grave. We hear of providential deliverances. Was
+this one? But life is sweet to all, death comes as hard. And for
+myself I am almost tempted to hang my head, that I escaped the fate
+of my shipmates; something like him who blushed to have escaped the
+fell carnage at Thermopylae.
+
+Though I can not repress a shudder when I think of that old ship's
+end, it is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our
+deserting her could have been in any way instrumental in her loss.
+Nevertheless, I would to heaven the Arcturion still floated; that it
+was given me once more to tread her familiar decks.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+They Push Off, Velis Et Remis
+
+
+And now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand
+miles from land, we embarked upon this western voyage.
+
+It was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the
+helm now coming on was of course to be avoided. On some plausible
+pretense, I induced our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving
+myself untrammeled, and at the same time satisfactorily disposing of
+him. For being a rather fat fellow, an enormous consumer of "duff,"
+and with good reason supposed to be the son of a farmer, I made no
+doubt, he would pursue his old course and fall to nodding over the
+wheel. As for the leader of the watch--our harpooner--he fell heir to
+the nest of old jackets, under the lee of the mizzen-mast, left nice
+and warm by his predecessor.
+
+The night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no
+trace of a moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at
+night near the Line, half shrouded the stars from view.
+
+Waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch
+had gone below, I motioned to Jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our
+feet. He then descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft
+toward the quarter-deck. All was still. Thrice did I pass my hand
+full before the face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right
+between him and the light of the binnacle.
+
+Mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. I feared to
+approach him. He lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more
+delay. Risks must be run, when time presses. And our ears were a
+pointer's to catch a sound.
+
+To work we went, without hurry, but swiftly and silently. Our various
+stores were dragged from their lurking-places, and placed in the
+boat, which hung from the ship's lee side, the side depressed in the
+water, an indispensable requisite to an attempt at escape. And though
+at sundown the boat was to windward, yet, as we had foreseen, the
+vessel having been tacked during the first watch, brought it to leeward.
+
+Endeavoring to manhandle our clumsy breaker, and lift it into the
+boat, we found, that by reason of the intervention of the shrouds, it
+could not be done without, risking a jar; besides straining the craft
+in lowering. An expedient, however, though at the eleventh hour, was
+hit upon. Fastening a long rope to the breaker, which was perfectly
+tight, we cautiously dropped it overboard; paying out enough line, to
+insure its towing astern of the ship, so as not to strike against the
+copper. The other end of the line we then secured to the boat's stern.
+
+Fortunately, this was the last thing to be done; for the breaker,
+acting as a clog to the vessel's way in the water, so affected her
+steering as to fling her perceptibly into the wind. And by causing
+the helm to work, this must soon rouse the lubber there stationed, if
+not already awake. But our dropping overboard the breaker greatly
+aided us in this respect: it diminished the ship's headway; which
+owing to the light breeze had not been very great at any time during
+the night. Had it been so, all hope of escaping without first
+arresting the vessel's progress, would have been little short of
+madness. As it was, the sole daring of the deed that night achieved,
+consisted in our lowering away while the ship yet clove the brine,
+though but moderately.
+
+All was now ready: the cranes swung in, the lashings adrift,
+and the boat fairly suspended; when, seizing the ends of the tackle
+ropes, we silently stepped into it, one at each end. The dead weight
+of the breaker astern now dragged the craft horizontally through the
+air, so that her tackle ropes strained hard. She quivered like a
+dolphin. Nevertheless, had we not feared her loud splash upon
+striking the wave, we might have quitted the ship almost as silently
+as the breath the body. But this was out of the question, and our
+plans were laid accordingly.
+
+"All ready, Jarl?"
+
+"Ready."
+
+"A man overboard!" I shouted at the top of my compass; and like
+lightning the cords slid through our blistering hands, and with a
+tremendous shock the boat bounded on the sea's back. One mad sheer
+and plunge, one terrible strain on the tackles as we sunk in the
+trough of the waves, tugged upon by the towing breaker, and our
+knives severed the tackle ropes--we hazarded not unhooking the
+blocks--our oars were out, and the good boat headed round, with prow
+to leeward.
+
+"Man overboard!" was now shouted from stem to stern. And directly we
+heard the confused tramping and shouting of the sailors, as they
+rushed from their dreams into the almost inscrutable darkness.
+
+"Man overboard! Man overboard!" My heart smote me as the human cry of
+horror came out of the black vaulted night.
+
+"Down helm!" was soon heard from the chief mate. "Back the main-yard!
+Quick to the boats! How's this? One down already? Well done! Hold on,
+then, those other boats!"
+
+Meanwhile several seamen were shouting as they strained at the braces.
+
+"Cut! cut all! Lower away! lower away!" impatiently cried the
+sailors, who already had leaped into the boats.
+
+"Heave the ship to, and hold fast every thing," cried the captain,
+apparently just springing to the deck. "One boat's enough. Steward;
+show a light there from the mizzen-top. Boat ahoy!--Have you got that
+man?"
+
+No reply. The voice came out of a cloud; the ship dimly showing like
+a ghost. We had desisted from rowing, and hand over hand were now
+hauling in upon the rope attached to the breaker, which we soon
+lifted into the boat, instantly resuming our oars.
+
+"Pull! pull, men! and save him!" again shouted the captain.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," answered Jarl instinctively, "pulling as hard as ever
+we can, sir."
+
+And pull we did, till nothing could be heard from the ship but a
+confused tumult; and, ever and anon, the hoarse shout of the captain,
+too distant to be understood.
+
+We now set our sail to a light air; and right into the darkness, and
+dead to leeward, we rowed and sailed till morning dawned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+The Watery World Is All Before Them
+
+
+At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land!
+
+Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a
+speck to windward broke the even line of the horizon. It was the ship
+wending her way north-eastward.
+
+Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters
+as that which the Arcturion's crew must have imputed to the night
+past (did not the skipper suspect the truth) I would have regarded
+that little speck with many compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it
+was, did I feel in any very serene humor. For the consciousness of
+being deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being
+so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a
+defunct carcass. Even Jarl's glance seemed so queer, that I begged
+him to look another way.
+
+Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he
+most probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of
+returning to the ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution
+that had thus far nerved me, began to succumb in a measure to the
+awful loneliness of the scene. Ere this, I had regarded the ocean as
+a slave, the steed that bore me whither I listed, and whose vicious
+propensities, mighty though they were, often proved harmless, when
+opposed to the genius of man. But now, how changed! In our frail
+boat, I would fain have built an altar to Neptune.
+
+What a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly shouldered
+us from crest to crest, as from hand to hand lost souls may be tossed
+along by the chain of shades which enfilade the route to Tartarus.
+
+But drown or swim, here's overboard with care! Cheer up, Jarl! Ha!
+Ha! how merrily, yet terribly, we sail! Up, up--slowly up--toiling up
+the long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a
+plank on a rail; and down, we plunge headlong into the seething
+abyss, till arrested, we glide upward again. And thus did we go. Now
+buried in watery hollows--our sail idly flapping; then lifted aloft--
+canvas bellying; and beholding the furthest horizon.
+
+Had not our familiarity with the business of whaling divested our
+craft's wild motions of its first novel horrors, we had been but a
+rueful pair. But day-long pulls after whales, the ship left miles
+astern; and entire dark nights passed moored to the monsters, killed
+too late to be towed to the ship far to leeward:--all this, and much
+more, accustoms one to strange things. Death, to be sure, has a mouth
+as black as a wolf's, and to be thrust into his jaws is a serious
+thing. But true it most certainly is--and I speak from no hearsay--
+that to sailors, as a class, the grisly king seems not half so
+hideous as he appears to those who have only regarded him on shore,
+and at a deferential distance. Like many ugly mortals, his features
+grow less frightful upon acquaintance; and met over often and
+sociably, the old adage holds true, about familiarity breeding
+contempt. Thus too with soldiers. Of the quaking recruit, three
+pitched battles make a grim grenadier; and he who shrank from the
+muzzle of a cannon, is now ready to yield his mustache for a sponge.
+
+And truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant souls will
+taunt him while they may. Yet rather, should the wise regard him as
+the inflexible friend, who, even against our own wills, from life's
+evils triumphantly relieves us.
+
+And there is but little difference in the manner of dying. To die, is
+all. And death has been gallantly encountered by those who never
+beheld blood that was red, only its light azure seen through the
+veins. And to yield the ghost proudly, and march out of your fortress
+with all the honors of war, is not a thing of sinew and bone. Though
+in prison, Geoffry Hudson, the dwarf, died more bravely than Goliah,
+the giant; and the last end of a butterfly shames us all. Some women
+have lived nobler lives, and died nobler deaths, than men. Threatened
+with the stake, mitred Cranmer recanted; but through her fortitude,
+the lorn widow of Edessa stayed the tide of Valens' persecutions.
+'Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip;
+cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his
+mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in
+one's bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+They Arrange Their Canopies And Lounges, And Try To Make Things
+Comfortable
+
+
+Our little craft was soon in good order. From the spare rigging
+brought along, we made shrouds to the mast, and converted the boat-
+hook into a handy boom for the jib. Going large before the wind, we
+set this sail wing-and-wing with the main-sail. The latter, in
+accordance with the customary rig of whale-boats, was worked with a
+sprit and sheet. It could be furled or set in an instant. The bags of
+bread we stowed away in the covered space about the loggerhead, a
+useless appurtenance now, and therefore removed. At night, Jarl used
+it for a pillow; saying, that when the boat rolled it gave easy play
+to his head. The precious breaker we lashed firmly amidships; thereby
+much improving our sailing.
+
+Now, previous to leaving the ship, we had seen to it well, that our
+craft was supplied with all those equipments, with which, by the
+regulations of the fishery, a whale-boat is constantly provided:
+night and day, afloat or suspended. Hanging along our gunwales
+inside, were six harpoons, three lances, and a blubber-spade; all
+keen as razors, and sheathed with leather. Besides these, we had
+three waifs, a couple of two-gallon water-kegs, several bailers, the
+boat-hatchet for cutting the whale-line, two auxiliary knives for the
+like purpose, and several minor articles, also employed in hunting
+the leviathan. The line and line-tub, however, were on ship-board.
+
+And here it may be mentioned, that to prevent the strain upon
+the boat when suspended to the ship's side, the heavy whale-line,
+over two hundred fathoms in length, and something more than an inch
+in diameter, when not in use is kept on ship-board, coiled away like
+an endless snake in its tub. But this tub is always in readiness to
+be launched into the boat. Now, having no use for the line belonging
+to our craft, we had purposely left it behind.
+
+But well had we marked that by far the most important item of a
+whale-boat's furniture was snugly secured in its place. This was the
+water-tight keg, at both ends firmly headed, containing a small
+compass, tinder-box and flint, candles, and a score or two of
+biscuit. This keg is an invariable precaution against what so
+frequently occurs in pursuing the sperm whale--prolonged absence from
+the ship, losing sight of her, or never seeing her more, till years
+after you reach home again. In this same keg of ours seemed coopered
+up life and death, at least so seemed it to honest Jarl. No sooner
+had we got clear from the Arcturion, than dropping his oar for an
+instant, he clutched at it in the dark.
+
+And when day at last came, we knocked out the head of the keg with
+the little hammer and chisel, always attached to it for that purpose,
+and removed the compass, that glistened to us like a human eye. Then
+filling up the vacancy with biscuit, we again made all tight, driving
+down the hoops till they would budge no more.
+
+At first we were puzzled to fix our compass. But at last the Skyeman
+out knife, and cutting a round hole in the after-most thwart, or seat
+of the boat, there inserted the little brass case containing the
+needle.
+
+Over the stern of the boat, with some old canvas which my Viking's
+forethought had provided, we spread a rude sort of awning, or rather
+counterpane. This, however, proved but little or no protection from
+the glare of the sun; for the management of the main-sail forbade any
+considerable elevation of the shelter. And when the breeze was fresh,
+we were fain to strike it altogether; for the wind being from
+aft, and getting underneath the canvas, almost lifted the light
+boat's stem into the air, vexing the counterpane as if it were a
+petticoat turning a gusty corner. But when a mere breath rippled the
+sea, and the sun was fiery hot, it was most pleasant to lounge in
+this shady asylum. It was like being transferred from the roast to
+cool in the cupboard. And Jarl, much the toughest fowl of the two,
+out of an abundant kindness for his comrade, during the day
+voluntarily remained exposed at the helm, almost two hours to my one.
+No lady-like scruples had he, the old Viking, about marring his
+complexion, which already was more than bronzed. Over the ordinary
+tanning of the sailor, he seemed masked by a visor of japanning,
+dotted all over with freckles, so intensely yellow, and symmetrically
+circular, that they seemed scorched there by a burning glass.
+
+In the tragico-comico moods which at times overtook me, I used to
+look upon the brown Skyeman with humorous complacency. If we fall in
+with cannibals, thought I, then, ready-roasted Norseman that thou
+art, shall I survive to mourn thee; at least, during the period I
+revolve upon the spit.
+
+But of such a fate, it needs hardly be said, we had no apprehension.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw
+
+
+If ever again I launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, I
+shall take good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with a
+rattle-box head. Be he never so silly, his very silliness, so long as
+he be lively at it, shall be its own excuse.
+
+Upon occasion, who likes not a lively loon, one of your giggling,
+gamesome oafs, whose mouth is a grin? Are not such, well-ordered
+dispensations of Providence? filling up vacuums, in intervals of
+social stagnation relieving the tedium of existing? besides keeping
+up, here and there, in very many quarters indeed, sundry people's
+good opinion of themselves? What, if at times their speech is insipid
+as water after wine? What, if to ungenial and irascible souls, their
+very "mug" is an exasperation to behold, their clack an inducement to
+suicide? Let us not be hard upon them for this; but let them live on
+for the good they may do.
+
+But Jarl, dear, dumb Jarl, thou wert none of these. Thou didst carry
+a phiz like an excommunicated deacon's. And no matter what happened,
+it was ever the same. Quietly, in thyself, thou didst revolve upon
+thine own sober axis, like a wheel in a machine which forever goes
+round, whether you look at it or no. Ay, Jarl! wast thou not forever
+intent upon minding that which so many neglect--thine own especial
+business? Wast thou not forever at it, too, with no likelihood of
+ever winding up thy moody affairs, and striking a balance sheet?
+
+But at times how wearisome to me these everlasting reveries in
+my one solitary companion. I longed for something enlivening; a burst
+of words; human vivacity of one kind or other. After in vain essaying
+to get something of this sort out of Jarl, I tried it all by myself;
+playing upon my body as upon an instrument; singing, halloing, and
+making empty gestures, till my Viking stared hard; and I myself
+paused to consider whether I had run crazy or no.
+
+But how account for the Skyeman's gravity? Surely, it was based upon
+no philosophic taciturnity; he was nothing of an idealist; an aerial
+architect; a constructor of flying buttresses. It was inconceivable,
+that his reveries were Manfred-like and exalted, reminiscent of
+unutterable deeds, too mysterious even to be indicated by the
+remotest of hints. Suppositions all out of the question.
+
+His ruminations were a riddle. I asked him anxiously, whether, in any
+part of the world, Savannah, Surat, or Archangel, he had ever a wife
+to think of; or children, that he carried so lengthy a phiz. Nowhere
+neither. Therefore, as by his own confession he had nothing to think
+of but himself, and there was little but honesty in him (having
+which, by the way, he may be thought full to the brim), what could I
+fall back upon but my original theory: namely, that in repose, his
+intellects stepped out, and left his body to itself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+More About Being In An Open Boat
+
+
+On the third morning, at break of day, I sat at the steering oar, an
+hour or two previous having relieved Jarl, now fast asleep. Somehow,
+and suddenly, a sense of peril so intense, came over me, that it
+could hardly have been aggravated by the completest solitude.
+
+On a ship's deck, the mere feeling of elevation above the water, and
+the reach of prospect you command, impart a degree of confidence
+which disposes you to exult in your fancied security. But in an open
+boat, brought down to the very plane of the sea, this feeling almost
+wholly deserts you. Unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and
+your chip upon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is
+little larger than it would be at the bottom of a well. At best, your
+most extended view in any one direction, at least, is in a high,
+slow-rolling sea; when you descend into the dark, misty spaces,
+between long and uniform swells. Then, for the moment, it is like
+looking up and down in a twilight glade, interminable; where two
+dawns, one on each hand, seem struggling through the semi-transparent
+tops of the fluid mountains.
+
+But, lingering not long in those silent vales, from watery cliff to
+cliff, a sea-chamois, sprang our solitary craft,--a goat among the Alps!
+
+How undulated the horizon; like a vast serpent with ten thousand
+folds coiled all round the globe; yet so nigh, apparently, that it
+seemed as if one's hand might touch it.
+
+What loneliness; when the sun rose, and spurred up the heavens, we
+hailed him as a wayfarer in Sahara the sight of a distant horseman.
+Save ourselves, the sun and the Chamois seemed all that was left of
+life in the universe. We yearned toward its jocund disk, as in
+strange lands the traveler joyfully greets a face from home, which
+there had passed unheeded. And was not the sun a fellow-voyager? were
+we not both wending westward? But how soon he daily overtook and
+passed us; hurrying to his journey's end.
+
+When a week had gone by, sailing steadily on, by day and by night, and
+nothing in sight but this self-same sea, what wonder if disquieting
+thoughts at last entered our hearts? If unknowingly we should pass
+the spot where, according to our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what
+shoreless sea would we launch? At times, these forebodings bewildered
+my idea of the positions of the groups beyond. All became vague and
+confused; so that westward of the Kingsmil isles and the Radack chain,
+I fancied there could be naught but an endless sea.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas
+
+
+At intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which
+diversified the scene; especially when the constellation Pisces was
+in the ascendant.
+
+It's famous botanizing, they say, in Arkansas' boundless prairies; I
+commend the student of Ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean
+moors of the Pacific. As your craft glides along, what strange
+monsters float by. Elsewhere, was never seen their like. And nowhere
+are they found in the books of the naturalists.
+
+Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown.
+And whoso crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The
+sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a
+garden worm. There are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and
+more sights unrevealed than you or I ever ever dreamt of. Moles and
+bats alone should be skeptics; and the only true infidelity is for a
+live man to vote himself dead. Be Sir Thomas Brown our ensample; who,
+while exploding "Vulgar Errors," heartily hugged all the mysteries in
+the Pentateuch.
+
+But look! fathoms down in the sea; where ever saw you a phantom like
+that? An enormous crescent with antlers like a reindeer, and a Delta
+of mouths. Slowly it sinks, and is seen no more.
+
+Doctor Faust saw the devil; but you have seen the "Devil Fish."
+
+Look again! Here comes another. Jarl calls it a Bone Shark. Full as
+large as a whale, it is spotted like a leopard; and tusk-like teeth
+overlap its jaws like those of the walrus. To seamen, nothing strikes
+more terror than the near vicinity of a creature like this. Great
+ships steer out of its path. And well they may; since the good craft
+Essex, and others, have been sunk by sea-monsters, as the alligator
+thrusts his horny snout through a Carribean canoe.
+
+Ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from
+the extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed.
+
+For the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by
+hundreds; but by thousands and by myriads. Trust me, there are more
+sharks in the sea than mortals on land.
+
+And of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs.
+But by the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening
+the sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they
+are classed under one family; which family, according to Muller,
+king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous tribe
+of the Chondropterygii.
+
+To begin. There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so
+called by sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the
+hard knocks received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering
+oar. At times, these gentry swim in herds; especially about the
+remains of a slaughtered whale. They are the vultures of the deep.
+
+Then we often encountered the dandy Blue Shark, a long, taper and
+mighty genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a Bond-
+street beau, and the whitest tiers of teeth imaginable. This dainty
+spark invariably lounged by with a careless fin and an indolent tail.
+But he looked infernally heartless.
+
+How his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude,
+savage swagger of the Tiger Shark; a round, portly gourmand; with
+distended mouth and collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom
+he might devour. These gluttons are the scavengers of navies,
+following ships in the South Seas, picking up odds and ends of
+garbage, and sometimes a tit-bit, a stray sailor. No wonder, then,
+that sailors denounce them. In substance, Jarl once assured me, that
+under any temporary misfortune, it was one of his sweetest
+consolations to remember, that in his day, he had murdered, not
+killed, shoals of Tiger Sharks.
+
+Yet this is all wrong. As well hate a seraph, as a shark. Both were
+made by the same hand. And that sharks are lovable, witness their
+domestic endearments. No Fury so ferocious, as not to have some
+amiable side. In the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her
+cub, as Hagar did Ishmael; or a queen of France the dauphin. We know
+not what we do when we hate. And I have the word of my gentlemanly
+friend Stanhope, for it; that he who declared he loved a good hater
+was but a respectable sort of Hottentot, at best. No very genteel
+epithet this, though coming from the genteelest of men. But when the
+digger of dictionaries said that saying of his, he was assuredly not
+much of a Christian. However, it is hard for one given up to
+constitutional hypos like him; to be filled with the milk and
+meekness of the gospels. Yet, with deference, I deny that my old
+uncle Johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him. Love
+a hater, indeed! Who smacks his lips over gall? Now hate is a
+thankless thing. So, let us only hate hatred; and once give love
+play, we will fall in love with a unicorn. Ah! the easiest way is the
+best; and to hate, a man must work hard. Love is a delight; but hate
+a torment. And haters are thumbscrews, Scotch boots, and Spanish
+inquisitions to themselves. In five words--would they were a Siamese
+diphthong--he who hates is a fool.
+
+For several days our Chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid
+Tiger Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in
+our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their
+time till you come to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for
+a bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until
+completely out of sight. Much to the Skyeman's chagrin; who long
+stood in the stern, lance poised for a dart.
+
+But of all sharks, save me from the ghastly White Shark. For though
+we should hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and
+disliking is not hating. And never yet could I bring myself to be
+loving, or even sociable, with a White Shark. He is not the sort of
+creature to enlist young affections.
+
+This ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by
+night than by day. Timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding
+along just under the surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a
+milky hue; with glimpses now and then of his bottomless white pit of
+teeth. No need of a dentist hath he. Seen at night, stealing along
+like a spirit in the water, with horrific serenity of aspect, the
+White Shark sent many a thrill to us twain in the Chamois.
+
+By day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the
+ponderous sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he
+fetched a long breath after napping below.
+
+And time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the
+chain-plate armor and golden scales; the Nimrod of the seas, to whom
+so many flying fish fall a prey. Flying from their pursuers, many of
+them flew into our boat. But invariably they died from the shock. No
+nursing could restore them. One of their wings I removed, spreading
+it out to dry under a weight. In two days' time the thin membrane,
+all over tracings like those of a leaf, was transparent as isinglass,
+and tinted with brilliant hues, like those of a changing silk.
+
+Almost every day, we spied Black Fish; coal-black and glossy. They
+seemed to swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel;
+their dorsal fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes.
+
+Of a somewhat similar species, but smaller, and clipper-built about
+the nose, were the Algerines; so called, probably, from their corsair
+propensities; waylaying peaceful fish on the high seas, and
+plundering them of body and soul at a gulp. Atrocious Turks! a
+crusade should be preached against them.
+
+Besides all these, we encountered Killers and Thrashers, by far the
+most spirited and "spunky" of the finny tribes. Though little larger
+than a porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan
+himself. They bait the monster, as dogs a bull. The Killers seizing
+the Right whale by his immense, sulky lower lip, and the Thrashers
+fastening on to his back, and beating him with their sinewy tails.
+Often they come off conquerors, worrying the enemy to death. Though,
+sooth to say, if leviathan gets but one sweep al them with his terrible
+tail, they go flying into the air, as if tossed from Taurus' horn.
+
+This sight we beheld. Had old Wouvermans, who once painted a bull
+bait, been along with us, a rare chance, that, for his pencil. And
+Gudin or Isabey might have thrown the blue rolling sea into the
+picture. Lastly, one of Claude's setting summer suns would have
+glorified the whole. Oh, believe me, God's creatures fighting, fin
+for fin, a thousand miles from land, and with the round horizon for
+an arena; is no ignoble subject for a masterpiece.
+
+Such are a few of the sights of the great South Sea. But there is no
+telling all. The Pacific is populous as China.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+Jarl's Misgivings
+
+
+About this time an event took place. My good Viking opened his mouth,
+and spoke. The prodigy occurred, as, jacknife in hand, he was bending
+over the midship oar; on the loom, or handle, of which he kept our
+almanac; making a notch for every set sun. For some forty-eight hours
+past, the wind had been light and variable. It was more than
+suspected that a current was sweeping us northward.
+
+Now, marking these things, Jarl threw out the thought, that the more
+wind, and the less current, the better; and if a long calm came on,
+of which there was some prospect, we had better take to our oars.
+
+Take to our oars! as if we were crossing a ferry, and no ocean
+leagues to traverse. The idea indirectly suggested all possible
+horrors. To be rid of them forthwith, I proceeded to dole out our
+morning meal. For to make away with such things, there is nothing
+better than bolting something down on top of them; albeit, oft
+repeated, the plan is very apt to beget dyspepsia; and the dyspepsia
+the blues.
+
+But what of our store of provisions? So far as enough to eat was
+concerned, we felt not the slightest apprehension; our supplies
+proving more abundant than we had anticipated. But, curious to tell,
+we felt but little inclination for food. It was water, bright water,
+cool, sparkling water, alone, that we craved. And of this, also, our
+store at first seemed ample. But as our voyage lengthened, and
+breezes blew faint, and calms fell fast, the idea of being deprived
+of the precious fluid grew into something little short of a mono-
+mania; especially with Jarl.
+
+Every hour or two with the hammer and chisel belonging to the tinder
+box keg, he tinkered away at the invaluable breaker; driving down the
+hoops, till in his over solicitude, I thought he would burst them
+outright.
+
+Now the breaker lay on its bilge, in the middle of the boat, where
+more or less sea-water always collected. And ever and anon, dipping
+his finger therein, my Viking was troubled with the thought, that
+this sea-water tasted less brackish than that alongside. Of course
+the breaker must be leaking. So, he would turn it over, till its wet
+side came uppermost; when it would quickly become dry as a bone. But
+now, with his knife, he would gently probe the joints of the staves;
+shake his head; look up; look down; taste of the water in the bottom
+of the boat; then that of the sea; then lift one end of the breaker;
+going through with every test of leakage he could dream of. Nor was
+he ever fully satisfied, that the breaker was in all respects sound.
+But in reality it was tight as the drum-heads that beat at Cerro-
+Gordo. Oh! Jarl, Jarl: to me in the boat's quiet stern, steering and
+philosophizing at one time and the same, thou and thy breaker were a
+study.
+
+Besides the breaker, we had, full of water, the two boat-kegs,
+previously alluded to. These were first used. We drank from them by
+their leaden spouts; so many swallows three times in the day; having
+no other means of measuring an allowance. But when we came to the
+breaker, which had only a bung-hole, though a very large one, dog-
+like, it was so many laps apiece; jealously counted by the observer.
+This plan, however, was only good for a single day; the water then
+getting beyond the reach of the tongue. We therefore daily poured
+from the breaker into one of the kegs; and drank from its spout. But
+to obviate the absorption inseparable from decanting, we at last hit
+upon something better,--my comrade's shoe, which, deprived of
+its quarters, narrowed at the heel, and diligently rinsed out in the
+sea, was converted into a handy but rather limber ladle. This we kept
+suspended in the bung-hole of the breaker, that it might never twice
+absorb the water.
+
+Now pewter imparts flavor to ale; a Meerschaum bowl, the same to the
+tobacco of Smyrna; and goggle green glasses are deemed indispensable
+to the bibbing of Hock. What then shall be said of a leathern goblet
+for water? Try it, ye mariners who list.
+
+One morning, taking his wonted draught, Jarl fished up in his ladle a
+deceased insect; something like a Daddy-long-legs, only more
+corpulent. Its fate? A sea-toss? Believe it not; with all those
+precious drops clinging to its lengthy legs. It was held over the
+ladle till the last globule dribbled; and even then, being moist,
+honest Jarl was but loth to drop it overboard.
+
+For our larder, we could not endure the salt beef; it was raw as a
+live Abyssinian steak, and salt as Cracow. Besides, the Feegee simile
+would not have held good with respect to it. It was far from being
+"tender as a dead man." The biscuit only could we eat; not to be
+wondered at; for even on shipboard, seamen in the tropics are but
+sparing feeders.
+
+And here let not, a suggestion be omitted, most valuable to any
+future castaway or sailaway as the case may be. Eat not your biscuit
+dry; but dip it in the sea: which makes it more bulky and palatable.
+During meal times it was soak and sip with Jarl and me: one on each
+side of the Chamois dipping our biscuit in the brine. This plan
+obviated finger-glasses at the conclusion of our repast. Upon the
+whole, dwelling upon the water is not so bad after all. The Chinese
+are no fools. In the operation of making your toilet, how handy to
+float in your ewer!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
+
+
+Like most silent earnest sort of people, my good Viking was a pattern
+of industry. When in the boats after whales, I have known him carry
+along a roll of sinnate to stitch into a hat. And the boats lying
+motionless for half an hour or so, waiting the rising of the chase,
+his fingers would be plying at their task, like an old lady knitting.
+Like an experienced old-wife too, his digits had become so expert and
+conscientious, that his eyes left them alone; deeming optic
+supervision unnecessary. And on this trip of ours, when not otherwise
+engaged, he was quite as busy with his fingers as ever: unraveling
+old Cape Horn hose, for yarn wherewith to darn our woolen frocks;
+with great patches from the skirts of a condemned reefing jacket,
+panneling the seats of our "ducks;" in short, veneering our broken
+garments with all manner of choice old broadcloths.
+
+With the true forethought of an old tar, he had brought along wish
+him nearly the whole contents of his chest. His precious "Ditty Bag,"
+containing his sewing utensils, had been carefully packed away in the
+bottom of one of his bundles; of which he had as many as an old maid
+on her travels. In truth, an old salt is very much of an old maid,
+though, strictly speaking, far from deserving that misdeemed
+appellative. Better be an old maid, a woman with herself for a
+husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that
+all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.
+When playing the sempstress, Jarl's favorite perch was the
+triangular little platform in the bow; which being the driest and
+most elevated part of the boat, was best adapted to his purpose. Here
+for hours and hours together the honest old tailor would sit darning
+and sewing away, heedless of the wide ocean around; while forever,
+his slouched Guayaquil hat kept bobbing up and down against the
+horizon before us.
+
+It was a most solemn avocation with him. Silently he nodded like the
+still statue in the opera of Don Juan. Indeed he never spoke, unless
+to give pithy utterance to the wisdom of keeping one's wardrobe in
+repair. But herein my Viking at times waxed oracular. And many's the
+hour we glided along, myself deeply pondering in the stem, hand upon
+helm; while crosslegged at the other end of the boat Jarl laid down
+patch upon patch, and at long intervals precept upon precept; here
+several saws, and there innumerable stitches.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+They Are Becalmed
+
+
+On the eighth day there was a calm.
+
+It came on by night: so that waking at daybreak, and folding my arms
+over the gunwale, I looked out upon a scene very hard to describe.
+The sun was still beneath the horizon; perhaps not yet out of sight
+from the plains of Paraguay. But the dawn was too strong for the
+stars; which, one by one, had gone out, like waning lamps after a
+ball.
+
+Now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character
+from what it reflects; so in a calm in the Tropics, a colorless sky
+overhead, the ocean, upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of
+existence. The deep blue is gone; and the glassy element lies
+tranced; almost viewless as the air.
+
+But that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed
+collapsed into a vague ellipsis. And alike, the Chamois seemed
+drifting in the atmosphere as in the sea. Every thing was fused into
+the calm: sky, air, water, and all. Not a fish was to be seen. The
+silence was that of a vacuum. No vitality lurked in the air. And this
+inert blending and brooding of all things seemed gray chaos in
+conception.
+
+This calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few
+cat's-paws of wind varied the scene. They were faint as the breath of
+one dying.
+
+At times the heat was intense. The heavens, at midday, glowing like
+an ignited coal mine. Our skin curled up like lint; our vision became
+dim; the brain dizzy.
+
+To our consternation, the water in the breaker became
+lukewarm, brackish, and slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept
+our spare clothing piled upon the breaker, to shield it from the sun.
+At last, Jarl enlarged the vent, carefully keeping it exposed. To
+this precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then thought. It was
+now deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the smallest
+modicum consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling
+all desire for more.
+
+Nor was this all. The upper planking of the boat began to warp; here
+and there, cracking and splintering. But though we kept it moistened
+with brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the
+sharp, sudden sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both
+to spring to our feet. Instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift
+to secure the rebellious plank with a cord, not having a nail; we
+then bailed out the boat, nearly half full of water.
+
+On the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its
+being pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells
+now overtaking us. Leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging,
+some tempest must have been sending to us its last dying waves. For
+as a pebble dropped into a pond ruffles it to its marge; so, on all
+sides, a sea-gale operates as if an asteroid had fallen into the
+brine; making ringed mountain billows, interminably expanding,
+instead of ripples.
+
+The great September waves breaking at the base of the Neversink
+Highlands, far in advance of the swiftest pilot-boat, carry tidings.
+And full often, they know the last secret of many a stout ship, never
+heard of from the day she left port. Every wave in my eyes seems a
+soul.
+
+As there was no steering to be done, Jarl and I sheltered ourselves
+as well as we could under the awning. And for the first two days, one
+at a time, and every three or four hours, we dropped overboard for a
+bath, clinging to the gun-wale; a sharp look-out being kept for
+prowling sharks. A foot or two below the surface, the water
+felt cool and refreshing.
+
+On the third day a change came over us. We relinquished bathing, the
+exertion taxing us too much. Sullenly we laid ourselves down; turned
+our backs to each other; and were impatient of the slightest casual
+touch of our persons. What sort of expression my own countenance
+wore, I know not; but I hated to look at Jarl's. When I did it was a
+glare, not a glance. I became more taciturn than he. I can not tell
+what it was that came over me, but I wished I was alone. I felt that
+so long as the calm lasted, we were without help; that neither could
+assist the other; and above all, that for one, the water would hold
+out longer than for two. I felt no remorse, not the slightest, for
+these thoughts. It was instinct. Like a desperado giving up the
+ghost, I desired to gasp by myself.
+
+From being cast away with a brother, good God deliver me!
+
+The four days passed. And on the morning of the fifth, thanks be to
+Heaven, there came a breeze. Dancingly, mincingly it came, just
+rippling the sea, until it struck our sails, previously set at the
+very first token of its advance. At length it slightly freshened; and
+our poor Chamois seemed raised from the dead.
+
+Beyond expression delightful! Once more we heard the low humming of
+the sea under our bow, as our boat, like a bird, went singing on its way.
+
+How changed the scene! Overhead, a sweet blue haze, distilling
+sunlight in drops. And flung abroad over the visible creation was the
+sun-spangled, azure, rustling robe of the ocean, ermined with wave
+crests; all else, infinitely blue. Such a cadence of musical sounds!
+Waves chasing each other, and sporting and frothing in frolicsome
+foam: painted fish rippling past; and anon the noise of wings as sea-
+fowls flew by.
+
+Oh, Ocean, when thou choosest to smile, more beautiful thou art than
+flowery mead or plain!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+In High Spirits, They Push On For The Terra Incognita
+
+
+There were now fourteen notches on the loom of the Skyeman's oar:--So
+many days since we had pushed from the fore-chains of the Arcturion.
+But as yet, no floating bough, no tern, noddy, nor reef-bird, to
+denote our proximity to land. In that long calm, whither might not
+the currents have swept us?
+
+Where we were precisely, we knew not; but according to our reckoning,
+the loose estimation of the knots run every hour, we must have sailed
+due west but little more than one hundred and fifty leagues; for the
+most part having encountered but light winds, and frequent
+intermitting calms, besides that prolonged one described. But spite
+of past calms and currents, land there must be to the westward. Sun,
+compass, stout hearts, and steady breezes, pointed our prow thereto.
+So courage! my Viking, and never say drown!
+
+At this time, our hearts were much lightened by discovering that our
+water was improving in taste. It seemed to have been undergoing anew
+that sort of fermentation, or working, occasionally incident to ship
+water shortly after being taken on board. Sometimes, for a period, it
+is more or less offensive to taste and smell; again, however,
+becoming comparatively limpid.
+
+But as our water improved, we grew more and more miserly of so
+priceless a treasure.
+
+And here it may be well to make mention of another little
+circumstance, however unsentimental. Thorough-paced tar that he was,
+my Viking was an inordinate consumer of the Indian weed. From
+the Arcturion, he had brought along with him a small half-keg, at
+bottom impacted with a solitary layer of sable Negrohead, fossil-
+marked, like the primary stratum of the geologists. It was the last
+tier of his abundant supply for the long whaling voyage upon which he
+had embarked upwards of three years previous. Now during the calm,
+and for some days after, poor Jarl's accustomed quid was no longer
+agreeable company. To pun: he eschewed his chew. I asked him
+wherefore. He replied that it puckered up his mouth, above all
+provoked thirst, and had somehow grown every way distasteful. I was
+sorry; for the absence of his before ever present wad impaired what
+little fullness there was left in his cheek; though, sooth to say, I
+no longer called upon him as of yore to shift over the enormous
+morsel to starboard or larboard, and so trim our craft.
+
+The calm gone by, once again my sea-tailor plied needle and thread;
+or turning laundress, hung our raiment to dry on oars peaked
+obliquely in the thole-pins. All of which tattered pennons, the wind
+being astern, helped us gayly on our way; as jolly poor devils, with
+rags flying in the breeze, sail blithely through life; and are merry
+although they are poor!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+My Lord Shark And His Pages
+
+
+There is a fish in the sea that evermore, like a surly lord, only
+goes abroad attended by his suite. It is the Shovel-nosed Shark. A
+clumsy lethargic monster, unshapely as his name, and the last species
+of his kind, one would think, to be so bravely waited upon, as he is.
+His suite is composed of those dainty little creatures called Pilot
+fish by sailors. But by night his retinue is frequently increased by
+the presence of several small luminous fish, running in advance, and
+flourishing their flambeaux like link-boys lighting the monster's
+way. Pity there were no ray-fish in rear, page-like, to carry his
+caudal train.
+
+Now the relation subsisting between the Pilot fish above mentioned
+and their huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable
+things in nature. At any rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. That a
+monster so ferocious, should suffer five or six little sparks, hardly
+fourteen inches long, to gambol about his grim hull with the utmost
+impunity, is of itself something strange. But when it is considered,
+that by a reciprocal understanding, the Pilot fish seem to act as
+scouts to the shark, warning him of danger, and apprising him of the
+vicinity of prey; and moreover, in case of his being killed, evincing
+their anguish by certain agitations, otherwise inexplicable; the
+whole thing becomes a mystery unfathomable. Truly marvels abound. It
+needs no dead man to be raised, to convince us of some things. Even
+my Viking marveled full as much at those Pilot fish as he would have
+marveled at the Pentecost.
+
+But perhaps a little incident, occurring about this period, will best
+illustrate the matter in hand.
+
+We were gliding along, hardly three knots an hour, when my comrade,
+who had been dozing over the gunwale, suddenly started to his feet,
+and pointed out an immense Shovel-nosed Shark, less than a boat's
+length distant, and about half a fathom beneath the surface. A lance
+was at once snatched from its place; and true to his calling, Jarl
+was about to dart it at the fish, when, interested by the sight of
+its radiant little scouts, I begged him to desist.
+
+One of them was right under the shark, nibbling at his ventral fin;
+another above, hovering about his dorsal appurtenance; one on each
+flank; and a frisking fifth pranking about his nose, seemingly having
+something to say of a confidential nature. They were of a bright,
+steel-blue color, alternated with jet black stripes; with glistening
+bellies of a silver-white. Clinging to the back of the shark, were
+four or five Remoras, or sucking-fish; snaky parasites, impossible to
+remove from whatever they adhere to, without destroying their lives.
+The Remora has little power in swimming; hence its sole locomotion is
+on the backs of larger fish. Leech-like, it sticketh closer than a
+false brother in prosperity; closer than a beggar to the benevolent;
+closer than Webster to the Constitution. But it feeds upon what it
+clings to; its feelers having a direct communication with the
+esophagus.
+
+The shark swam sluggishly; creating no sign of a ripple, but ever
+and, anon shaking his Medusa locks, writhing and curling with
+horrible life. Now and then, the nimble Pilot fish darted from his
+side--this way and that--mostly toward our boat; but previous to
+taking a fresh start ever returning to their liege lord to report
+progress.
+
+A thought struck me. Baiting a rope's end with a morsel of our almost
+useless salt beef, I suffered it to trail in the sea. Instantly the
+foremost scout swam toward it; hesitated; paused; but at last
+advancing, briskly snuffed at the line, and taking one finical
+little nibble, retreated toward the shark. Another moment, and the
+great Tamerlane himself turned heavily about; pointing his black,
+cannon-like nose directly toward our broadside. Meanwhile, the little
+Pilot fish darted hither and thither; keeping up a mighty fidgeting,
+like men of small minds in a state of nervous agitation.
+
+Presently, Tamerlane swam nearer and nearer, all the while lazily
+eyeing the Chamois, as a wild boar a kid. Suddenly making a rush for
+it, in the foam he made away with the bait. But the next instant, the
+uplifted lance sped at his skull; and thrashing his requiem with his
+sinewy tail, he sunk slowly, through his own blood, out of sight.
+Down with him swam the terrified Pilot fish; but soon after, three of
+them were observed close to the boat, gliding along at a uniform
+pace; one an each side, and one in advance; even as they had attended
+their lord. Doubtless, one was under our keel.
+
+"A good omen," said Jarl; "no harm will befall us so long as they stay."
+
+But however that might be, follow us they did, for many days after:
+until an event occurred, which necessitated their withdrawal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+Who Goes There?
+
+
+Jarl's oar showed sixteen notches on the loom, when one evening, as
+the expanded sun touched the horizon's rim, a ship's uppermost spars
+were observed, traced like a spider's web against its crimson disk.
+It looked like a far-off craft on fire.
+
+In bright weather at sea, a sail, invisible in the full flood of
+noon, becomes perceptible toward sunset. It is the reverse in the
+morning. In sight at gray dawn, the distant vessel, though in reality
+approaching, recedes from view, as the sun rises higher and higher.
+This holds true, till its vicinity makes it readily fall within the
+ordinary scope of vision. And thus, too, here and there, with other
+distant things: the more light you throw on them, the more you
+obscure. Some revelations show best in a twilight.
+
+The sight of the stranger not a little surprised us. But brightening
+up, as if the encounter were welcome, Jarl looked happy and
+expectant. He quickly changed his demeanor, however, upon perceiving
+that I was bent upon shunning a meeting.
+
+Instantly our sails were struck; and calling upon Jarl, who was
+somewhat backward to obey, I shipped the oars; and, both rowing, we
+stood away obliquely from our former course.
+
+I divined that the vessel was a whaler; and hence, that by help of
+the glass, with which her look-outs must be momentarily sweeping the
+horizon, they might possibly have descried us; especially, as we were
+due east from the ship; a direction, which at sunset is the
+one most favorable for perceiving a far-off object at sea.
+Furthermore, our canvas was snow-white and conspicuous. To be sure,
+we could not be certain what kind of a vessel it was; but whatever it
+might be, I, for one, had no mind to risk an encounter; for it was
+quite plain, that if the stranger came within hailing distance, there
+would be no resource but to link our fortunes with hers; whereas I
+desired to pursue none but the Chamois'. As for the Skyeman, he kept
+looking wistfully over his shoulder; doubtless, praying Heaven, that
+we might not escape what I sought to avoid.
+
+Now, upon a closer scrutiny, being pretty well convinced that the
+stranger, after all, was steering a nearly westerly course--right
+away from us--we reset our sail; and as night fell, my Viking's
+entreaties, seconded by my own curiosity, induced me to resume our
+original course; and so follow after the vessel, with a view of
+obtaining a nearer glimpse, without danger of detection. So, boldly
+we steered for the sail.
+
+But not gaining much upon her, spite of the lightness of the breeze
+(a circumstance in our favor: the chase being a ship, and we but a
+boat), at my comrade's instigation, we added oars to sails, readily
+guiding our way by the former, though the helm was left to itself.
+
+As we came nearer, it was plain that the vessel was no whaler; but a
+small, two-masted craft; in short, a brigantine. Her sails were in a
+state of unaccountable disarray; .only the foresail, mainsail, and
+jib being set. The first was much tattered; and the jib was hoisted
+but half way up the stay, where it idly flapped, the breeze coming
+from over the taffrail. She continually yawed in her course; now
+almost presenting her broadside, then showing her stern.
+
+Striking our sails once more, we lay on our oars, and watched her in
+the starlight. Still she swung from side to side, and still sailed on.
+
+Not a little terrified at the sight, superstitious Jarl more than
+insinuated that the craft must be a gold-huntress, haunted. But I
+told him, that if such were the case, we must board her, come gold or
+goblins. In reality, however, I began to think that she must have
+been abandoned by her crew; or else, that from sickness, those on
+board were incapable of managing her.
+
+After a long and anxious reconnoiter, we came still nearer, using our
+oars, but very reluctantly on Jarl's part; who, while rowing, kept
+his eyes over his shoulder, as if about to beach the little Chamois
+on the back of a whale as of yore. Indeed, he seemed full as
+impatient to quit the vicinity of the vessel, as before he had been
+anxiously courting it.
+
+Now, as the silent brigantine again swung round her broadside, I
+hailed her loudly. No return. Again. But all was silent. With a few
+vigorous strokes, we closed with her, giving yet another unanswered
+hail; when, laying the Chamois right alongside, I clutched at the
+main-chains. Instantly we felt her dragging us along. Securing our
+craft by its painter, I sprang over the rail, followed by Jarl, who
+had snatched his harpoon, his favorite arms. Long used with that
+weapon to overcome the monsters of the deep, he doubted not it would
+prove equally serviceable in any other encounter.
+
+The deck was a complete litter. Tossed about were pearl oyster
+shells, husks of cocoa-nuts, empty casks, and cases. The deserted
+tiller was lashed; which accounted for the vessel's yawing. But we
+could not conceive, how going large before the wind; the craft could,
+for any considerable time, at least, have guided herself without the
+help of a hand. Still, the breeze was light and steady.
+
+Now, seeing the helm thus lashed, I could not but distrust the
+silence that prevailed. It conjured up the idea of miscreants
+concealed below, and meditating treachery; unscrupulous mutineers--
+Lascars, or Manilla-men; who, having murdered the Europeans of
+the crew, might not be willing to let strangers depart unmolested. Or
+yet worse, the entire ship's company might have been swept away by a
+fever, its infection still lurking in the poisoned hull. And though
+the first conceit, as the last, was a mere surmise, it was
+nevertheless deemed prudent to secure the hatches, which for the
+present we accordingly barred down with the oars of our boat. This
+done, we went about the deck in search of water. And finding some in
+a clumsy cask, drank long and freely, and to our thirsty souls'
+content.
+
+The wind now freshening, and the rent sails like to blow from the
+yards, we brought the brigantine to the wind, and brailed up the
+canvas. This left us at liberty to examine the craft, though,
+unfortunately, the night was growing hazy.
+
+All this while our boat was still towing alongside; and I was about
+to drop it astern, when Jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where
+it was; since, if there were people on board, they would most likely
+be down in the cabin, from the dead-lights of which, mischief might
+be done to the Chamois.
+
+It was then, that my comrade observed, that the brigantine had no
+boats, a circumstance most unusual in any sort of a vessel at sea.
+But marking this, I was exceedingly gratified. It seemed to indicate,
+as I had opined, that from some cause or other, she must have been
+abandoned of her crew. And in a good measure this dispelled my fears
+of foul play, and the apprehension of contagion. Encouraged by these
+reflections, I now resolved to descend, and explore the cabin, though
+sorely against Jarl's counsel. To be sure, as he earnestly said, this
+step might have been deferred till daylight; but it seemed too
+wearisome to wait. So bethinking me of our tinder-box and candles, I
+sent him into the boat for them. Presently, two candles were lit; one
+of which the Skyeman tied up and down the barbed end of his harpoon;
+so that upon going below, the keen steel might not be far off,
+should the light be blown out by a dastard.
+
+Unfastening the cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest
+and murkiest den in the world. The altar-like transom, surmounted by
+the closed dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky-
+light overhead, and the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the
+place the air of some subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of
+Peter the Hermit. But coils of rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of
+clothing, and disorderly heaps of rubbish, harmonized not with this
+impression. Two doors, one on each side, led into wee little state-
+rooms, the berths of which also were littered. Among other things,
+was a large box, sheathed with iron and stoutly clamped, containing a
+keg partly filled with powder, the half of an old cutlass, a pouch of
+bullets, and a case for a sextant--a brass plate on the lid, with the
+maker's name. London. The broken blade of the cutlass was very rusty
+and stained; and the iron hilt bent in. It looked so tragical that I
+thrust it out of sight.
+
+Removing a small trap-door, opening into the space beneath, called
+the "run," we lighted upon sundry cutlasses and muskets, lying
+together at sixes and sevens, as if pitched down in a hurry.
+
+Casting round a hasty glance, and satisfying ourselves, that through
+the bulkhead of the cabin, there was no passage to the forward part
+of the hold, we caught up the muskets and cutlasses, the powder keg
+and the pouch of bullets, and bundling them on deck, prepared to
+visit the other end of the vessel. Previous to so doing, however, I
+loaded a musket, and belted a cutlass to my side. But my Viking
+preferred his harpoon.
+
+In the forecastle reigned similar confusion. But there was a snug
+little lair, cleared away in one corner, and furnished with a grass
+mat and bolster, like those used among the Islanders of these seas.
+This little lair looked to us as if some leopard had crouched there.
+And as it turned out, we were not far from right. Forming one
+side of this retreat, was a sailor's chest, stoutly secured by a
+lock, and monstrous heavy withal. Regardless of Jarl's entreaties, I
+managed to burst the lid; thereby revealing a motley assemblage of
+millinery, and outlandish knick-knacks of all sorts; together with
+sundry rude Calico contrivances, which though of unaccountable cut,
+nevertheless possessed a certain petticoatish air, and latitude of
+skirt, betokening them the habiliments of some feminine creature;
+most probably of the human species.
+
+In this strong box, also, was a canvas bag, jingling with rusty old
+bell-buttons, gangrened copper bolts, and sheathing nails; damp,
+greenish Carolus dollars (true coin all), besides divers iron screws,
+and battered, chisels, and belaying-pins. Sounded on the chest lid,
+the dollars rang clear as convent bells. These were put aside by Jarl
+the sight of substantial dollars doing away, for the nonce, with his
+superstitious Misgivings. True to his kingship, he loved true coin;
+though abroad on the sea, and no land but dollarless dominions
+ground, all this silver was worthless as charcoal or diamonds. Nearly
+one and the same thing, say the chemists; but tell that to the
+marines, say the illiterate Jews and the jewelers. Go, buy a house,
+or a ship, if you can, with your charcoal! Yea, all the woods in
+Canada charred down to cinders would not be worth the one famed
+Brazilian diamond, though no bigger than the egg of a carrier pigeon.
+Ah! but these chemists are liars, and Sir Humphrey Davy a cheat.
+Many's the poor devil they've deluded into the charcoal business, who
+otherwise might have made his fortune with a mattock.
+
+Groping again into the chest, we brought to light a queer little hair
+trunk, very bald and rickety. At every corner was a mighty clamp, the
+weight of which had no doubt debilitated the box. It was jealously
+secured with a padlock, almost as big as itself; so that it was
+almost a question, which was meant to be security to the other.
+Prying at it hard, we at length effected an entrance; but saw
+no golden moidores, no ruddy doubloons; nothing under heaven but
+three pewter mugs, such as are used in a ship's cabin, several brass
+screws, and brass plates, which must have belonged to a quadrant;
+together with a famous lot of glass beads, and brass rings; while,
+pasted on the inside of the cover, was a little colored print,
+representing the harlots, the shameless hussies, having a fine time
+with the Prodigal Son.
+
+It should have been mentioned ere now, that while we were busy in the
+forecastle, we were several times startled by strange sounds aloft.
+And just after, crashing into the little hair trunk, down came a
+great top-block, right through the scuttle, narrowly missing my
+Viking's crown; a much stronger article, by the way, than your
+goldsmiths turn out in these days. This startled us much;
+particularly Jarl, as one might suppose; but accustomed to the
+strange creakings and wheezings of the masts and yards of old vessels
+at sea, and having many a time dodged stray blocks accidentally
+falling from aloft, I thought little more of the matter; though my
+comrade seemed to think the noises somewhat different from any thing
+of that kind he had even heard before.
+
+After a little more turning over of the rubbish in the forecastle,
+and much marveling thereat, we ascended to the deck; where we found
+every thing so silent, that, as we moved toward the taffrail, the
+Skyeman unconsciously addressed me in a whisper.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+Noises And Portents
+
+
+I longed for day. For however now inclined to believe that the
+brigantine was untenanted, I desired the light of the sun to place
+that fact beyond a misgiving.
+
+Now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel, that she lay
+rather low in the water, I thought proper to sound the well. But
+there being no line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up
+in the arm-chest on the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be
+kept. Meanwhile I searched for the "breaks," or pump-handles, which,
+as it turned out, could not have been very recently used; for they
+were found lashed up and down to the main-mast.
+
+Suddenly Jarl came running toward me, whispering that all doubt was
+dispelled;--there were spirits on board, to a dead certainty. He had
+overheard a supernatural sneeze. But by this time I was all but
+convinced, that we were alone in the brigantine. Since, if otherwise,
+I could assign no earthly reason for the crew's hiding away from a
+couple of sailors, whom, were they so minded, they might easily have
+mastered. And furthermore, this alleged disturbance of the atmosphere
+aloft by a sneeze, Jarl averred to have taken place in the main-top;
+directly underneath which I was all this time standing, and had heard
+nothing. So complimenting my good Viking upon the exceeding delicacy
+of his auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his
+piratical ghosts and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his own
+imagination.
+
+Not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a bowline we
+rigged a substitute; and sounding the well, found nothing to excite
+our alarm. Under certain circumstances, however, this sounding a
+ship's well is a nervous sort of business enough. 'Tis like feeling
+your own pulse in the last stage of a fever.
+
+At the Skyeman's suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the
+brigantine's head on the other tack. For until daylight we desired to
+alter the vessel's position as little as possible, fearful of coming
+unawares upon reefs.
+
+And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about
+the brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely
+phantom-like nature, honest Jarl was nevertheless exceedingly
+downright and practical in all hints and proceedings concerning her.
+Wherein, he resembled my Right Reverend friend, Bishop Berkeley--
+truly, one of your lords spiritual--who, metaphysically speaking,
+holding all objects to be mere optical delusions, was, notwith-
+standing, extremely matter-of-fact in all matters touching
+matter itself. Besides being pervious to the points of pins, and
+possessing a palate capable of appreciating plum-puddings:--which
+sentence reads off like a pattering of hailstones.
+
+Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl
+must needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins
+on board. He swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung
+round, he had heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one
+of his bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed. I laughed:--
+hinting that goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon he besought me to
+ascend the fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But here my
+mature judgment got the better of my first crude opinion. I civilly
+declined. For assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the
+fore-top might be tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a
+pretty hap would be mine, if, with hands full of rigging, and legs
+dangling in air, while surmounting the oblique futtock-
+shrouds, some unseen arm should all at once tumble me overboard.
+Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on to declare, that with
+regard to the character of the brigantine, his mind was now pretty
+fully made up;--she was an arrant impostor, a shade of a ship, full
+of sailors' ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would dissolve
+in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the water. In short,
+Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old Norsemen, was full of
+old Norse conceits, and all manner of Valhalla marvels concerning the
+land of goblins and goblets. No wonder then, that with this catastrophe
+in prospect, he again entreated me to quit the ill-starred craft,
+carrying off nothing from her ghostly hull. But I refused.
+
+One can not relate every thing at once. While in the cabin, we came
+across a "barge" of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality
+much superior to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally
+regaled ourselves in the intervals of rummaging. Now this sea cake-
+basket we had brought on deck. And for the first time since bidding
+adieu to the Arcturion having fully quenched our thirst, our appetite
+returned with a rush; and having nothing better to do till day
+dawned, we planted the bread-barge in the middle of the quarter-deck;
+and crossing our legs before it, laid close seige thereto, like the
+Grand Turk and his Vizier Mustapha sitting down before Vienna.
+
+Our castle, the Bread-Barge was of the common sort; an oblong oaken
+box, much battered and bruised, and like the Elgin Marbles, all over
+inscriptions and carving:--foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs,
+Burton-blocks, love verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; and
+divers mystic diagrams in chalk, drawn by old Finnish mariners; in
+casting horoscopes and prophecies. Your old tars are all Daniels.
+There was a round hole in one side, through which, in getting at the
+bread, invited guests thrust their hands.
+
+And mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also, many
+and earnest the glances of Mustapha at every sudden creaking of the
+spars or rigging. Like Belshazzar, my royal Viking ate with great
+fear and trembling; ever and anon pausing to watch the wild shadows
+flitting along the bulwarks.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+Man Ho!
+
+
+Slowly, fitfully, broke the morning in the East, showing the desolate
+brig forging heavily through the water, which sluggishly thumped
+under her bows. While leaping from sea to sea, our faithful Chamois,
+like a faithful dog, still gamboled alongside, confined to the main-
+chains by its painter. At times, it would long lag behind; then,
+pushed by a wave like lightning dash forward; till bridled by its
+leash, it again fell in rear.
+
+As the gray light came on, anxiously we scrutinized the features of
+the craft, as one by one they became more plainly revealed. Every
+thing seemed stranger now, than when partially visible in the dingy
+night. The stanchions, or posts of the bulwarks, were of rough
+stakes, still incased in the bark. The unpainted sides were of a
+dark-colored, heathenish looking wood. The tiller was a wry-necked,
+elbowed bough, thrusting itself through the deck, as if the tree
+itself was fast rooted in the hold. The binnacle, containing the
+compass, was defended at the sides by yellow matting. The rigging--
+shrouds, halyards and all--was of "Kaiar," or cocoa-nut fibres; and
+here and there the sails were patched with plaited rushes.
+
+But this was not all. Whoso will pry, must needs light upon matters
+for suspicion. Glancing over the side, in the wake of every scupper-
+hole, we beheld a faded, crimson stain, which Jarl averred to be
+blood. Though now he betrayed not the slightest trepidation; for what
+he saw pertained not to ghosts; and all his fears hitherto had been
+of the super-natural.
+
+Indeed, plucking up a heart, with the dawn of the day my Viking
+looked bold as a lion; and soon, with the instinct of an old seaman
+cast his eyes up aloft.
+
+Directly, he touched my arm,--"Look: what stirs in the main-top?"
+
+Sure enough, something alive was there.
+
+Fingering our arms, we watched it; till as the day came on, a
+crouching stranger was beheld.
+
+Presenting my piece, I hailed him to descend or be shot. There was
+silence for a space, when the black barrel of a musket was thrust
+forth, leveled at my head. Instantly, Jarl's harpoon was presented at
+a dart;--two to one;--and my hail was repeated. But no reply.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"Samoa," at length said a clear, firm voice.
+
+"Come down from the rigging. We are friends."
+
+Another pause; when, rising to his feet, the stranger slowly
+descended, holding on by one hand to the rigging, for but one did he
+have; his musket partly slung from his back, and partly griped under
+the stump of his mutilated arm.
+
+He alighted about six paces from where we stood; and balancing his
+weapon, eyed us bravely as the Cid.
+
+He was a tall, dark Islander, a very devil to behold, theatrically
+arrayed in kilt and turban; the kilt of a gay calico print, the
+turban of a red China silk. His neck was jingling with strings of
+beads.
+
+"Who else is on board?" I asked; while Jarl, thus far covering the
+stranger with his weapon, now dropped it to the deck.
+
+"Look there:--Annatoo!" was his reply in broken English, pointing
+aloft to the fore-top. And lo! a woman, also an Islander; and barring
+her skirts, dressed very much like Samoa, was beheld descending.
+
+"Any more?"
+
+"No more."
+
+"Who are _you_ then; and what craft is this?"
+
+"Ah, ah--you are no ghost;--but are you my friend?" he cried,
+advancing nearer as he spoke; while the woman having gained the deck,
+also approached, eagerly glancing.
+
+We said we were friends; that we meant no harm; but desired to know
+what craft this was; and what disaster had befallen her; for that
+something untoward had occurred, we were certain.
+
+Whereto, Samoa made answer, that it was true that something dreadful
+had happened; and that he would gladly tell us all, and tell us the
+truth. And about it he went.
+
+Now, this story of his was related in the mixed phraseology of a
+Polynesian sailor. With a few random reflections, in substance, it
+will be found in the six following chapters.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+What Befel The Brigantine At The Pearl Shell Islands
+
+
+The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the
+coast of Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been
+miserably cobbled together with planks of native wood, and fragments
+of a wreck, there drifted ashore.
+
+Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the
+tallest and goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands.
+With a mixed European and native crew, about thirty in number (but
+only four whites in all, captain included), the Parki, some four
+months previous, had sailed from her port on a voyage southward, in
+quest of pearls, and pearl oyster shells, sea-slugs, and other
+matters of that sort.
+
+Samoa, a native of the Navigator Islands, had long followed the sea,
+and was well versed in the business of oyster diving and its
+submarine mysteries. The native Lahineese on board were immediately
+subordinate to him; the captain having bargained with Samoa for their
+services as divers.
+
+The woman, Annatoo, was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to
+the westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the
+commander of a ship, touching there on a passage from Macao to
+Valparaiso. At Valparaiso her protector put her ashore; most
+probably, as I afterward had reason to think, for a nuisance.
+
+By chance it came to pass that when Annatoo's first virgin bloom had
+departed, leaving nothing but a lusty frame and a lustier soul,
+Samoa, the Navigator, had fallen desperately in love with her. And
+thinking the lady to his mind, being brave like himself, and
+doubtless well adapted to the vicissitudes of matrimony at sea, he
+meditated suicide--I would have said, wedlock--and the twain became
+one. And some time after, in capacity of wife, Annatoo the dame,
+accompanied in the brigantine, Samoa her lord. Now, as Antony flew to
+the refuse embraces of Caesar, so Samoa solaced himself in the arms
+of this discarded fair one. And the sequel was the same. For not
+harder the life Cleopatra led my fine frank friend, poor Mark, than
+Queen Annatoo did lead this captive of her bow and her spear. But all
+in good time.
+
+They left their port; and crossing the Tropic and the Line, fell in
+with a cluster of islands, where the shells they sought were found in
+round numbers. And here--not at all strange to tell besides the
+natives, they encountered a couple of Cholos, or half-breed
+Spaniards, from the Main; one half Spanish, the other half quartered
+between the wild Indian and the devil; a race, that from Baldivia to
+Panama are notorious for their unscrupulous villainy.
+
+Now, the half-breeds having long since deserted a ship at these
+islands, had risen to high authority among the natives. This hearing,
+the Parki's captain was much gratified; he, poor ignorant, never
+before having fallen in with any of their treacherous race. And, no
+doubt, he imagined that their influence over the Islanders would tend
+to his advantage. At all events, he made presents to the Cholos; who,
+in turn, provided him with additional divers from among the natives.
+Very kindly, also, they pointed out the best places for seeking the
+oysters. In a word, they were exceedingly friendly; often coming off
+to the brigantine, and sociably dining with the captain in the cabin;
+placing the salt between them and him.
+
+All things went on very pleasantly until, one morning, the half-
+breeds prevailed upon the captain to go with them, in his whale-boat,
+to a shoal on the thither side of the island, some distance from the
+spot where lay the brigantine. They so managed it, moreover, that none
+but the Lahineese under Samoa, in whom the captain much confided, were
+left in custody of the Parki; the three white men going along to row;
+for there happened to be little or no wind for a sail.
+
+Now, the fated brig lay anchored within a deep, smooth, circular
+lagoon, margined on all sides but one by the most beautiful groves.
+On that side, was the outlet to the sea; perhaps a cable's length or
+more from where the brigantine had been moored. An hour or two after
+the party were gone, and when the boat was completely out of sight,
+the natives in shoals were perceived coming off from the shore; some
+in canoes, and some swimming. The former brought bread fruit and
+bananas, ostentatiously piled up in their proas; the latter dragged
+after them long strings of cocoanuts; for all of which, on nearing
+the vessel, they clamorously demanded knives and hatchets in barter.
+
+From their actions, suspecting some treachery, Samoa stood in the
+gangway, and warned them off; saying that no barter could take place
+until the captain's return. But presently one of the savages
+stealthily climbed up from the water, and nimbly springing from the
+bob-stays to the bow-sprit, darted a javelin full at the foremast,
+where it vibrated. The signal of blood! With terrible outcries, the
+rest, pulling forth their weapons, hitherto concealed in the canoes,
+or under the floating cocoanuts, leaped into the low chains of the
+brigantine; sprang over the bulwarks; and, with clubs and spears,
+attacked the aghast crew with the utmost ferocity.
+
+After one faint rally, the Lahineese scrambled for the rigging; but
+to a man were overtaken and slain.
+
+At the first alarm, Annatoo, however, had escaped to the fore-top-
+gallant-yard, higher than which she could not climb, and whither the
+savages durst not venture. For though after their nuts these
+Polynesians will climb palm trees like squirrels; yet, at the first
+blush, they decline a ship's mast like Kennebec farmers.
+
+Upon the first token of an onslaught, Samoa, having rushed toward the
+cabin scuttle for arms, was there fallen upon by two young savages.
+But after a desperate momentary fray, in which his arm was mangled,
+he made shift to spring below, instantly securing overhead the slide
+of the scuttle. In the cabin, while yet the uproar of butchery
+prevailed, he quietly bound up his arm; then laying on the transom
+the captain's three loaded muskets, undauntedly awaited an assault.
+
+The object of the natives, it seems, was to wreck the brigantine upon
+the sharp coral beach of the lagoon. And with this intent, one of
+their number had plunged into the water, and cut the cable, which was
+of hemp. But the tide ebbing, cast the Parki's head seaward--toward
+the outlet; and the savages, perceiving this, clumsily boarded the
+fore-tack, and hauled aft the sheet; thus setting, after a fashion,
+the fore-sail, previously loosed to dry.
+
+Meanwhile, a gray-headed old chief stood calmly at the tiller,
+endeavoring to steer the vessel shoreward. But not managing the helm
+aright, the brigantine, now gliding apace through the water, only
+made more way toward the outlet. Seeing which, the ringleaders, six
+or eight in number, ran to help the old graybeard at the helm. But it
+was a black hour for them. Of a sudden, while they were handling the
+tiller, three muskets were rapidly discharged upon them from the
+cabin skylight. Two of the savages dropped dead. The old steersman,
+clutching wildly at the helm, fell over it, mortally wounded; and in
+a wild panic at seeing their leaders thus unaccountably slain, the
+rest of the natives leaped overboard and made for the shore.
+
+Hearing the slashing, Samoa flew on deck; and beholding the foresail
+set, and the brigantine heading right out to sea, he cried out to
+Annatoo, still aloft, to descend to the topsail-yard, and loose the
+canvas there. His command was obeyed. Annatoo deserved a gold medal
+for what she did that day. Hastening down the rigging, after loosing
+the topsail, she strained away at the sheets; in which operation she
+was assisted by Samoa, who snatched an instant from the helm.
+
+The foresail and fore-topsail were now tolerably well set; and as the
+craft drew seaward, the breeze freshened. And well that it did; for,
+recovered from their alarm, the savages were now in hot pursuit; some
+in canoes, and some swimming as before. But soon the main-topsail was
+given to the breeze, which still freshening, came from over the
+quarter. And with this brave show of canvas, the Parki made gallantly
+for the outlet; and loud shouted Samoa as she shot by the reef, and
+parted the long swells without. Against these, the savages could not
+swim. And at that turn of the tide, paddling a canoe therein was
+almost equally difficult. But the fugitives were not yet safe. In
+full chase now came in sight the whale-boat manned by the Cholos, and
+four or five Islanders. Whereat, making no doubt, that all the whites
+who left the vessel that morning had been massacred through the
+treachery of the half-breeds; and that the capture of the brigantine
+had been premeditated; Samoa now saw no other resource than to point
+his craft dead away from the land.
+
+Now on came the devils buckling to their oars. Meantime Annatoo was
+still busy aloft, loosing the smaller sails--t'gallants and royals,
+which she managed partially to set.
+
+The strong breeze from astern now filling the ill-set sails, they
+bellied, and rocked in the air, like balloons, while, from the novel
+strain upon it, every spar quivered and sprung. And thus, like a
+frightened gull fleeing from sea-hawks, the little Parki swooped
+along, and bravely breasted the brine.
+
+His shattered arm in a hempen sling, Samoa stood at the helm, the
+muskets reloaded, and planted full before him on the binnacle. For a
+time, so badly did the brigantine steer, by reason of her ill-
+adjusted sails, made still more unmanageable by the strength
+of the breeze,--that it was doubtful, after all, notwithstanding her
+start, whether the fugitives would not yet fall a prey to their
+hunters. The craft wildly yawed, and the boat drew nearer and nearer.
+Maddened by the sight, and perhaps thinking more of revenge for the
+past, than of security for the future, Samoa, yielding the helm to
+Annatoo, rested his muskets on the bulwarks, and taking long, sure
+aim, discharged them, one by one at the advancing foe.
+
+The three reports were answered by loud jeers from the savages, who
+brandished their spears, and made gestures of derision; while with
+might and main the Cholos tugged at their oars.
+
+The boat still gaining on the brigantine, the muskets were again
+reloaded. And as the next shot sped, there was a pause; when, like
+lightning, the headmost Cholo bounded upwards from his seat, and oar
+in hand, fell into the sea. A fierce yell; and one of the natives
+springing into the water, caught the sinking body by its long hair;
+and the dead and the living were dragged into the boat. Taking heart
+from this fatal shot, Samoa fired yet again; but not with the like
+sure result; merely grazing the remaining half-breed, who, crouching
+behind his comrades, besought them to turn the boat round, and make
+for the shore. Alarmed at the fate of his brother, and seemingly
+distrustful of the impartiality of Samoa's fire, the pusillanimous
+villain refused to expose a limb above the gunwale.
+
+Fain now would the pursuers have made good their escape; but an
+accident forbade. In the careening of the boat, when the stricken
+Cholo sprung overboard, two of their oars had slid into the water;
+and together with that death-griped by the half-breed, were now
+floating off; occasionally lost to view, as they sunk in the trough
+of the sea. Two of the Islanders swam to recover them; but frightened
+by the whirring of a shot over their heads, as they unavoidably
+struck out towards the Parki, they turned quickly about; just
+in time to see one of their comrades smite his body with his hand, as
+he received a bullet from Samoa.
+
+Enough: darting past the ill-fated boat, they swam rapidly for land,
+followed by the rest; who plunged overboard, leaving in the boat the
+surviving Cholo--who it seems could not swim--the wounded savage, and
+the dead man.
+
+"Load away now, and take thy revenge, my fine fellow," said Samoa to
+himself. But not yet. Seeing all at his mercy, and having none, he
+quickly laid his fore-topsail to the mast; "hove to" the brigantine;
+and opened fire anew upon the boat; every swell of the sea heaving it
+nearer and nearer. Vain all efforts to escape. The wounded man
+paddled wildly with his hands the dead one rolled from side to side;
+and the Cholo, seizing the solitary oar, in his frenzied
+heedlessness, spun the boat round and round; while all the while shot
+followed shot, Samoa firing as fast as Annatoo could load. At length
+both Cholo and savage fell dead upon their comrades, canting the boat
+over sideways, till well nigh awash; in which manner she drifted off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+Sailing From The Island They Pillage The Cabin
+
+
+There was a small carronade on the forecastle, unshipped from its
+carriage, and lashed down to ringbolts on the deck. This Samoa now
+loaded; and with an ax knocking off the round knob upon the breech,
+rammed it home in the tube. When, running the cannon out at one of
+the ports, and studying well his aim, he let fly, sunk the boat, and
+buried his dead.
+
+It was now late in the afternoon; and for the present bent upon
+avoiding land, and gaining the shoreless sea, never mind where, Samoa
+again forced round his craft before the wind, leaving the island
+astern. The decks were still cumbered with the bodies of the
+Lahineese, which heel to point and crosswise, had, log-like, been
+piled up on the main-hatch. These, one by one, were committed to the
+sea; after which, the decks were washed down.
+
+At sunrise next morning, finding themselves out of sight of land,
+with little or no wind, they stopped their headway, and lashed the
+tiller alee, the better to enable them to overhaul the brigantine;
+especially the recesses of the cabin. For there, were stores of goods
+adapted for barter among the Islanders; also several bags of dollars.
+
+Now, nothing can exceed the cupidity of the Polynesian, when, through
+partial commerce with the whites, his eyes are opened to his
+nakedness, and he perceives that in some things they are richer than
+himself.
+
+The poor skipper's wardrobe was first explored; his chests of clothes
+being capsized, and their contents strown about the cabin floor.
+
+Then took place the costuming. Samoa and Annatoo trying on coats and
+pantaloons, shirts and drawers, and admiring themselves in the little
+mirror panneled in the bulk-head. Then, were broken open boxes and
+bales; rolls of printed cotton were inspected, and vastly admired;
+insomuch, that the trumpery found in the captain's chests was
+disdainfully doffed: and donned were loose folds of calico, more
+congenial to their tastes.
+
+As case after case was opened and overturned, slippery grew the cabin
+deck with torrents of glass beads; and heavy the necks of Samoa and
+Annatoo with goodly bunches thereof.
+
+Among other things, came to light brass jewelry,--Rag Fair gewgaws
+and baubles a plenty, more admired than all; Annatoo, bedecking
+herself like, a tragedy queen: one blaze of brass. Much mourned the
+married dame, that thus arrayed, there was none to admire but Samoa
+her husband; but he was all the while admiring himself, and not her.
+
+And here must needs be related, what has hitherto remained unsaid.
+Very often this husband and wife were no Darby and Joan. Their
+married life was one long campaign, whereof the truces were only by
+night. They billed and they cooed on their arms, rising fresh in the
+morning to battle, and often Samoa got more than a hen-pecking. To be
+short, Annatoo was a Tartar, a regular Calmuc, and Samoa--Heaven help
+him--her husband.
+
+Yet awhile, joined together by a sense of common danger, and long
+engrossed in turning over their tinsel acquisitions without present
+thought of proprietorship, the pair refrained from all squabbles. But
+soon burst the storm. Having given every bale and every case a good
+shaking, Annatoo, making an estimate of the whole, very coolly
+proceeded to set apart for herself whatever she fancied. To this,
+Samoa objected; to which objection Annatoo objected; and then they
+went at it.
+
+The lady vowed that the things were no more Samoa's than hers;
+nay, not so much; and that whatever she wanted, that same would she
+have. And furthermore, by way of codicil, she declared that she was
+slave to nobody.
+
+Now, Samoa, sad to tell, stood in no little awe of his bellicose
+spouse. What, though a hero in other respects; what, though he had
+slain his savages, and gallantly carried his craft from their
+clutches:--Like the valiant captains Marlborough and Belisarius, he
+was a poltroon to his wife. And Annatoo was worse than either Sarah
+or Antonina.
+
+However, like every thing partaking of the nature of a scratch, most
+conjugal squabbles are quickly healed; for if they healed not, they
+would never anew break out: which is the beauty of the thing. So at
+length they made up but the treaty stipulations of Annatoo told much
+against the interests of Samoa. Nevertheless, ostensibly, it was
+agreed upon, that they should strictly go halves; the lady, however,
+laying special claim to certain valuables, more particularly fancied.
+But as a set-off to this, she generously renounced all claims upon
+the spare rigging; all claims upon the fore-mast and mainmast; and
+all claims upon the captain's arms and ammunition. Of the latter, by
+the way, Dame Antonina stood in no need. Her voice was a park of
+artillery; her talons a charge of bayonets.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
+
+
+By this time Samoa's wounded arm was in such a state, that amputation
+became necessary. Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for
+the most part, accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking
+to his couch in despair, the savage would disdain to recline.
+
+More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon,
+cutting off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. No unusual thing,
+for the warriors of Varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately
+wounded in battle. But owing to the clumsiness of the instrument
+employed--a flinty, serrated shell--the operation has been known to
+last several days. Nor will they suffer any friend to help them;
+maintaining, that a matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far
+better attended to by himself. Hence it may be said, that they
+amputate themselves at their leisure, and hang up their tools when
+tired. But, though thus beholden to no one for aught connected with
+the practice of surgery, they never cut off their own heads, that
+ever I heard; a species of amputation to which, metaphorically
+speaking, many would-be independent sort of people in civilized lands
+are addicted.
+
+Samoa's operation was very summary. A fire was kindled in the little
+caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then
+placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright
+timber, breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook's ax would have
+struck the blow; but for some reason distrusting the precision of his
+aim, Annatoo was assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the
+limb, from just above the elbow, was no longer Samoa's; and he saw
+his own bones; which many a centenarian can not say. The very
+clumsiness of the operation was safety to the subject. The weight and
+bluntness of the instrument both deadened the pain and lessened the
+hemorrhage. The wound was then scorched, and held over the smoke of
+the fire, till all signs of blood vanished. From that day forward it
+healed, and troubled Samoa but little.
+
+But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously averse to
+burying in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that
+case Samoa held, that he must very soon drown and follow it; and how,
+that equally dreading to keep the thing near him, he at last hung it
+aloft from the topmast-stay; where yet it was suspended, bandaged
+over and over in cerements. The hand that must have locked many
+others in friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought Samoa,
+for fowls of the air nor fishes of the sea.
+
+Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as Haman? Or the
+living trunk below? Was the arm severed from the body, or the body
+from the arm? The residual part of Samoa was alive, and therefore we
+say it was he. But which of the writhing sections of a ten times
+severed worm, is the worm proper?
+
+For myself, I ever regarded Samoa as but a large fragment of a man,
+not a man complete. For was he not an entire limb out of pocket? And
+the action at Teneriffe over, great Nelson himself--physiologically
+speaking--was but three-quarters of a man. And the smoke of Waterloo
+blown by, what was Anglesea but the like? After Saratoga, what
+Arnold? To say nothing of Mutius Scaevola minus a hand, General Knox
+a thumb, and Hannibal an eye; and that old Roman grenadier, Dentatus,
+nothing more than a bruised and battered trunk, a knotty sort of
+hemlock of a warrior, hard to hack and hew into chips, though
+much marred in symmetry by battle-ax blows. Ah! but these warriors,
+like anvils, will stand a deal of hard hammering. Especially in the
+old knight-errant times. For at the battle of Brevieux in Flanders,
+my glorious old gossiping ancestor, Froissart, informs me, that ten
+good knights, being suddenly unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless to
+the plain, fatally encumbered by their armor. Whereupon, the rascally
+burglarious peasants, their foes, fell to picking their visors; as
+burglars, locks; or oystermen, oysters; to get at their lives. But
+all to no purpose. And at last they were fain to ask aid of a
+blacksmith; and not till then, were the inmates of the armor
+dispatched. Now it was deemed very hard, that the mysterious state-
+prisoner of France should be riveted in an iron mask; but these
+knight-errants did voluntarily prison themselves in their own iron
+Bastiles; and thus helpless were murdered there-in. Days of chivalry
+these, when gallant chevaliers died chivalric deaths!
+
+And this was the epic age, over whose departure my late eloquent and
+prophetic friend and correspondent, Edmund Burke, so movingly
+mourned. Yes, they were glorious times. But no sensible man, given to
+quiet domestic delights, would exchange his warm fireside and
+muffins, for a heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty
+morning in Normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved fingers,
+and vainly striving to cook his cold coffee in his helmet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+Peril A Peace-Maker
+
+
+A few days passed: the brigantine drifting hither and thither, and
+nothing in sight but the sea, when forth again on its stillness rung
+Annatoo's domestic alarum. The truce was up. Most egregiously had the
+lady infringed it; appropriating to herself various objects
+previously disclaimed in favor of Samoa. Besides, forever on the
+prowl, she was perpetually going up and down; with untiring energy,
+exploring every nook and cranny; carrying off her spoils and
+diligently secreting them. Having little idea of feminine
+adaptations, she pilfered whatever came handy:--iron hooks, dollars,
+bolts, hatchets, and stopping not at balls of marline and sheets of
+copper. All this, poor Samoa would have borne with what patience he
+might, rather than again renew the war, were it not, that the
+audacious dame charged him with peculations upon her own private
+stores; though of any such thing he was innocent as the bowsprit.
+
+This insulting impeachment got the better of the poor islander's
+philosophy. He keenly resented it. And the consequence was, that
+seeing all domineering useless, Annatoo flew off at a tangent;
+declaring that, for the future, Samoa might stay by himself; she
+would have nothing more to do with him. Save when unavoidable in
+managing the brigantine, she would not even speak to him, that she
+wouldn't, the monster! She then boldly demanded the forecastle--in
+the brig's case, by far the pleasantest end of the ship--for her own
+independent suite of apartments. As for hapless Belisarius, he
+might do what he pleased in his dark little den of a cabin.
+
+Concerning the division of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in
+carrying the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods,
+together with numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover,
+she laid in a fine stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible,
+to live independent of her spouse.
+
+Unlovely Annatoo! Unfortunate Samoa! Thus did the pair make a divorce
+of it; the lady going upon a separate maintenance,--and Belisarius
+resuming his bachelor loneliness. In the captain's state room, all
+cold and comfortless, he slept; his lady whilome retiring to her
+forecastle boudoir; beguiling the hours in saying her pater-nosters,
+and tossing over and assorting her ill-gotten trinkets and finery;
+like Madame De Maintenon dedicating her last days and nights to
+continence and calicoes.
+
+But think you this was the quiet end of their conjugal quarrels? Ah,
+no! No end to those feuds, till one or t'other gives up the ghost.
+
+Now, exiled from the nuptial couch, Belisarius bore the hardship
+without a murmur. And hero that he was, who knows that he felt not
+like a soldier on a furlough? But as for Antonina, she could neither
+get along with Belisarius, nor without him. She made advances. But of
+what sort? Why, breaking into the cabin and purloining sundry goods
+therefrom; in artful hopes of breeding a final reconciliation out of
+the temporary outburst that might ensue.
+
+Then followed a sad scene of altercation; interrupted at last by a
+sudden loud roaring of the sea. Rushing to the deck, they beheld
+themselves sweeping head-foremost toward a shoal making out from a
+cluster of low islands, hitherto, by banks of clouds, shrouded from
+view.
+
+The helm was instantly shifted; and the yards braced about. But for
+several hours, owing to the freshness of the breeze, the set of the
+currents, and the irregularity and extent of the shoal, it
+seemed doubtful whether they would escape a catastrophe. But Samoa's
+seamanship, united to Annatoo's industry, at last prevailed; and the
+brigantine was saved.
+
+Of the land where they came so near being wrecked, they knew nothing;
+and for that reason, they at once steered away. For after the fatal
+events which had overtaken the Parki at the Pearl Shell islands, so
+fearful were they of encountering any Islanders, that from the first
+they had resolved to keep open sea, shunning every appearance of
+land; relying upon being eventually picked up by some passing sail.
+
+Doubtless this resolution proved their salvation. For to the
+navigator in these seas, no risk so great, as in approaching the
+isles; which mostly are so guarded by outpost reefs, and far out from
+their margins environed by perils, that the green flowery field
+within, lies like a rose among thorns; and hard to be reached as the
+heart of proud maiden. Though once attained, all three--red rose,
+bright shore, and soft heart--are full of love, bloom, and all manner
+of delights. The Pearl Shell islands excepted.
+
+Besides, in those generally tranquil waters, Samoa's little craft,
+though hundreds of miles from land, was very readily managed by
+himself and Annatoo. So small was the Parki, that one hand could
+brace the main-yard; and a very easy thing it was, even to hoist the
+small top-sails; for after their first clumsy attempt to perform that
+operation by hand, they invariably led the halyards to the windlass,
+and so managed it, with the utmost facility.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+Containing A Pennyweight Of Philosophy
+
+
+Still many days passed and the Parki yet floated. The little flying-
+fish got used to her familiar, loitering hull; and like swallows
+building their nests in quiet old trees, they spawned in the great
+green barnacles that clung to her sides.
+
+The calmer the sea, the more the barnacles grow. In the tropical
+Pacific, but a few weeks suffice thus to encase your craft in shell
+armor. Vast bunches adhere to the very cutwater, and if not stricken
+off, much impede the ship's sailing. And, at intervals, this clearing
+away of barnacles was one of Annatoo's occupations. For be it known,
+that, like most termagants, the dame was tidy at times, though
+capriciously; loving cleanliness by fits and starts. Wherefore, these
+barnacles oftentimes troubled her; and with a long pole she would go
+about, brushing them aside. It beguiled the weary hours, if nothing
+more; and then she would return to her beads and her trinkets;
+telling them all over again; murmuring forth her devotions, and
+marking whether Samoa had been pilfering from her store.
+
+Now, the escape from the shoal did much once again to heal the
+differences of the good lady and her spouse. And keeping house, as
+they did, all alone by themselves, in that lonely craft, a marvel it
+is, that they should ever have quarreled. And then to divorce, and
+yet dwell in the same tenement, was only aggravating the evil. So
+Belisarius and Antonina again came together. But now, grown wise by
+experience, they neither loved over-keenly, nor hated; but
+took things as they were; found themselves joined, without hope of a
+sundering, and did what they could to make a match of the mate.
+Annatoo concluded that Samoa was not wholly to be enslaved; and Samoa
+thought best to wink at Annatoo's foibles, and let her purloin when
+she pleased.
+
+But as in many cases, all this philosophy about wedlock is not proof
+against the perpetual contact of the parties concerned; and as it is
+far better to revive the old days of courtship, when men's mouths are
+honey-combs: and, to make them still sweeter, the ladies the bees
+which there store their sweets; when fathomless raptures glimmer far
+down in the lover's fond eye; and best of all, when visits are
+alternated by absence: so, like my dignified lord duke and his
+duchess, Samoa and Annatoo, man and wife, dwelling in the same house,
+still kept up their separate quarters. Marlborough visiting Sarah;
+and Sarah, Marlborough, whenever the humor suggested.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+In Which The Past History Op The Parki Is Concluded
+
+
+Still days, days, days sped by; and steering now this way, now that,
+to avoid the green treacherous shores, which frequently rose into
+view, the Parki went to and fro in the sea; till at last, it seemed
+hard to tell, in what watery world she floated. Well knowing the
+risks they ran, Samoa desponded. But blessed be ignorance. For in the
+day of his despondency, the lively old lass his wife bade him be of
+stout heart, cheer up, and steer away manfully for the setting sun;
+following which, they must inevitably arrive at her own dear native
+island, where all their cares would be over. So squaring their yards,
+away they glided; far sloping down the liquid sphere.
+
+Upon the afternoon of the day we caught sight of them in our boat,
+they had sighted a cluster of low islands, which put them in no small
+panic, because of their resemblance to those where the massacre had
+taken place. Whereas, they must have been full five hundred leagues
+from that fearful vicinity. However, they altered their course to
+avoid it; and a little before sunset, dropping the islands astern,
+resumed their previous track. But very soon after, they espied our
+little sea-goat, bounding over the billows from afar.
+
+This they took for a canoe giving chase to them. It renewed and
+augmented their alarm.
+
+And when at last they perceived that the strange object was a boat,
+their fears, instead of being allayed, only so much the more
+increased. For their wild superstitions led them to conclude,
+that a white man's craft coming upon them so suddenly, upon the open
+sea, and by night, could be naught but a phantom. Furthermore,
+marking two of us in the Chamois, they fancied us the ghosts of the
+Cholos. A conceit which effectually damped Samoa's courage, like my
+Viking's, only proof against things tangible. So seeing us bent upon
+boarding the brigantine; after a hurried over-turning of their
+chattels, with a view of carrying the most valuable aloft for safe
+keeping, they secreted what they could; and together made for the
+fore-top; the man with a musket, the woman with a bag of beads. Their
+endeavoring to secure these treasures against ghostly appropriation
+originated in no real fear, that otherwise they would be stolen: it
+was simply incidental to the vacant panic into which they were
+thrown. No reproach this, to Belisarius' heart of game; for the most
+intrepid Feegee warrior, he who has slain his hecatombs, will not go
+ten yards in the dark alone, for fear of ghosts.
+
+Their purpose was to remain in the top until daylight; by which time,
+they counted upon the withdrawal of their visitants; who, sure
+enough, at last sprang on board, thus verifying their worst
+apprehensions.
+
+They watched us long and earnestly. But curious to tell, in that very
+strait of theirs, perched together in that airy top, their domestic
+differences again broke forth; most probably, from their being
+suddenly forced into such very close contact.
+
+However that might be, taking advantage of our descent into the
+cabin, Samoa, in desperation fled from his wife, and one-armed as he
+was, sailor-like, shifted himself over by the fore and aft-stays to
+the main-top, his musket being slung to his back. And thus divided,
+though but a few yards intervened, the pair were as much asunder as
+if at the opposite Poles.
+
+During the live-long night they were both in great perplexity as to
+the extraordinary goblins on board. Such inquisitive, meddlesome
+spirits, had never before been encountered. So cool and systematic;
+sagaciously stopping the vessel's headway the better torummage;--the
+very plan they themselves had adopted. But what most
+surprised them, was our striking a light, a thing of which no true
+ghost would be guilty. Then, our eating and drinking on the quarter-
+deck including the deliberate investment of Vienna; and many other
+actions equally strange, almost led Samoa to fancy that we were no
+shades, after all, but a couple of men from the moon.
+
+Yet they had dimly caught sight of the frocks and trowsers we wore,
+similar to those which the captain of the Parki had bestowed upon the
+two Cholos, and in which those villains had been killed. This, with
+the presence of the whale boat, united to chase away the conceit of
+our lunar origin. But these considerations renewed their first
+superstitious impressions of our being the ghosts of the murderous
+half-breeds.
+
+Nevertheless, while during the latter part of the night we were
+reclining beneath him, munching our biscuit, Samoa eyeing us
+intently, was half a mind to open fire upon us by way of testing our
+corporeality. But most luckily, he concluded to defer so doing till
+sunlight; if by that time we should not have evaporated.
+
+For dame Annatoo, almost from our first boarding the brigantine,
+something in our manner had bred in her a lurking doubt as to the
+genuineness of our atmospheric organization; and abandoned to her
+speculations when Samoa fled from her side, her incredulity waxed
+stronger and stronger. Whence we came she knew not; enough, that we
+seemed bent upon pillaging her own precious purloinings. Alas!
+thought she, my buttons, my nails, my tappa, my dollars, my beads,
+and my boxes!
+
+Wrought up to desperation by these dismal forebodings, she at length
+shook the ropes leading from her own perch to Samoa's; adopting this
+method of arousing his attention to the heinousness of what
+was in all probability going on in the cabin, a prelude most probably
+to the invasion of her own end of the vessel. Had she dared raise her
+voice, no doubt she would have suggested the expediency of shooting
+us so soon as we emerged from the cabin. But failing to shake Samoa
+into an understanding of her views on the subject, her malice proved
+futile.
+
+When her worst fears were confirmed, however, and we actually
+descended into the forecastle; there ensued such a reckless shaking
+of the ropes, that Samoa was fain to hold on hard, for fear of being
+tossed out of the rigging. And it was this violent rocking that
+caused the loud creaking of the yards, so often heard by us while
+below in Annatoo's apartment.
+
+And the fore-top being just over the open forecastle scuttle, the
+dame could look right down upon us; hence our proceedings were
+plainly revealed by the lights that we carried. Upon our breaking
+open her strong-box, her indignation almost completely overmastered
+her fears. Unhooking a top-block, down it came into the forecastle,
+charitably commissioned with the demolition of Jarl's cocoa-nut, then
+more exposed to the view of an aerial observer than my own. But of it
+turned out, no harm was done to our porcelain.
+
+At last, morning dawned; when ensued Jarl's discovery as the occupant
+of the main-top; which event, with what followed, has been duly recounted.
+
+And such, in substance, was the first, second, third and fourth acts
+of the Parki drama. The fifth and last, including several scenes,
+now follows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+Suspicions Laid, And Something About The Calmuc
+
+
+Though abounding in details full of the savor of reality, Samoa's
+narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory. Not that
+it was so strange; for stranger recitals I had heard.
+
+But one reason, perhaps, was that I had anticipated a narrative quite
+different; something agreeing with my previous surmises.
+
+Not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen islands
+the day preceding; though, upon reflection, that might have been the
+case, and yet, from his immediately altering the Parki's course, the
+Chamois, unknowingly might have sailed by their vicinity. Still,
+those islands could form no part of the chain we were seeking. They
+must have been some region hitherto undiscovered.
+
+But seems it likely, thought I, that one, who, according to his own
+account, has conducted himself so heroically in rescuing the
+brigantine, should be the victim of such childish terror at the mere
+glimpse of a couple of sailors in an open boat, so well supplied,
+too, with arms, as he was, to resist their capturing his craft, if
+such proved their intention? On the contrary, would it not have been
+more natural, in his dreary situation, to have hailed our approach
+with the utmost delight? But then again, we were taken for phantoms,
+not flesh and blood. Upon the whole, I regarded the narrator of these
+things somewhat distrustfully. But he met my gaze like a man. While
+Annatoo, standing by, looked so expressively the Amazonian character
+imputed to her, that my doubts began to waver. And recalling
+all the little incidents of their story, so hard to be conjured up on
+the spur of a presumed necessity to lie; nay, so hard to be conjured
+up at all; my suspicions at last gave way. And I could no longer
+harbor any misgivings.
+
+For, to be downright, what object could Samoa have, in fabricating
+such a narrative of horrors--those of the massacre, I mean--unless to
+conceal some tragedy, still more atrocious, in which he himself had
+been criminally concerned? A supposition, which, for obvious reasons,
+seemed out of the question. True, instances were known to me of half-
+civilized beings, like Samoa, forming part of the crews of ships in
+these seas, rising suddenly upon their white ship-mates, and
+murdering them, for the sake of wrecking the ship on the shore of
+some island near by, and plundering her hull, when stranded.
+
+But had this been purposed with regard to the Parki, where the rest
+of the mutineers? There was no end to my conjectures; the more I
+indulged in them, the more they multiplied. So, unwilling to torment
+myself, when nothing could be learned, but what Samoa related, and
+stuck to like a hero; I gave over conjecturing at all; striving hard
+to repose full faith in the Islander.
+
+Jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could be brought
+completely to credit the tale. He stoutly maintained that the
+hobgoblins must have had something or other to do with the Parki.
+
+My own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine, Samoa
+himself turned inquisitor. He desired to know who we were; and whence
+we came in our marvelous boat. But on these heads I thought best to
+withhold from him the truth; among other things, fancying that if
+disclosed, it would lessen his deference for us, as men superior to
+himself. I therefore spoke vaguely of our adventures, and assumed the
+decided air of a master; which I perceived was not lost upon the rude
+Islander. As for Jarl, and what he might reveal, I embraced the first
+opportunity to impress upon him the importance of never divulging our
+flight from the Arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that
+head: injunctions which he faithfully promised to observe.
+
+If not wholly displeased with the fine form of Samoa, despite his
+savage lineaments, and mutilated member, I was much less conciliated
+by the person of Annatoo; who, being sinewy of limb, and neither
+young, comely, nor amiable, was exceedingly distasteful in my eyes.
+Besides, she was a tigress. Yet how avoid admiring those Penthesilian
+qualities which so signally had aided Samoa, in wresting the Parki
+from its treacherous captors. Nevertheless, it was indispensable that
+she should at once be brought under prudent subjection; and made to
+know, once for all, that though conjugally a rebel, she must be
+nautically submissive. For to keep the sea with a Calmuc on board,
+seemed next to impossible. In most military marines, they are
+prohibited by law; no officer may take his Pandora and her bandbox
+off soundings.
+
+By the way, this self-same appellative, Pandora, has been bestowed
+upon vessels. There was a British ship by that name, dispatched in
+quest of the mutineers of the Bounty. But any old tar might have
+prophesied her fate. Bound home she was wrecked on a reef off New
+South Wales. Pandora, indeed! A pretty name for a ship: fairly
+smiting Fate in the face. But in this matter of christening ships of
+war, Christian nations are but too apt to be dare-devils. Witness the
+following: British names all--The Conqueror, the Defiance, the
+Revenge, the Spitfire, the Dreadnaught, the Thunderer, and the
+Tremendous; not omitting the Etna, which, in the Roads of Corfu, was
+struck by lightning, coming nigh being consumed by fire from above.
+But almost potent as Moses' rod, Franklin's proved her salvation.
+
+With the above catalogue, compare we the Frenchman's; quite
+characteristic of the aspirations of Monsieur:--The Destiny, the
+Glorious, the Magnanimous, the Magnificent, the Conqueror, the
+Triumphant, the Indomitable, the Intrepid, the Mont-Blanc. Lastly,
+the Dons; who have ransacked the theology of the religion of peace
+for fine names for their fighting ships; stopping not at designating
+one of their three-deckers, The Most Holy Trinity. But though, at
+Trafalgar, the Santissima Trinidada thundered like Sinai, her
+thunders were silenced by the victorious cannonade of the Victory.
+
+And without being blown into splinters by artillery, how many of
+these Redoubtables and Invincibles have succumbed to the waves, and
+like braggarts gone down before hurricanes, with their bravadoes
+broad on their bows.
+
+Much better the American names (barring Scorpions, Hornets, and
+Wasps;) Ohio, Virginia, Carolina, Vermont. And if ever these Yankees
+fight great sea engagements--which Heaven forefend!--how glorious,
+poetically speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour
+forth a broadside from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious
+indeed! yet in that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the shade of
+peace-loving Penn be astounded, to see the mightiest murderer of them
+all, the great Pennsylvania, a very namesake of his. Truly, the
+Pennsylvania's guns should be the wooden ones, called by men-of-
+war's-men, Quakers.
+
+But all this is an episode, made up of digressions. Time to tack
+ship, and return.
+
+Now, in its proper place, I omitted to mention, that shortly after
+descending from the rigging, and while Samoa was rehearsing his
+adventures, dame Annatoo had stolen below into the forecastle, intent
+upon her chattels. And finding them all in mighty disarray, she
+returned to the deck prodigiously, excited, and glancing angrily
+toward Jarl and me, showered a whole torrent of objurgations into
+both ears of Samoa.
+
+This contempt of my presence surprised me at first; but perhaps women
+are less apt to be impressed by a pretentious demeanor, than men.
+
+Now, to use a fighting phrase, there is nothing like boarding an
+enemy in the smoke. And therefore, upon this first token of Annatoo's
+termagant qualities, I gave her to understand--craving her pardon--
+that neither the vessel nor aught therein was hers; but that every
+thing belonged to the owners in Lahina. I added, that at all hazards,
+a stop must be put to her pilferings. Rude language for feminine
+ears; but how to be avoided? Here was an infatuated woman, who,
+according to Samoa's account, had been repeatedly detected in the act
+of essaying to draw out the screw-bolts which held together the
+planks. Tell me; was she not worse than the Load-Stone Rock, sailing
+by which a stout ship fell to pieces?
+
+During this scene, Samoa said little. Perhaps he was secretly pleased
+that his matrimonial authority was reinforced by myself and my
+Viking, whose views of the proper position of wives at sea, so fully
+corresponded with his own; however difficult to practice, those
+purely theoretical ideas of his had hitherto proved.
+
+Once more turning to Annatoo, now looking any thing but amiable, I
+observed, that all her clamors would be useless; and that if it came
+to the worst, the Parki had a hull that would hold her.
+
+In the end she went off in a fit of the sulks; sitting down on the
+windlass and glaring; her arms akimbo, and swaying from side to side;
+while ever and anon she gave utterance to a dismal chant. It sounded
+like an invocation to the Cholos to rise and dispatch us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+What They Lighted Upon In Further Searching The Craft, And The
+Resolution They Came To
+
+
+Descending into the cabin with Samoa, I bade him hunt up the
+brigantine's log, the captain's writing-desk, and nautical
+instruments; in a word, aught that could throw light on the previous
+history of the craft, or aid in navigating her homeward.
+
+But nearly every thing of the kind had disappeared: log, quadrant,
+and ship's papers. Nothing was left but the sextant-case, which Jarl
+and I had lighted upon in the state-room.
+
+Upon this, vague though they were, my suspicions returned; and I
+closely questioned the Islander concerning the disappearance of these
+important articles. In reply, he gave me to understand, that the
+nautical instruments had been clandestinely carried down into the
+forecastle by Annatoo; and by that indefatigable and inquisitive dame
+they had been summarily taken apart for scientific inspection. It was
+impossible to restore them; for many of the fixtures were lost,
+including the colored glasses, sights, and little mirrors; and many
+parts still recoverable, were so battered and broken as to be
+entirely useless. For several days afterward, we now and then came
+across bits of the quadrant or sextant; but it was only to mourn over
+their fate.
+
+However, though sextant and quadrant were both unattainable, I did
+not so quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which,
+if in good order, though at present not ticking, might still be made
+in some degree serviceable. But no such instrument was to be seen.
+No: nor to be heard of; Samoa himself professing utter ignorance.
+
+Annatoo, I threatened and coaxed; describing the chronometer--a live,
+round creature like a toad, that made a strange noise, which I
+imitated; but she knew nothing about it. Whether she had lighted upon
+it unbeknown to Samoa, and dissected it as usual, there was now no
+way to determine. Indeed, upon this one point, she maintained an air
+of such inflexible stupidity, that if she were really fibbing, her
+dead-wall countenance superseded the necessity for verbal deceit.
+
+It may be, however, that in this particular she was wronged; for, as
+with many small vessels, the Parki might never have possessed the
+instrument in question. All thought, therefore, of feeling our way,
+as we should penetrate farther and farther into the watery
+wilderness, was necessarily abandoned.
+
+The log book had also formed a portion of Annatoo's pilferings. It
+seems she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. But after
+amusing herself by again and again counting over the leaves, and
+wondering how so many distinct surfaces could be compacted together
+in so small a compass, she had very suddenly conceived an aversion to
+literature, and dropped the book overboard as worthless. Doubtless,
+it met the fate of many other ponderous tomes; sinking quickly and
+profoundly. What Camden or Stowe hereafter will dive for it?
+
+One evening Samoa brought me a quarto half-sheet of yellowish, ribbed
+paper, much soiled and tarry, which he had discovered in a dark hole
+of the forecastle. It had plainly formed part of the lost log; but
+all the writing thereon, at present decipherable, conveyed no
+information upon the subject then nearest my heart.
+
+But one could not but be struck by a tragical occurrence, which the
+page very briefly recounted; as well, as by a noteworthy pictorial
+illustration of the event in the margin of the text. Save the cut,
+there was no further allusion to the matter than the following:--
+"This day, being calm, Tooboi, one of the Lahina men, went overboard
+for a bath, and was eaten up by a shark. Immediately sent forward
+for his bag."
+
+Now, this last sentence was susceptible of two meanings. It is truth,
+that immediately upon the decease of a friendless sailor at sea, his
+shipmates oftentimes seize upon his effects, and divide them; though
+the dead man's clothes are seldom worn till a subsequent voyage. This
+proceeding seems heartless. But sailors reason thus: Better we, than
+the captain. For by law, either scribbled or unscribbled, the effects
+of a mariner, dying on shipboard, should be held in trust by that
+officer. But as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and
+carry all their kith and kin in their arms and their legs, there
+hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate; seldom
+worth inheriting, like Esterhazy's. Wherefore, the withdrawal of a
+dead man's "kit" from the forecastle to the cabin, is often held
+tantamount to its virtual appropriation by the captain. At any rate,
+in small ships on long voyages, such things have been done.
+
+Thus much being said, then, the sentence above quoted from the
+Parki's log, may be deemed somewhat ambiguous. At the time it struck
+me as singular; for the poor diver's grass bag could not have
+contained much of any thing valuable unless, peradventure, he had
+concealed therein some Cleopatra pearls, feloniously abstracted from
+the shells brought up from the sea.
+
+Aside of the paragraph, copied above, was a pen-and-ink sketch of the
+casualty, most cruelly executed; the poor fellow's legs being
+represented half way in the process of deglutition; his arms firmly
+grasping the monster's teeth, as if heroically bent upon making as
+tough a morsel of himself as possible.
+
+But no doubt the honest captain sketched this cenotaph to the
+departed in all sincerity of heart; perhaps, during the
+melancholy leisure which followed the catastrophe. Half obliterated
+were several stains upon the page; seemingly, lingering traces of a
+salt tear or two.
+
+From this unwonted embellishment of the text, I was led to infer,
+that the designer, at one time or other, must have been engaged in
+the vocation of whaling. For, in India ink, the logs of certain
+whalemen are decorated by somewhat similar illustrations.
+
+When whales are seen, but not captured, the fact is denoted by an
+outline figure representing the creature's flukes, the broad, curving
+lobes of his tail. But in those cases where the monster is both
+chased and killed, this outline is filled up jet black; one for every
+whale slain; presenting striking objects in turning over the log; and
+so facilitating reference. Hence, it is quite imposing to behold, all
+in a row, three or four, sometime five or six, of these drawings;
+showing that so many monsters that day jetted their last spout. And
+the chief mate, whose duty it is to keep the ship's record, generally
+prides himself upon the beauty, and flushy likeness to life, of his
+flukes; though, sooth to say, many of these artists are no Landseers.
+
+After vainly searching the cabin for those articles we most needed,
+we proceeded to explore the hold, into which as yet we had not
+penetrated. Here, we found a considerable quantity of pearl shells;
+cocoanuts; an abundance of fresh water in casks; spare sails and
+rigging; and some fifty barrels or more of salt beef and biscuit.
+Unromantic as these last mentioned objects were, I lingered over them
+long, and in a revery. Branded upon each barrel head was the name of
+a place in America, with which I was very familiar. It is from
+America chiefly, that ship's stores are originally procured for the
+few vessels sailing out of the Hawaiian Islands.
+
+Having now acquainted myself with all things respecting the Parki,
+which could in any way be learned, I repaired to the quarter-deck,
+and summoning round me Samoa, Annatoo, and Jarl, gravely addressed
+them.
+
+I said, that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than
+forthwith to return to the scene of the massacre, and chastise its
+surviving authors. But as there were only four of us in all; and the
+place of those islands was wholly unknown to me; and even if known,
+would be altogether out of our reach, since we possessed no
+instruments of navigation; it was quite plain that all thought of
+returning thither was entirely useless. The last mentioned reason,
+also, prevented our voyaging to the Hawaiian group, where the vessel
+belonged; though that would have been the most advisable step,
+resulting, as it would, if successful, in restoring the ill-fated
+craft to her owners.
+
+But all things considered, it seemed best, I added, cautiously to
+hold on our way to the westward. It was our easiest course; for we
+would ever have the wind from astern; and though we could not so much
+as hope to arrive at any one spot previously designated, there was
+still a positive certainty, if we floated long enough, of falling in
+with islands whereat to refresh ourselves; and whence, if we thought
+fit, we might afterward embark for more agreeable climes. I then
+reminded them of the fact, that so long as we kept the sea, there was
+always some prospect of encountering a friendly sail; in which event,
+our solicitude would be over.
+
+All this I said in the mild, firm tone of a superior; being anxious,
+at once to assume the unquestioned supremacy. For, otherwise, Jarl
+and I might better quit the vessel forthwith, than remain on board
+subject to the outlandish caprices of Annatoo, who through Samoa
+would then have the sway. But I was sure of my Viking; and if Samoa
+proved docile, had no fear of his dame.
+
+And therefore during my address, I steadfastly eyed him; thereby
+learning enough to persuade me, that though he deferred to me at
+present, he was, notwithstanding, a man who, without precisely
+meditating mischief, could upon occasion act an ugly part. But of his
+courage, and savage honor, such as it was, I had little doubt.
+Then, wild buffalo that he was, tamed down in the yoke matrimonial, I
+could not but fancy, that if upon no other account, our society must
+please him, as rendering less afflictive the tyranny of his spouse.
+
+For a hen-pecked husband, by the way, Samoa was a most terrible
+fellow to behold. And though, after all, I liked him; it was as you
+fancy a fiery steed with mane disheveled, as young Alexander fancied
+Bucephalus; which wild horse, when he patted, he preferred holding by
+the bridle. But more of Samoa anon.
+
+Our course determined, and the command of the vessel tacitly yielded
+up to myself, the next thing done was to put every thing in order.
+The tattered sails were replaced by others, dragged up from the sail-
+room below; in several places, new running-rigging was rove; blocks
+restrapped; and the slackened stays and shrouds set taught. For all
+of which, we were mostly indebted to my Viking's unwearied and
+skillful marling-spike, which he swayed like a scepter.
+
+The little Parki's toilet being thus thoroughly made for the first
+time since the massacre, we gave her new raiment to the breeze, and
+daintily squaring her yards, she gracefully glided away; honest old
+Jarl at the helm, watchfully guiding her path, like some devoted old
+foster-father.
+
+As I stood by his side like a captain, or walked up and down on the
+quarter-deck, I felt no little importance upon thus assuming for the
+first time in my life, the command of a vessel at sea. The novel
+circumstances of the case only augmented this feeling; the wild and
+remote seas where we were; the character of my crew, and the
+consideration, that to all purposes, I was owner, as well as
+commander of the craft I sailed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+Hints For A Full Length Of Samoa
+
+
+My original intention to touch at the Kingsmill Chain, or the
+countries adjacent, was greatly strengthened by thus encountering
+Samoa; and the more I had to do with my Belisarius, the more I was
+pleased with him. Nor could I avoid congratulating myself, upon
+having fallen in with a hero, who in various ways, could not fail of
+proving exceedingly useful.
+
+Like any man of mark, Samoa best speaks for himself; but we may as
+well convey some idea of his person. Though manly enough, nay, an
+obelisk in stature, the savage was far from being sentimentally
+prepossessing. Be not alarmed; but he wore his knife in the lobe of
+his dexter ear, which, by constant elongation almost drooped upon his
+shoulder. A mode of sheathing it exceedingly handy, and far less
+brigandish than the Highlander's dagger concealed in his leggins.
+
+But it was the mother of Samoa, who at a still earlier day had
+punctured him through and through in still another direction. The
+middle cartilage of his nose was slightly pendent, peaked, and
+Gothic, and perforated with a hole; in which, like a Newfoundland dog
+carrying a cane, Samoa sported a trinket: a well polished nail.
+
+In other respects he was equally a coxcomb. In his style of
+tattooing, for instance, which seemed rather incomplete; his marks
+embracing but a vertical half of his person, from crown to sole; the
+other side being free from the slightest stain. Thus clapped
+together, as it were, he looked like a union of the unmatched
+moieties of two distinct beings; and your fancy was lost in
+conjecturing, where roamed the absent ones. When he turned round upon
+you suddenly, you thought you saw some one else, not him whom you had
+been regarding before.
+
+But there was one feature in Samoa beyond the reach of the
+innovations of art:--his eye; which in civilized man or savage, ever
+shines in the head, just as it shone at birth. Truly, our eyes are
+miraculous things. But alas, that in so many instances, these divine
+organs should be mere lenses inserted into the socket, as glasses in
+spectacle rims.
+
+But my Islander had a soul in his eye; looking out upon you there,
+like somebody in him. What an eye, to be sure! At times, brilliantly
+changeful as opal; in anger, glowing like steel at white heat.
+
+Belisarius, be it remembered, had but very recently lost an arm. But
+you would have thought he had been born without it; so Lord Nelson-
+like and cavalierly did he sport the honorable stump.
+
+But no more of Samoa; only this: that his name had been given him by
+a sea-captain; to whom it had been suggested by the native
+designation of the islands to which he belonged; the Saviian or
+Samoan group, otherwise known as the Navigator Islands. The island of
+Upolua, one of that cluster, claiming the special honor of his birth,
+as Corsica does Napoleon's, we shall occasionally hereafter speak of
+Samoa as the Upoluan; by which title he most loved to be called.
+
+It is ever ungallant to pass over a lady. But what shall be said of
+Annatoo? As I live, I can make no pleasing portrait of the dame; for
+as in most ugly subjects, flattering would but make the matter worse.
+Furthermore, unalleviated ugliness should ever go unpainted, as
+something unnecessary to duplicate. But the only ugliness is that of
+the heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the
+only loveliness is invisible.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+Rovings Alow And Aloft
+
+
+Every one knows what a fascination there is in wandering up and down
+in a deserted old tenement in some warm, dreamy country; where the
+vacant halls seem echoing of silence, and the doors creak open like
+the footsteps of strangers; and into every window the old garden
+trees thrust their dark boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; and
+ever and anon the nails start from the wainscot; while behind it the
+mice rattle like dice. Up and down in such old specter houses one
+loves to wander; and so much the more, if the place be haunted by
+some marvelous story.
+
+And during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, very much
+such a fancy had I, for prying about our little brigantine, whose
+tragic hull was haunted by the memory of the massacre, of which it
+still bore innumerable traces.
+
+And so far as the indulgence of quiet strolling and reverie was
+concerned, it was well nigh the same as if I were all by myself. For
+Samoa, for a time, was rather reserved, being occupied with thoughts
+of his own. And Annatoo seldom troubled me with her presence. She was
+taken up with her calicoes and jewelry; which I had permitted her to
+retain, to keep her in good humor if possible. And as for My royal
+old Viking, he was one of those individuals who seldom speak, unless
+personally addressed.
+
+Besides, all that by day was necessary to navigating the Parki was,
+that--somebody should stand at the helm; the craft being so small,
+and the grating, whereon the steersman stood, so elevated,
+that he commanded a view far beyond the bowsprit; thus keeping Argus
+eyes on the sea, as he steered us along. In all other respects we
+left the brigantine to the guardianship of the gentle winds.
+
+My own turn at the helm--for though commander, I felt constrained to
+do duty with the rest--came but once in the twenty-four hours. And
+not only did Jarl and Samoa, officiate as helmsmen, but also Dame
+Annatoo, who had become quite expert at the business. Though Jarl
+always maintained that there was a slight drawback upon her
+usefulness in this vocation. Too much taken up by her lovely image
+partially reflected in the glass of the binnacle before her, Annatoo
+now and then neglected her duty, and led us some devious dances. Nor
+was she, I ween, the first woman that ever led men into zigzags.
+
+For the reasons above stated, I had many spare hours to myself At
+times, I mounted aloft, and lounging in the slings of the topsail
+yard--one of the many snug nooks in a ship's rigging--I gazed broad
+off upon the blue boundless sea, and wondered what they were doing in
+that unknown land, toward which we were fated to be borne. Or feeling
+less meditative, I roved about hither and thither; slipping over, by
+the stays, from one mast to the other; climbing up to the truck; or
+lounging out to the ends of the yards; exploring wherever there was a
+foothold. It was like climbing about in some mighty old oak, and
+resting in the crotches.
+
+To a sailor, a ship's ropes are a study. And to me, every rope-yarn
+of the Parki's was invested with interest. The outlandish fashion of
+her shrouds, the collars of her stays, the stirrups, seizings,
+Flemish-horses, gaskets,--all the wilderness of her rigging, bore
+unequivocal traces of her origin.
+
+But, perhaps, my pleasantest hours were those which I spent,
+stretched out on a pile of old sails, in the fore-top; lazily dozing
+to the craft's light roll.
+
+Frequently, I descended to the cabin: for the fiftieth time,
+exploring the lockers and state-rooms for some new object of
+curiosity. And often, with a glimmering light, I went into the
+midnight hold, as into old vaults and catacombs; and creeping between
+damp ranges of casks, penetrated into its farthest recesses.
+
+Sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, I lighted upon sundry
+out-of-the-way hiding places of Annatoo's; where were snugly secreted
+divers articles, with which she had been smitten. In truth, no small
+portion of the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its
+own bowels. I found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain's, hidden away
+in the hollow heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner
+most touchingly natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a
+breaker, discovered several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied
+together with cords almost strong enough to sustain the mainmast.
+
+Near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down
+into this part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as
+Charles the First. And herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a
+discovery which accounted for what had often proved an enigma. Not
+seldom Annatoo had been among the missing; and though, from stem to
+stern, loudly invoked to come forth and relieve the poignant distress
+of her anxious friends, the dame remained perdu; silent and invisible
+as a spirit. But in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge;
+or be suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she
+had been there from all eternity.
+
+Useless to inquire, "Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo?" For no
+sweet rejoinder would she give.
+
+But now the problem was solved. Here, in this silent cask in the
+hold, Annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake
+under a stone.
+
+Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about:
+whether she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or
+was moved to this unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no
+one could tell. Can you?
+
+Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in
+building their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make
+a fool of a sage.
+
+Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+Xiphius Platypterus
+
+
+About this time, the loneliness of our voyage was relieved by an
+event worth relating.
+
+Ever since leaving the Pearl Shell Islands, the Parki had been
+followed by shoals of small fish, pleasantly enlivening the sea, and
+socially swimming by her side. But in vain did Jarl and I search
+among their ranks for the little, steel-blue Pilot fish, so long
+outriders of the Chamois. But perhaps since the Chamois was now high
+and dry on the Parki's deck, our bright little avant-couriers were
+lurking out of eight, far down in the brine; racing along close to
+the keel.
+
+But it is not with the Pilot fish that we now have to do.
+
+One morning our attention was attracted to a mighty commotion in the
+water. The shoals of fish were darting hither and thither, and
+leaping into the air in the utmost affright. Samoa declared, that
+their deadly foe the Sword fish must be after them.
+
+And here let me say, that, since of all the bullies, and braggarts,
+and bravoes, and free-booters, and Hectors, and fish-at-arms, and
+knight-errants, and moss-troopers, and assassins, and foot-pads, and
+gallant soldiers, and immortal heroes that swim the seas, the Indian
+Sword fish is by far the most remarkable, I propose to dedicate this
+chapter to a special description of the warrior. In doing which, I
+but follow the example of all chroniclers and historians, my
+Peloponnesian friend Thucydides and others, who are ever mindful of
+devoting much space to accounts of eminent destroyers; for the
+purpose, no doubt, of holding them up as ensamples to the world.
+
+Now, the fish here treated of is a very different creature from the
+Sword fish frequenting the Northern Atlantic; being much larger every
+way, and a more dashing varlet to boot. Furthermore, he is
+denominated the Indian Sword fish, in contradistinction from his
+namesake above mentioned. But by seamen in the Pacific, he is more
+commonly known as the Bill fish; while for those who love science and
+hard names, be it known, that among the erudite naturalists he goeth
+by the outlandish appellation of "_Xiphius Platypterus_."
+
+But I waive for my hero all these his cognomens, and substitute a
+much better one of my own: namely, the Chevalier. And a Chevalier he
+is, by good right and title. A true gentleman of Black Prince
+Edward's bright day, when all gentlemen were known by their swords;
+whereas, in times present, the Sword fish excepted, they are mostly
+known by their high polished boots and rattans.
+
+A right valiant and jaunty Chevalier is our hero; going about with
+his long Toledo perpetually drawn. Rely upon it, he will fight you to
+the hilt, for his bony blade has never a scabbard. He himself sprang
+from it at birth; yea, at the very moment he leaped into the Battle
+of Life; as we mortals ourselves spring all naked and scabbardless
+into the world. Yet, rather, are we scabbards to our souls. And the
+drawn soul of genius is more glittering than the drawn cimeter of
+Saladin. But how many let their steel sleep, till it eat up the
+scabbard itself, and both corrode to rust-chips. Saw you ever the
+hillocks of old Spanish anchors, and anchor-stocks of ancient
+galleons, at the bottom of Callao Bay? The world is full of old Tower
+armories, and dilapidated Venetian arsenals, and rusty old rapiers.
+But true warriors polish their good blades by the bright beams of the
+morning; and gird them on to their brave sirloins; and watch for rust
+spots as for foes; and by many stout thrusts and stoccadoes
+keep their metal lustrous and keen, as the spears of the
+Northern Lights charging over Greenland.
+
+Fire from the flint is our Chevalier enraged. He takes umbrage at the
+cut of some ship's keel crossing his road; and straightway runs a
+tilt at it; with one mad lounge thrusting his Andrea Ferrara clean
+through and through; not seldom breaking it short off at the haft,
+like a bravo leaving his poignard in the vitals of his foe.
+
+In the case of the English ship Foxhound, the blade penetrated
+through the most solid part of her hull, the bow; going completely
+through the copper plates and timbers, and showing for several inches
+in the hold. On the return of the ship to London, it was carefully
+sawn out; and, imbedded in the original wood, like a fossil, is still
+preserved. But this was a comparatively harmless onslaught of the
+valiant Chevalier. With the Rousseau, of Nantucket, it fared worse.
+She was almost mortally stabbed; her assailant withdrawing his blade.
+And it was only by keeping the pumps clanging, that she managed to
+swim into a Tahitian harbor, "heave down," and have her wound dressed
+by a ship-surgeon with tar and oakum. This ship I met with at sea,
+shortly after the disaster.
+
+At what armory our Chevalier equips himself after one of his spiteful
+tilting-matches, it would not be easy to say. But very hard for him,
+if ever after he goes about in the lists, swordless and disarmed, at
+the mercy of any caitiff shark he may meet.
+
+Now, seeing that our fellow-voyagers, the little fish along-side,
+were sorely tormented and thinned out by the incursions of a
+pertinacious Chevalier, bent upon making a hearty breakfast out of
+them, I determined to interfere in their behalf, and capture the
+enemy.
+
+With shark-hook and line I succeeded, and brought my brave gentleman
+to the deck. He made an emphatic landing; lashing the planks with his
+sinewy tail; while a yard and a half in advance of his eyes, reached
+forth his terrible blade.
+
+As victor, I was entitled to the arms of the vanquished; so, quickly
+dispatching him, and sawing off his Toledo, I bore it away for a
+trophy. It was three-sided, slightly concave on each, like a bayonet;
+and some three inches through at the base, it tapered from thence to
+a point.
+
+And though tempered not in Tagus or Guadalquiver, it yet revealed
+upon its surface that wavy grain and watery fleckiness peculiar to
+tried blades of Spain. It was an aromatic sword; like the ancient
+caliph's, giving out a peculiar musky odor by friction. But far
+different from steel of Tagus or Damascus, it was inflexible as
+Crocket's rifle tube; no doubt, as deadly.
+
+Long hung that rapier over the head of my hammock. Was it not storied
+as the good trenchant blade of brave Bayard, that other chevalier?
+The knight's may have slain its scores, or fifties; but the weapon I
+preserved had, doubtless, run through and riddled its thousands.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+Otard
+
+
+And here is another little incident.
+
+One afternoon while all by myself curiously penetrating into the
+hold, I most unexpectedly obtained proof, that the ill-fated captain
+of the Parki had been a man of sound judgment and most excellent
+taste. In brief, I lighted upon an aromatic cask of prime old Otard.
+
+Now, I mean not to speak lightly of any thing immediately connected
+with the unfortunate captain. Nor, on the other hand, would I
+resemble the inconsolable mourner, who among other tokens of
+affliction, bound in funereal crape his deceased friend's copy of Joe
+Miller. Is there not a fitness in things?
+
+But let that pass. I found the Otard, and drank there-of; finding it,
+moreover, most pleasant to the palate, and right cheering to the
+soul. My next impulse was to share my prize with my shipmates. But
+here a judicious reflection obtruded. From the sea-monarchs, his
+ancestors, my Viking had inherited one of their cardinal virtues, a
+detestation and abhorrence of all vinous and spirituous beverages;
+insomuch, that he never could see any, but he instantly quaffed it
+out of sight. To be short, like Alexander the Great and other
+royalties, Jarl was prone to overmuch bibing. And though at sea more
+sober than a Fifth Monarchy Elder, it was only because he was then
+removed from temptation. But having thus divulged my Viking's weak;
+side, I earnestly entreat, that it may not disparage him in any
+charitable man's estimation. Only think, how many more there are like
+him to say nothing further of Alexander the Great--especially
+among his own class; and consider, I beseech, that the most
+capacious-souled fellows, for that very reason, are the most apt to
+be too liberal in their libations; since, being so large-hearted,
+they hold so much more good cheer than others.
+
+For Samoa, from his utter silence hitherto as to aught inebriating on
+board, I concluded, that, along with his other secrets, the departed
+captain had very wisely kept his Otard to himself.
+
+Nor did I doubt, but that the Upoluan, like all Polynesians, much
+loved getting high of head; and in that state, would be more
+intractable than a Black Forest boar. And concerning Annatoo, I
+shuddered to think, how that Otard might inflame her into a Fury more
+fierce than the foremost of those that pursued Orestes.
+
+In good time, then, bethinking me of the peril of publishing my
+discovery;--bethinking me of the quiet, lazy, ever-present perils of
+the voyage, of all circumstances, the very worst under which to
+introduce an intoxicating beverage to my companions, I resolved to
+withhold it from them altogether.
+
+So impressed was I with all this, that for a moment, I was almost
+tempted to roll over the cask on its bilge, remove the stopper, and
+suffer its contents to mix with the foul water at the bottom of the
+hold.
+
+But no, no: What: dilute the brine with the double distilled soul of
+the precious grape? Haft himself would have haunted me!
+
+Then again, it might come into play medicinally; and Paracelsus
+himself stands sponsor for every cup drunk for the good of the
+abdomen. So at last, I determined to let it remain where it was:
+visiting it occasionally, by myself, for inspection.
+
+But by way of advice to all ship-masters, let me say, that if your
+Otard magazine be exposed to view--then, in the evil hour of wreck,
+stave in your spirit-casks, ere rigging the life-boat.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+How They Steered On Their Way
+
+
+When we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at
+least two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had
+abandoned the Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been,
+North or South of the Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.
+
+But that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line,
+seemed obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme
+Polar constellations was visible; though often we scanned the
+northern and southern horizon in search of them. So far as regards
+the aspect of the skies near the ocean's rim, the difference of
+several degrees in one's latitude at sea, is readily perceived by a
+person long accustomed to surveying the heavens.
+
+If correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time
+here alluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been
+making in the Parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to
+sail, ere the country we sought would be found. But for obvious
+reasons, how long precisely we might continue to float out of sight
+of land, it was impossible to say. Calms, light breezes, and currents
+made every thing uncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating our
+due westward progress, except by what is called Dead Reckoning,--the
+computation of the knots run hourly; allowances' being made for the
+supposed deviations from our course, by reason of the ocean streams;
+which at times in this quarter of the Pacific rim with very great
+velocity.
+
+Now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the
+Parki than in the Chamois. The sense of danger is less vivid, the
+greater the number of lives involved. He who is ready to despair in
+solitary peril, plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a
+plurality of comrades is much countenance and consolation.
+
+Still, in the brigantine there were  many sources of uneasiness and
+anxiety unknown to me in the whale-boat. True, we had now between us
+and the deep, five hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant
+little chip. But the Parki required more care and attention;
+especially by night, when a vigilant look-out was indispensable. With
+impunity, in our whale-boat, we might have run close to shoal or
+reef; whereas, similar carelessness or temerity now, might prove
+fatal to all concerned.
+
+Though in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, I
+was little troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of darkness
+it was quite another thing. And the apprehensions, nay terrors I
+felt, were much augmented by the remissness of both Jarl and Samoa,
+in keeping their night-watches. Several times I was seized with a
+deadly panic, and earnestly scanned the murky horizon, when rising
+from slumber I found the steersman, in whose hands for the time being
+were life and death, sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of
+a fixture there, as the open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow.
+
+Were it not, that on board of other vessels, I myself had many a time
+dozed at the helm, spite of all struggles, I would have been almost
+at a loss to account for this heedlessness in my comrades. But it
+seemed as if the mere sense of our situation, should have been
+sufficient to prevent the like conduct in all on board our craft.
+
+Samoa's aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. His
+large opal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the
+binnacle, gleamed between the lids like bars of flame. And added to
+all, was his giant stature and savage lineaments.
+
+It was in vain, that I remonstrated, begged, or threatened: the
+occasional drowsiness of my fellow-voyagers proved incurable. To no
+purpose, I reminded my Viking that sleeping in the night-watch in a
+craft like ours, was far different from similar heedlessness on board
+the Arcturion. For there, our place upon the ocean was always known,
+and our distance from land; so that when by night the seamen were
+permitted to be drowsy, it was mostly, because the captain well knew
+that strict watchfulness could be dispensed with.
+
+Though in all else, the Skyeman proved a most faithful ally, in this
+one thing he was either perversely obtuse, or infatuated. Or,
+perhaps, finding himself once more in a double-decked craft, which
+rocked him as of yore, he was lulled into a deceitful security.
+
+For Samoa, his drowsiness was the drowsiness of one beat on sleep,
+come dreams or death. He seemed insensible to the peril we ran. Often
+I sent the sleepy savage below, sad, steered myself till morning. At
+last I made a point of slumbering much by day, the better to stand
+watch by night; though I made Samoa and Jarl regularly go through
+with their allotted four hours each.
+
+It has been mentioned, that Annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it
+was only by day. And in justice to the lady, I must affirm, that upon
+the whole she acquitted herself well. For notwithstanding the syren
+face in the binnacle, which dimly allured her glances, Annatoo after
+all was tolerably heedful of her steering. Indeed she took much pride
+therein; always ready for her turn; with marvelous exactitude
+calculating the approaching hour, as it came on in regular rotation.
+Her time-piece was ours, the sun. By night it must have been her
+guardian star; for frequently she gazed up at a particular section of
+the heavens, like one regarding the dial in a tower.
+
+By some odd reasoning or other, she had cajoled herself into the
+notion, that whoever steered the brigantine, for that period
+was captain. Wherefore, she gave herself mighty airs at the tiller;
+with extravagant gestures issuing unintelligible orders about
+trimming the sails, or pitching overboard something to see how fast
+we were going. All this much diverted my Viking, who several times
+was delivered of a laugh; a loud and healthy one to boot: a
+phenomenon worthy the chronicling.
+
+And thus much for Annatoo, preliminary to what is further to be said.
+Seeing the drowsiness of Jarl and Samoa, which so often kept me from
+my hammock at night, forcing me to repose by day, when I far
+preferred being broad awake, I decided to let Annatoo take her turn
+at the night watches; which several times she had solicited me to do;
+railing at the sleepiness of her spouse; though abstaining from all
+reflections upon Jarl, toward whom she had of late grown exceedingly
+friendly.
+
+Now the Calmuc stood her first night watch to admiration; if any
+thing, was altogether too wakeful. The mere steering of the craft
+employed not sufficiently her active mind. Ever and anon she must
+needs rush from the tiller to take a parenthetical pull at the fore-
+brace, the end of which led down to the bulwarks near by; then
+refreshing herself with a draught or two of water and a biscuit, she
+would continue to steer away, full of the importance of her office.
+At any unusual flapping` of the sails, a violent stamping on deck
+announced the fact to the startled crew. Finding her thus indefatigable,
+I readily induced her to stand two watches to Jarl's and Samoa's one;
+and when she was at the helm, I permitted myself to doze on a pile of
+old sails, spread every evening on the quarter-deck.
+
+It was the Skyeman, who often admonished me to "heave the ship to"
+every night, thus stopping her headway till morning; a plan which,
+under other circumstances, might have perhaps warranted the slumbers
+of all. But as it was, such a course would have been highly
+imprudent. For while making no onward progress through the
+water, the rapid currents we encountered would continually be
+drifting us eastward; since, contrary to our previous experience,
+they seemed latterly to have reversed their flow, a phenomenon by no
+means unusual in the vicinity of the Line in the Pacific. And this it
+was that so prolonged our passage to the westward. Even in a moderate
+breeze, I sometimes fancied, that the impulse of the wind little more
+than counteracted the glide of the currents; so that with much show
+of sailing, we were in reality almost a fixture on the sea.
+
+The equatorial currents of the South Seas may be regarded as among
+the most mysterious of the mysteries of the deep. Whence they come,
+whither go, who knows? Tell us, what hidden law regulates their flow.
+Regardless of the theory which ascribes to them a nearly uniform
+course from east to west, induced by the eastwardly winds of the
+Line, and the collateral action of the Polar streams; these currents
+are forever shifting. Nor can the period of their revolutions be at
+all relied upon or predicted.
+
+But however difficult it may be to assign a specific cause for the
+ocean streams, in any part of the world, one of the wholesome effects
+thereby produced would seem obvious enough. And though the
+circumstance here alluded to is perhaps known to every body, it may
+be questioned, whether it is generally invested with the importance
+it deserves. Reference is here made to the constant commingling and
+purification of the sea-water by reason of the currents.
+
+For, that the ocean, according to the popular theory, possesses a
+special purifying agent in its salts, is somewhat to be doubted. Nor
+can it be explicitly denied, that those very salts might corrupt it,
+were it not for the brisk circulation of its particles consequent
+upon the flow of the streams. It is well known to seamen, that a
+bucket of sea-water, left standing in a tropical climate, very soon
+becomes highly offensive; which is not the case with rainwater.
+
+But I build no theories. And by way of obstructing the one, which
+might possibly be evolved from the statement above, let me add, that
+the offensiveness of sea-water left standing, may arise in no small
+degree from the presence of decomposed animal matter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+Ah, Annatoo!
+
+
+In order to a complete revelation, I must needs once again discourse
+of Annatoo and her pilferings; and to what those pilferings led. In
+the simplicity of my soul, I fancied that the dame, so much flattered
+as she needs must have been, by the confidence I began to repose in
+her, would now mend her ways, and abstain from her larcenies. But not
+so. She was possessed by some scores of devils, perpetually her to
+mischief on their own separate behoof, and not less for many of her
+pranks were of no earthly advantage to, her, present or prospective.
+
+One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo. She came; but knew
+nothing about it. Jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a
+substitute; and a few days after, pop, we came upon the lost: article
+hidden away in the main-top.
+
+Another time, discovering the little vessel to "gripe" hard in
+steering, as if some one under water were jerking her backward, we
+instituted a diligent examination, to see what was the matter. When
+lo; what should we find but a rope, cunningly attached to one of the
+chain-plates under the starboard main-channel. It towed heavily in
+the water. Upon dragging it up--much as you would the cord of a
+ponderous bucket far down in a well--a stout wooden box was
+discovered at the end; which opened, disclosed sundry knives,
+hatchets, and ax-heads.
+
+Called to the stand, the Upoluan deposed, that thrice he had rescued
+that identical box from Annatoo's all-appropriating clutches.
+
+Now, here were four human beings shut up in this little oaken craft,
+and, for the time being, their interests the same. What sane mortal,
+then, would forever be committing thefts, without rhyme or reason. It
+was like stealing silver from one pocket and decanting it into the
+other. And what might it not lead to in the end?
+
+Why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of the
+compass from the binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute for it,
+the one brought along in the Chamois.
+
+It was Jarl that first published this last and alarming theft.
+Annatoo being at the helm at dawn, he had gone to relieve her; and
+looking to see how we headed, was horror-struck at the emptiness of
+the binnacle.
+
+I started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously demanded
+the compass. But her face was a blank; every word a denial.
+
+Further lenity was madness. I summoned Samoa, told him what had
+happened, and affirmed that there was no safety for us except in the
+nightly incarceration of his spouse. To this he privily assented; and
+that very evening, when Annatoo descended into the forecastle, we
+barred over her the scuttle-slide. Long she clamored, but
+unavailingly. And every night this was repeated; the dame saying her
+vespers most energetically.
+
+It has somewhere been hinted, that Annatoo occasionally cast sheep's
+eyes at Jarl. So I was not a little surprised when her manner toward
+him decidedly changed. Pulling at the ropes with us, she would give
+him sly pinches, and then look another way, innocent as a lamb. Then
+again, she would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with him;
+with wry faces, rinsed out the wooden can at the water cask, if it so
+chanced that my Viking had previously been drinking therefrom. At
+other times, when the honest Skyeman came up from below, she would
+set up a shout of derision, and loll out her tongue; accompanying all
+this by certain indecorous and exceedingly unladylike gestures,
+significant of the profound contempt in which she held him.
+
+Yet, never did Jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently overlooked
+and forgave it. Inquiring the reason of the dame's singular conduct,
+I learned, that with eye averted, she had very lately crept close to
+my Viking, and met with no tender reception.
+
+Doubtless, Jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently imagined
+that ere long the lady would forgive and forget him. But what knows a
+philosopher about women?
+
+Ere long, so outrageous became Annatoo's detestation of him, that the
+honest old tar could stand it no longer, and like most good-natured
+men when once fairly roused, he was swept through and through with a
+terrible typhoon of passion. He proposed, that forthwith the woman
+should be sacked and committed to the deep; he could stand it no
+longer.
+
+Murder is catching. At first I almost jumped at the proposition; but
+as quickly rejected it. Ah! Annatoo: Woman unendurable: deliver me,
+ye gods, from being shut up in a ship with such a hornet again.
+
+But are we yet through with her? Not yet. Hitherto she had continued
+to perform the duties of the office assigned her since the
+commencement of the voyage: namely, those of the culinary department.
+From this she was now deposed. Her skewer was broken. My Viking
+solemnly averring, that he would eat nothing more of her concocting,
+for fear of being poisoned. For myself, I almost believed, that there
+was malice enough in the minx to give us our henbane broth.
+
+But what said Samoa to all this? Passing over the matter of the
+cookery, will it be credited, that living right among us as he did,
+he was yet blind to the premeditated though unachieved peccadilloes
+of his spouse? Yet so it was. And thus blind was Belisarius himself,
+concerning the intrigues of Antonina.
+
+Witness that noble dame's affair with the youth Theodosius; when her
+deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns she
+had bestowed upon him.
+
+Upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate Annatoo's
+thievings, Samoa proudly intimated, that the lady was the most
+virtuous of her sex.
+
+But alas, poor Annatoo, why say more? And bethinking me of the hard
+fate that so soon overtook thee, I almost repent what has already and
+too faithfully been portrayed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+The Parki Gives Up The Ghost
+
+
+A long calm in the boat, and now, God help us, another in  the
+brigantine. It was airless and profound.
+
+In that hot calm, we lay fixed and frozen in like Parry at the Pole.
+The sun played upon the glassy sea like the sun upon the glaciers.
+
+At the end of two days we lifted up our eyes and beheld a low,
+creeping, hungry cloud expanding like an army, wing and wing, along
+the eastern horizon. Instantly Jarl bode me take heed.
+
+Here be it said, that though for weeks and weeks reign over the
+equatorial latitudes of the Pacific, the mildest and sunniest of
+days; that nevertheless, when storms do come, they come in their
+strength: spending in a few, brief blasts their concentrated rage.
+They come like the Mamelukes: they charge, and away.
+
+It wanted full an hour to sunset; but the sun was well nigh obscured.
+It seemed toiling among bleak Scythian steeps in the hazy background.
+Above the storm-cloud flitted ominous patches of scud, rapidly
+advancing and receding: Attila's skirmishers, thrown forward in the
+van of his Huns. Beneath, a fitful shadow slid along the surface. As
+we gazed, the cloud came nearer; accelerating its approach.
+
+With all haste we proceeded to furl the sails, which, owing to the
+calm, had been hanging loose in the brails. And by help of a spare
+boom, used on the forecastle-deck sit a sweep or great oar, we
+endeavored to cast the brigantine's head toward the foe.
+
+The storm seemed about to overtake us; but we felt no breeze. The
+noiseless cloud stole on; its advancing shadow lowering over a
+distinct and prominent milk-white crest upon the surface of the
+ocean. But now this line of surging foam came rolling down upon us
+like a white charge of cavalry: mad Hotspur and plumed Murat at its
+head; pouring right forward in a continuous frothy cascade, which
+curled over, and fell upon the glassy sea before it.
+
+Still, no breath of air. But of a sudden, like a blow from a man's
+hand, and before our canvas could be secured, the stunned craft,
+giving one lurch to port, was stricken down on her beam-ends; the
+roaring tide dashed high up against her windward side, and drops of
+brine fell upon the deck, heavy as drops of gore.
+
+It was all a din and a mist; a crashing of spars and of ropes; a
+horrible blending of sights and of sounds; as for an instant we
+seemed in the hot heart of the gale; our cordage, like harp-strings,
+shrieking above the fury of the blast. The masts rose, and swayed,
+and dipped their trucks in the sea. And like unto some stricken
+buffalo brought low to the plain, the brigantine's black hull, shaggy
+with sea-weed, lay panting on its flank in the foam.
+
+Frantically we clung to the uppermost bulwarks. And now, loud above
+the roar of the sea, was suddenly heard a sharp, splintering sound,
+as of a Norway woodman felling a pine in the forest. It was brave
+Jarl, who foremost of all had snatched from its rack against the
+mainmast, the ax, always there kept.
+
+"Cut the lanyards to windward!" he cried; and again buried his ax
+into the mast. He was quickly obeyed. And upon cutting the third
+lanyard of the five, he shouted for us to pause. Dropping his ax, he
+climbed up to windward. As he clutched the rail, the wounded mast
+snapped in twain with a report like a cannon. A slight smoke was
+perceptible where it broke. The remaining lanyards parted. From the
+violent strain upon them, the two shrouds flew madly into the
+air, and one of the great blocks at their ends, striking Annatoo upon
+the forehead, she let go her hold upon a stanchion, and sliding
+across the aslant deck, was swallowed up in the whirlpool under our
+lea. Samoa shrieked. But there was no time to mourn; no hand could
+reach to save.
+
+By the connecting stays, the mainmast carried over with it the
+foremast; when we instantly righted, and for the time were saved; my
+own royal Viking our saviour.
+
+The first fury of the gale was gone. But far to leeward was seen the
+even, white line of its onset, pawing the ocean into foam. All round
+us, the sea boiled like ten thousand caldrons; and through eddy,
+wave, and surge, our almost water-logged craft waded heavily; every
+dead clash ringing hollow against her hull, like blows upon a coffin.
+
+We floated a wreck. With every pitch we lifted our dangling jib-boom
+into the air; and beating against the side, were the shattered
+fragments of the masts. From these we made all haste to be free, by
+cutting the rigging that held them.
+
+Soon, the worst of the gale was blown over. But the sea ran high. Yet
+the rack and scud of the tempest, its mad, tearing foam, was subdued
+into immense, long-extended, and long-rolling billows; the white
+cream on their crests like snow on the Andes. Ever and anon we hung
+poised on their brows; when the furrowed ocean all round looked like
+a panorama from Chimborazo.
+
+A few hours more, and the surges went down. There was a moderate sea,
+a steady breeze, and a clear, starry sky. Such was the storm that
+came after our calm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+Once More They Take To The Chamois
+
+
+Try the pumps. We dropped the sinker, and found the Parki bleeding at
+every pore. Up from her well, the water, spring-like, came bubbling,
+pure and limpid as the water of Saratoga. Her time had come. But by
+keeping two hands at the pumps, we had no doubt she would float till
+daylight; previous to which we liked not to abandon her.
+
+The interval was employed in clanging at the pump-breaks, and
+preparing the Chamois for our reception. So soon as the sea
+permitted, we lowered it over the side; and letting it float under
+the stern, stowed it with water and provisions, together with various
+other things, including muskets and cutlasses.
+
+Shortly after daylight, a violent jostling and thumping under foot
+showed that the water, gaining rapidly in the, hold, spite of all
+pumping, had floated the lighter casks up-ward to the deck, against
+which they were striking.
+
+Now, owing to the number of empty butts in the hold, there would have
+been, perhaps, but small danger of the vessel's sinking outright--all
+awash as her decks would soon be--were it not, that many of her
+timbers were of a native wood, which, like the Teak of India, is
+specifically heavier than water. This, with the pearl shells on
+board, counteracted the buoyancy of the casks.
+
+At last, the sun--long waited for--arose; the Parki meantime sinking
+lower and lower.
+
+All things being in readiness, we proceeded to embark from the wreck,
+as from a wharf.
+
+But not without some show of love for our poor brigantine.
+
+To a seaman, a ship is no piece of mechanism merely; but a creature
+of thoughts and fancies, instinct with life. Standing at her
+vibrating helm, you feel her beating pulse. I have loved ships, as I
+have loved men.
+
+To abandon the poor Parki was like leaving to its fate something that
+could feel. It was meet that she should the decently and bravely.
+
+All this thought the Skyeman. Samoa and I were in the boat, calling
+upon him to enter quickly, lest the vessel should sink, and carry us
+down in the eddies; for already she had gone round twice. But cutting
+adrift the last fragments of her broken shrouds, and putting her
+decks in order, Jarl buried his ax in the splintered stump of the
+mainmast, and not till then did he join us.
+
+We slowly cheered, and sailed away.
+
+Not ten minutes after, the hull rolled convulsively in the sea; went
+round once more; lifted its sharp prow as a man with arms pointed for
+a dive; gave a long seething plunge; and went down.
+
+Many of her old planks were twice wrecked; once strown upon ocean's
+beach; now dropped into its lowermost vaults, with the bones of
+drowned ships and drowned men.
+
+Once more afloat in our shell! But not with the intrepid spirit that
+shoved off with us from the deck of the Arcturion. A bold deed done
+from impulse, for the time carries few or no misgivings along with
+it. But forced upon you, its terrors stare you in the face. So now. I
+had pushed from the Arcturion with a stout heart; but quitting the
+sinking Parki, my heart sunk with her.
+
+With a fair wind, we held on our way westward, hoping to see land
+before many days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+The Sea On Fire
+
+
+The night following our abandonment of the Parki, was made memorable
+by a remarkable spectacle.
+
+Slumbering in the bottom of the boat, Jarl and I were suddenly
+awakened by Samoa. Starting, we beheld the ocean of a pallid white
+color, corruscating all over with tiny golden sparkles. But the
+pervading hue of the water cast a cadaverous gleam upon the boat, so
+that we looked to each other like ghosts. For many rods astern our
+wake was revealed in a line of rushing illuminated foam; while here
+and there beneath the surface, the tracks of sharks were denoted by
+vivid, greenish trails, crossing and recrossing each other in every
+direction. Farther away, and distributed in clusters, floated on the
+sea, like constellations in the heavens, innumerable Medusae, a
+species of small, round, refulgent fish, only to be met with in the
+South Seas and the Indian Ocean.
+
+Suddenly, as we gazed, there shot high into the air a bushy jet of
+flashes, accompanied by the unmistakable deep breathing sound of a
+sperm whale. Soon, the sea all round us spouted in fountains of fire;
+and vast forms, emitting a glare from their flanks, and ever and anon
+raising their heads above water, and shaking off the sparkles, showed
+where an immense shoal of Cachalots had risen from below to sport in
+these phosphorescent billows.
+
+The vapor jetted forth was far more radiant than any portion of the
+sea; ascribable perhaps to the originally luminous fluid contracting
+still more brilliancy from its passage through the spouting canal of
+the whales.
+
+We were in great fear, lest without any vicious intention the
+Leviathans might destroy us, by coming into close contact with our
+boat. We would have shunned them; but they were all round and round
+us. Nevertheless we were safe; for as we parted the pallid brine, the
+peculiar irradiation which shot from about our keel seemed to deter
+them. Apparently discovering us of a sudden, many of them plunged
+headlong down into the water, tossing their fiery tails high into the
+air, and leaving the sea still more sparkling from the violent
+surging of their descent.
+
+Their general course seemed the same as our own; to the westward. To
+remove from them, we at last out oars, and pulled toward the north.
+So doing, we were steadily pursued by a solitary whale, that must
+have taken our Chamois for a kindred fish. Spite of all our efforts,
+he drew nearer and nearer; at length rubbing his fiery flank against
+the Chamois' gunwale, here and there leaving long strips of the
+glossy transparent substance which thin as gossamer invests the body
+of the Cachalot.
+
+In terror at a sight so new, Samoa shrank. But Jarl and I, more used
+to the intimate companionship of the whales, pushed the boat away
+from it with our oars: a thing often done in the fishery.
+
+The close vicinity of the whale revived in the so long astute Skyeman
+all the enthusiasm of his daring vocation. However quiet by nature, a
+thorough-bred whaleman betrays no little excitement in sight of his
+game. And it required some persuasion to prevent Jarl from darting
+his harpoon: insanity under present circumstances; and of course
+without object. But "Oh! for a dart," cried my Viking. And "Where's
+now our old ship?" he added reminiscently.
+
+But to my great joy the monster at last departed; rejoining the
+shoal, whose lofty spoutings of flame were still visible upon the
+distant line of the horizon; showing there, like the fitful starts of
+the Aurora Borealis.
+
+The sea retained its luminosity for about three hours; at the
+expiration of half that period beginning to fade; and excepting
+occasional faint illuminations consequent upon the rapid darting of
+fish under water, the phenomenon at last wholly disappeared.
+
+Heretofore, I had beheld several exhibitions of marine
+phosphorescence, both in the Atlantic and Pacific. But nothing in
+comparison with what was seen that night. In the Atlantic, there is
+very seldom any portion of the ocean luminous, except the crests of
+the waves; and these mostly appear so during wet, murky weather.
+Whereas, in the Pacific, all instances of the sort, previously
+corning under my notice, had been marked by patches of greenish
+light, unattended with any pallidness of sea. Save twice on the coast
+of Peru, where I was summoned from my hammock to the alarming
+midnight cry of "All hands ahoy! tack ship!" And rushing on deck,
+beheld the sea white as a shroud; for which reason it was feared we
+were on soundings.
+
+Now, sailors love marvels, and love to repeat them. And from many an
+old shipmate I have heard various sage opinings, concerning the
+phenomenon in question. Dismissing, as destitute of sound philosophic
+probability, the extravagant notion of one of my nautical friends--no
+less a philosopher than my Viking himself--namely: that the
+phosphoresence of the sea is caused by a commotion among the
+mermaids, whose golden locks, all torn and disheveled, do irradiate
+the waters at such times; I proceed to record more reliable theories.
+
+Faraday might, perhaps, impute the phenomenon to a peculiarly
+electrical condition of the atmosphere; and to that solely. But
+herein, my scientific friend would be stoutly contradicted by many
+intelligent seamen, who, in part, impute it to the presence of large
+quantities of putrescent animal matter; with which the sea is well
+known to abound.
+
+And it would seem not unreasonable to suppose, that it is by
+this means that the fluid itself becomes charged with the luminous
+principle. Draw a bucket of water from the phosphorescent ocean, and
+it still retains traces of fire; but, standing awhile, this soon
+subsides. Now pour it along the deck, and it is a stream of flame;
+caused by its renewed agitation. Empty the bucket, and for a space
+sparkles cling to it tenaciously; and every stave seems ignited.
+
+But after all, this seeming ignition of the sea can not be wholly
+produced by dead matter therein. There are many living fish,
+phosphorescent; and, under certain conditions, by a rapid throwing
+off of luminous particles must largely contribute to the result. Not
+to particularize this circumstance as true of divers species of
+sharks, cuttle-fish, and many others of the larger varieties of the
+finny tribes; the myriads of microscopic mollusca, well known to
+swarm off soundings, might alone be deemed almost sufficient to
+kindle a fire in the brine.
+
+But these are only surmises; likely, but uncertain.
+
+After science comes sentiment.
+
+A French naturalist maintains, that the nocturnal radiance of the
+fire-fly is purposely intended as an attraction to the opposite sex;
+that the artful insect illuminates its body for a beacon to love.
+Thus: perched upon the edge of a leaf, and waiting the approach of
+her Leander, who comes buffeting with his wings the aroma of the
+flowers, some insect Hero may show a torch to her gossamer gallant.
+
+But alas, thrice alas, for the poor little fire-fish of the sea,
+whose radiance but reveals them to their foes, and lights the way to
+their destruction.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+They Fall In With Strangers
+
+
+After quitting the Parki, we had much calm weather, varied by light
+breezes. And sailing smoothly over a sea, so recently one sheet of
+foam, I could not avoid bethinking me, how fortunate it was, that the
+gale had overtaken us in the brigantine, and not in the Chamois. For
+deservedly high as the whale-shallop ranks as a sea boat; still, in a
+severe storm, the larger your craft the greater your sense of
+security. Wherefore, the thousand reckless souls tenanting a line-of-
+battle ship scoff at the most awful hurricanes; though, in reality,
+they may be less safe in their wooden-walled Troy, than those who
+contend with the gale in a clipper.
+
+But not only did I congratulate myself upon salvation from the past,
+but upon the prospect for the future. For storms happening so seldom
+in these seas, one just blown over is almost a sure guarantee of very
+many weeks' calm weather to come.
+
+Now sun followed sun; and no land. And at length it almost seemed as
+if we must have sailed past the remotest presumable westerly limit of
+the chain of islands we sought; a lurking suspicion which I
+sedulously kept to myself However, I could not but nourish a latent
+faith that all would yet be well.
+
+On the ninth day my forebodings were over. In the gray of the dawn,
+perched upon the peak of our sail, a noddy was seen fast asleep. This
+freak was true to the nature of that curious fowl, whose name is
+significant of its drowsiness. Its plumage was snow-white, its
+bill and legs blood-red; the latter looking like little pantalettes.
+In a sly attempt at catching the bird, Samoa captured three tail-
+feathers; the alarmed creature flying away with a scream, and leaving
+its quills in his hand.
+
+Sailing on, we gradually broke in upon immense low-sailing flights of
+other aquatic fowls, mostly of those species which are seldom found
+far from land: terns, frigate-birds, mollymeaux, reef-pigeons,
+boobies, gulls, and the like. They darkened the air; their wings
+making overhead an incessant rustling like the simultaneous turning
+over of ten thousand leaves. The smaller sort skimmed the sea like
+pebbles sent skipping from the shore. Over these, flew myriads of
+birds of broader wing. While high above all, soared in air the daring
+"Diver," or sea-kite, the power of whose vision is truly wonderful.
+It perceives the little flying-fish in the water, at a height which
+can not be less than four hundred feet. Spirally wheeling and
+screaming as it goes, the sea-kite, bill foremost, darts downward,
+swoops into the water, and for a moment altogether disappearing,
+emerges at last; its prey firmly trussed in its claws. But bearing it
+aloft, the bold bandit is quickly assailed by other birds of prey,
+that strive to wrest from him his booty. And snatched from his
+talons, you see the fish falling through the air, till again caught
+up in the very act of descent, by the fleetest of its pursuers.
+
+Leaving these sights astern, we presently picked up the slimy husk of
+a cocoanut, all over green barnacles. And shortly after, passed two
+or three limbs of trees, and the solitary trunk of a palm; which,
+upon sailing nearer, seemed but very recently started on its endless
+voyage. As noon came on; the dark purple land-haze, which had been
+dimly descried resting upon the western horizon, was very nearly
+obscured. Nevertheless, behind that dim drapery we doubted not bright
+boughs were waving.
+
+We were now in high spirits. Samoa between times humming to
+himself some heathenish ditty, and Jarl ten times more intent on his
+silence than ever; yet his eye full of expectation and gazing broad
+off from our bow. Of a sudden, shading his face with his hand, he
+gazed fixedly for an instant, and then springing to his feet, uttered
+the long-drawn sound--"Sail ho!"
+
+Just tipping the furthest edge of the sky was a little speck, dancing
+into view every time we rose upon the swells. It looked like one of
+many birds; for half intercepting our view, fell showers of plumage:
+a flight of milk-white noddies flying downward to the sea.
+
+But soon the birds are seen no more. Yet there remains the speck;
+plainly a sail; but too small for a ship. Was it a boat after a
+whale? The vessel to which it belonged far astern, and shrouded by
+the haze? So it seemed.
+
+Quietly, however, we waited the stranger's nearer approach;
+confident, that for some time he would not be able to perceive us,
+owing to our being in what mariners denominate the "sun-glade," or
+that part of the ocean upon which the sun's rays flash with peculiar
+intensity.
+
+As the sail drew nigh, its failing to glisten white led us to doubt
+whether it was indeed a whale-boat. Presently, it showed yellow; and
+Samoa declared, that it must be the sail of some island craft. True.
+The stranger proving a large double-canoe, like those used by the
+Polynesians in making passages between distant islands.
+
+The Upoluan was now clamorous for a meeting, to which Jarl was
+averse. Deliberating a moment, I directed the muskets to be loaded;
+then setting the sail the wind on our quarter--we headed away for the
+canoe, now sailing at right angles with our previous course.
+
+Here it must be mentioned, that from the various gay cloths and other
+things provided for barter by the captain of the Parki, I had very
+strikingly improved my costume; making it free, flowing, and eastern.
+I looked like an Emir. Nor had my Viking neglected to follow my
+example; though with some few modifications of his own. With
+his long tangled hair and harpoon, he looked like the sea-god, that
+boards ships, for the first time crossing the Equator. For tatooed
+Samoa, he yet sported both kilt and turban, reminding one of a tawny
+leopard, though his spots were all in one place. Besides this raiment
+of ours, against emergencies we had provided our boat with divers
+nankeens and silks.
+
+But now into full view comes a yoke of huge clumsy prows, shaggy with
+carving, and driving through the water with considerable velocity;
+the immense sprawling sail holding the wind like a bag. She seemed
+full of men; and from the dissonant cries borne over to us, and the
+canoe's widely yawing, it was plain that we had  occasioned no small
+sensation. They seemed undetermined what course to pursue: whether to
+court a meeting, or avoid it; whether to regard us as friends or foes.
+
+As we came still nearer, distinctly beholding their faces, we loudly
+hailed them, inviting them to furl their sails, and allow us to board
+them. But no answer was returned; their confusion increasing. And
+now, within less than two ships'-lengths, they swept right across our
+bow, gazing at us with blended curiosity and fear.
+
+Their craft was about thirty feet long, consisting of a pair of
+parallel canoes, very narrow, and at the distance of a yard or so,
+lengthwise, united by stout cross-timbers, lashed across the four
+gunwales. Upon these timbers was a raised plat-form or dais, quite
+dry; and astern an arched cabin or tent; behind which, were two
+broad-bladed paddles terminating in rude shark-tails, by which the
+craft was steered.
+
+The yard, spreading a yellow sail, was a crooked bough, supported
+obliquely in the crotch of a mast, to which the green bark was still
+clinging. Here and there were little tufts of moss. The high, beaked
+prow of that canoe in which the mast was placed, resembled a rude
+altar; and all round it was suspended a great variety of fruits,
+including scores of cocoanuts, unhusked. This prow was railed
+off, forming a sort of chancel within.
+
+The foremost beam, crossing the gunwales, extended some twelve feet
+beyond the side of the dais; and at regular intervals hereupon, stout
+cords were fastened, which, leading up to the head of the mast,
+answered the purpose of shrouds. The breeze was now streaming fresh;
+and, as if to force down into the water the windward side of the
+craft, five men stood upon this long beam, grasping five shrouds. Yet
+they failed to counterbalance the pressure of the sail; and owing to
+the opposite inclination of the twin canoes, these living statues
+were elevated high above the water; their appearance rendered still
+more striking by their eager attitudes, and the apparent peril of
+their position, as the mad spray from the bow dashed over them.
+Suddenly, the Islanders threw their craft into the wind; while, for
+ourselves, we lay on our oars, fearful of alarming them by now coming
+nearer. But hailing them again, we said we were friends; and had
+friendly gifts for them, if they would peaceably permit us to
+approach. This understood, there ensued a mighty clamor; insomuch,
+that I bade Jarl and Samoa out oars, and row very gently toward the
+strangers. Whereupon, amid a storm of vociferations, some of them
+hurried to the furthest side of their dais; standing with arms arched
+over their heads, as if for a dive; others menacing us with clubs and
+spears; and one, an old man with a bamboo trellis on his head forming
+a sort of arbor for his hair, planted himself full before the tent,
+stretching behind him a wide plaited sling.
+
+Upon this hostile display, Samoa dropped his oar, and brought his
+piece to bear upon the old man, who, by his attitude, seemed to
+menace us with the fate of the great braggart of Gath. But I quickly
+knocked down the muzzle of his musket, and forbade the slightest
+token of hostility; enjoining it upon my companions, nevertheless, to
+keep well on their guard.
+
+We now ceased rowing, and after a few minutes' uproar in the canoe,
+they ran to the steering-paddles, and forcing round their craft
+before the wind, rapidly ran away from us. With all haste we set our
+sail, and pulling also at our oars, soon overtook them, determined
+upon coming into closer communion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+Sire And Sons
+
+
+Seeing flight was useless, the Islanders again stopped their canoe,
+and once more we cautiously drew nearer; myself crying out to them
+not to be fearful; and Samoa, with the odd humor of his race,
+averring that he had known every soul of them from his infancy.
+
+We approached within two or three yards; when we paused, which
+somewhat allayed their alarm. Fastening a red China handkerchief to
+the blade of our long mid-ship oar, I waved it in the air. A lively
+clapping of hands, and many wild exclamations.
+
+While yet waving the flag, I whispered to Jarl to give the boat a
+sheer toward the canoe, which being adroitly done, brought the bow,
+where I stood, still nearer to the Islanders. I then dropped the silk
+among them; and the Islander, who caught it, at once handed it to the
+warlike old man with the sling; who, on seating himself, spread it
+before him; while the rest crowding round, glanced rapidly from the
+wonderful gift, to the more wonderful donors.
+
+This old man was the superior of the party. And Samoa asserted, that
+he must be a priest of the country to which the Islanders belonged;
+that the craft could be no other than one of their sacred canoes,
+bound on some priestly voyage. All this he inferred from the altar-
+like prow, and there being no women on board.
+
+Bent upon conciliating the old priest, I dropped into the canoe
+another silk handkerchief; while Samoa loudly exclaimed, that we were
+only three men, and were peaceably inclined. Meantime, old
+Aaron, fastening the two silks crosswise over his shoulders, like a
+brace of Highland plaids, crosslegged sat, and eyed us.
+
+It was a curious sight. The old priest, like a scroll of old
+parchment, covered all over with hieroglyphical devices, harder to
+interpret, I'll warrant, than any old Sanscrit manuscript. And upon
+his broad brow, deep-graven in wrinkles, were characters still more
+mysterious, which no Champollion nor gipsy could have deciphered. He
+looked old as the elderly hills; eyes sunken, though bright; and head
+white as the summit of Mont Blanc.
+
+The rest were a youthful and comely set: their complexion that of
+Gold Sherry, and all tattooed after this pattern: two broad cross-
+stripes on the chest and back; reaching down to the waist, like a
+foot-soldier's harness. Their faces were full of expression; and
+their mouths were full of fine teeth; so that the parting of their
+lips, was as the opening of pearl oysters. Marked, here and there,
+after the style of Tahiti, with little round figures in blue, dotted
+in the middle with a spot of vermilion, their brawny brown thighs
+looked not unlike the gallant hams of Westphalia, spotted with the
+red dust of Cayenne.
+
+But what a marvelous resemblance in the features of all. Were they
+born at one birth? This resemblance was heightened by their uniform
+marks. But it was subsequently ascertained, that they were the
+children of one sire; and that sire, old Aaron; who, no doubt,
+reposed upon his sons, as an old general upon the trophies of his
+youth.
+
+They were the children of as many mothers; and he was training them
+up for the priesthood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+A Fray
+
+
+So bent were the strangers upon concealing who they were, and the
+object of their voyage, that it was some time ere we could obtain the
+information we desired.
+
+They pointed toward the tent, as if it contained their Eleusinian
+mysteries. And the old priest gave us to know, that it would be
+profanation to enter it.
+
+But all this only roused my curiosity to unravel the wonder.
+
+At last I succeeded.
+
+In that mysterious tent was concealed a beautiful maiden. And, in
+pursuance of a barbarous custom, by Aleema, the priest, she was being
+borne an offering from the island of Amma to the gods of Tedaidee.
+
+Now, hearing of the maiden, I waited for no more. Need I add, how
+stirred was my soul toward this invisible victim; and how hotly I
+swore, that precious blood of hers should never smoke upon an altar.
+If we drowned for it, I was bent upon rescuing the captive. But as
+yet, no gentle signal of distress had been waved to us from the tent.
+Thence, no sound could be heard, but an occasional rustle of the
+matting. Was it possible, that one about to be immolated could
+proceed thus tranquilly to her fate?
+
+But desperately as I resolved to accomplish the deliverance of the
+maiden, it was best to set heedfully about it. I desired no shedding
+of blood; though the odds were against us.
+
+The old priest seemed determined to prevent us from boarding
+his craft. But being equally determined the other way, I cautiously
+laid the bow of the Chamois against the canoe's quarter, so as to
+present the smallest possible chance for a hostile entrance into our
+boat. Then, Samoa, knife in ear, and myself with a cutlass, stepped
+upon the dais, leaving Jarl in the boat's head, equipped with his
+harpoon; three loaded muskets lying by his side. He was strictly
+enjoined to resist the slightest demonstration toward our craft.
+
+As we boarded the canoe, the Islanders slowly retreated; meantime
+earnestly conferring in whispers; all but the old priest, who, still
+seated, presented an undaunted though troubled front. To our
+surprise, he motioned us to sit down by him; which we did; taking
+care, however, not to cut off our communication with Jarl.
+
+With the hope of inspiring good will, I now unfolded a roll of
+printed cotton, and spreading it before the priest, directed his
+attention to the pictorial embellishments thereon, representing some
+hundreds of sailor boys simultaneously ascending some hundreds of
+uniform sections of a ship's rigging. Glancing at them a moment, by a
+significant sign, he gave me to know, that long previous he himself
+had ascended the shrouds of a ship. Making this allusion, his
+countenance was overcast with a ferocious expression, as if something
+terrific was connected with the reminiscence. But it soon passed
+away, and somewhat abruptly he assumed an air of much merriment.
+
+While we were thus sitting together, and my whole soul full of the
+thoughts of the captive, and how best to accomplish my purpose, and
+often gazing toward the tent; I all at once noticed a movement among
+the strangers. Almost in the same instant, Samoa, right across the
+face of Aleema, and in his ordinary tones, bade me take heed to
+myself, for mischief was brewing. Hardly was this warning uttered,
+when, with carved clubs in their hands, the Islanders completely
+surrounded us. Then up rose the old priest, and gave us to know, that
+we were wholly in his power, and if we did not swear to depart
+in our boat forthwith, and molest him no more, the peril be ours.
+
+"Depart and you live; stay and you die."
+
+Fifteen to three. Madness to gainsay his mandate. Yet a beautiful
+maiden was at stake.
+
+The knife before dangling in Samoa's ear was now in his hand. Jarl
+cried out for us to regain the boat, several of the Islanders making
+a rush for it. No time to think. All passed quicker than it can be
+said. They closed in upon us, to push us from the canoe: Rudely the
+old priest flung me from his side, menacing me with his dagger, the
+sharp spine of a fish. A thrust and a threat! Ere I knew it, my
+cutlass made a quick lunge. A curse from the priest's mouth; red
+blood from his side; he tottered, stared about him, and fell over
+like a brown hemlock into the sea. A yell of maledictions rose on the
+air. A wild cry was heard from the tent. Making a dead breach among
+the crowd, we now dashed side by side for the boat. Springing into
+it, we found Jarl battling with two Islanders; while the rest were
+still howling upon the dais. Rage and grief had almost disabled them.
+
+With one stroke of my cutlass, I now parted the line that held us to
+the canoe, and with Samoa falling upon the two Islanders, by Jarl's
+help, we quickly mastered them; forcing them down into the bottom of
+the boat.
+
+The Skyeman and Samoa holding passive the captives, I quickly set our
+sail, and snatching the sheet at the cavil, we rapidly shot from the
+canoe. The strangers defying us with their spears; several couching
+them as if to dart; while others held back their hands, as if to
+prevent them from jeopardizing the lives of their countrymen in the
+Chamois.
+
+Seemingly untoward events oftentimes lead to successful results: Far
+from destroying all chance of rescuing the captive, our temporary
+flight, indispensable for the safety of Jarl, only made the success
+of our enterprise more probable. For having made prisoners two of the
+strangers, I determined to retain them as hostages, through
+whom to effect my plans without further bloodshed.
+
+And here it must needs be related, that some of the natives were
+wounded in the fray: while all three of their assailants had received
+several bruises.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+Remorse
+
+
+During the skirmish not a single musket had been discharged. The
+first snatched by Jarl had missed fire, and ere he could seize
+another, it was close quarters with him, and no gestures to spare.
+His harpoon was his all. And truly, there is nothing like steel in a
+fray. It comes and it goes with a will, and is never a-weary. Your
+sword is your life, and that of your foe; to keep or to take as it
+happens. Closer home does it go than a rammer; and fighting with
+steel is a play without ever an interlude. There are points more
+deadly than bullets; and stocks packed full of subtle tubes, whence
+comes an impulse more reliable than powder.
+
+Binding our prisoners lengthwise across the boat's seats, we rowed
+for the canoe, making signs of amity.
+
+Now, if there be any thing fitted to make a high tide ebb in the
+veins, it is the sight of a vanquished foe, inferior to yourself in
+powers of destruction; but whom some necessity has forced you to
+subdue. All victories are not triumphs, nor all who conquer, heroes.
+
+As we drew near the canoe, it was plain, that the loss of their sire
+had again for the instant overcome the survivors. Raising hands, they
+cursed us; and at intervals sent forth a low, piercing wail, peculiar
+to their race. As before, faint cries were heard from the tent. And
+all the while rose and fell on the sea, the ill-fated canoe.
+
+As I gazed at this sight, what iron mace fell on my soul; what curse
+rang sharp in my ear! It was I, who was the author of the deed that
+caused the shrill wails that I heard. By this hand, the dead
+man had died. Remorse smote me hard; and like lightning I asked
+myself, whether the death-deed I had done was sprung of a virtuous
+motive, the rescuing a captive from thrall; or whether beneath that
+pretense, I had engaged in this fatal affray for some other, and
+selfish purpose; the companionship of a beautiful maid. But
+throttling the thought, I swore to be gay. Am I not rescuing the
+maiden? Let them go down who withstand me.
+
+At the dismal spectacle before him, Jarl, hitherto menacing our
+prisoners with his weapon, in order to intimidate their countrymen,
+honest Jarl dropped his harpoon. But shaking his knife in the air,
+Samoa yet defied the strangers; nor could we prevent him. His
+heathenish blood was up.
+
+Standing foremost in the boat, I now assured the strangers, that all
+we sought at their hands was the maiden in the tent. That captive
+surrendered, our own, unharmed, should be restored. If not, they must
+die. With a cry, they started to their feet, and brandished their
+clubs; but, seeing Jarl's harpoon quivering over the hearts of our
+prisoners, they quickly retreated; at last signifying their
+acquiescence in my demand. Upon this, I sprang to the dais, and
+across it indicating a line near the bow, signed the Islanders to
+retire beyond it. Then, calling upon them one by one to deliver their
+weapons, they were passed into the boat.
+
+The Chamois was now brought round to the canoe's stern; and leaving
+Jarl to defend it as before, the Upoluan rejoined me on the dais. By
+these precautions--the hostages still remaining bound hand and foot
+in the boat--we deemed ourselves entirely secure.
+
+Attended by Samoa, I stood before the tent, now still as the grave.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+The Tent Entered
+
+
+By means of thin spaces between the braids of matting, the place was
+open to the air, but not to view. There was also a round opening on
+one side, only large enough, however, to admit the arm; but this
+aperture was partially closed from within. In front, a deep-dyed rug
+of osiers, covering the entrance way, was intricately laced to the
+standing part of the tent. As I divided this lacing with my cutlass,
+there arose an outburst of voices from the Islanders. And they
+covered their faces, as the interior was revealed to my gaze.
+
+Before me crouched a beautiful girl. Her hands were drooping. And,
+like a saint from a shrine, she looked sadly out from her long, fair
+hair. A low wail issued from her lips, and she trembled like a sound.
+There were tears on her cheek, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom.
+
+Did I dream?--A snow-white skin: blue, firmament eyes: Golconda
+locks. For an instant spell-bound I stood; while with a slow,
+apprehensive movement, and still gazing fixedly, the captive gathered
+more closely about her a gauze-like robe. Taking one step within, and
+partially dropping the curtain of the tent, I so stood, as to have
+both sight and speech of Samoa, who tarried without; while the
+maiden, crouching in the farther corner of the retreat, was wholly
+screened from all eyes but mine.
+
+Crossing my hands before me, I now stood without speaking. For the
+soul of me, I could not link this mysterious creature with the tawny
+strangers. She seemed of another race. So powerful was this
+impression, that unconsciously, I addressed her in my own
+tongue. She started, and bending over, listened intently, as if to
+the first faint echo of something dimly remembered. Again I spoke,
+when throwing back her hair, the maiden looked up with a piercing,
+bewildered gaze. But her eyes soon fell, and bending over once more,
+she resumed her former attitude. At length she slowly chanted to
+herself several musical words, unlike those of the Islanders; but
+though I knew not what they meant, they vaguely seemed familiar.
+
+Impatient to learn her story, I now questioned her in Polynesian. But
+with much earnestness, she signed me to address her as before. Soon
+perceiving, however, that without comprehending the meaning of the
+words I employed, she seemed merely touched by something pleasing in
+their sound, I once more addressed her in Polynesian; saying that I
+was all eagerness to hear her history.
+
+After much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm at every
+sound from without; yet all the while deeply regarding me.
+
+Broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are here presented
+in the form in which they were afterward more fully narrated.
+
+So unearthly was the story, that at first I little comprehended it;
+and was almost persuaded that the luckless maiden was some beautiful
+maniac.
+
+She declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from Oroolia, the
+Island of Delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the
+Polynesians. To this isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical
+power, she had been spirited from Amma, the place of her nativity.
+Her name was Yillah. And hardly had the waters of Oroolia washed
+white her olive skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when one day
+strolling in the woodlands, she was snared in the tendrils of a vine.
+Drawing her into its bowers, it gently transformed her into one of
+its blossoms, leaving her conscious soul folded up in the transparent
+petals.
+
+Here hung Yillah in a trance, the world without all tinged with the
+rosy hue of her prison. At length when her spirit was about to burst
+forth in the opening flower, the blossom was snapped from its stem;
+and borne by a soft wind to the sea; where it fell into the opening
+valve of a shell; which in good time was cast upon the beach of the
+Island of Amma.
+
+In a dream, these events were revealed to Aleema the priest; who by a
+spell unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now
+showed signs of opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy
+revealings, as of the dawn behind crimson clouds. Suddenly expanding,
+the blossom exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the
+air. Condensing at last, there emerged from this mist the same
+radiant young Yillah as before; her locks all moist, and a rose-
+colored pearl on her bosom. Enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful
+child now tarried in the sacred temple of Apo, buried in a dell;
+never beheld of mortal eyes save Aleema's.
+
+Moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four days gone by,
+Aleema came to her with a dream; that the spirits in Oroolia had
+recalled her home by the way of Tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up
+in the sea an enchanted spring; which streaming over upon the brine,
+flowed on between blue watery banks; and, plunging into a vortex,
+went round and round, descending into depths unknown. Into this
+whirlpool Yillah was to descend in a canoe, at last to well up in an
+inland fountain of Oroolia.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+Away
+
+
+Though clothed in language of my own, the maiden's story is in
+substance the same as she related. Yet were not these things narrated
+as past events; she merely recounted them as impressions of her
+childhood, and of her destiny yet unaccomplished. And mystical as the
+tale most assuredly was, my knowledge of the strange arts of the
+island priesthood, and the rapt fancies indulged in by many of their
+victims, deprived it in good part of the effect it otherwise would
+have produced.
+
+For ulterior purposes connected with their sacerdotal supremacy, the
+priests of these climes oftentimes secrete mere infants in their
+temples; and jealously secluding them from all intercourse with the
+world, craftily delude them, as they grow up, into the wildest conceits.
+
+Thus wrought upon, their pupils almost lose their humanity in the
+constant indulgence of seraphic imaginings. In many cases becoming
+inspired as oracles; and as such, they are sometimes resorted to by
+devotees; always screened from view, however, in the recesses of the
+temples. But in every instance, their end is certain. Beguiled with
+some fairy tale about revisiting the islands of Paradise, they are
+led to the secret sacrifice, and perish unknown to their kindred.
+
+But, would that all this had been hidden from me at the time. For
+Yillah was lovely enough to be really divine; and so I might have
+been tranced into a belief of her mystical legends.
+
+But with what passionate exultation did I find myself the
+deliverer of this beautiful maiden; who, thinking no harm, and rapt
+in a dream, was being borne to her fate on the coast of Tedaidee. Nor
+now, for a moment, did the death of Aleema her guardian seem to hang
+heavy upon my heart. I rejoiced that I had sent him to his gods; that
+in place of the sea moss growing over sweet Yillah drowned in the
+sea, the vile priest himself had sunk to the bottom.
+
+But though he had sunk in the deep, his ghost sunk not in the deep
+waters of my soul. However in exultations its surface foamed up, at
+bottom guilt brooded. Sifted out, my motives to this enterprise
+justified not the mad deed, which, in a moment of rage, I had done:
+though, those motives had been covered with a gracious pretense;
+concealing myself from myself. But I beat down the thought.
+
+In relating her story, the maiden frequently interrupted it with
+questions concerning myself:--Whence I came: being white, from
+Oroolia? Whither I was going: to Amma? And what had happened to
+Aleema? For she had been dismayed at the fray, though knowing not
+what it could mean; and she had heard the priest's name called upon
+in lamentations. These questions for the time I endeavored to evade;
+only inducing her to fancy me some gentle demigod, that had come over
+the sea from her own fabulous Oroolia. And all this she must verily
+have believed. For whom, like me, ere this could she have beheld?
+Still fixed she her eyes upon me strangely, and hung upon the accents
+of my voice.
+
+While this scene was passing, the strangers began to show signs of
+impatience, and a voice from the Chamois repeatedly hailed us to
+accelerate our movements.
+
+My course was quickly decided. The only obstacle to be encountered
+was the possibility of Yillah's alarm at being suddenly borne into my
+prow. For this event I now sought to prepare her. I informed the
+damsel that Aleema had been dispatched on a long errand to Oroolia;
+leaving to my care, for the present, the guardianship of the lovely
+Yillah; and that therefore, it was necessary to carry her tent
+into my own canoe, then waiting to receive it.
+
+This intelligence she received with the utmost concern; and not
+knowing to what her perplexity might lead, I thought fit to transport
+her into the Chamois, while yet overwhelmed by the announcement of my
+intention.
+
+Quitting her retreat, I apprised Jarl of my design; and then, no more
+delay!
+
+At bottom, the tent was attached to a light framework of bamboos; and
+from its upper corners, four cords, like those of a marquee, confined
+it to the dais. These, Samoa's knife soon parted; when lifting the
+light tent, we speedily transferred it to the Chamois; a wild yell
+going up from the Islanders, which drowned the faint cries of the
+maiden. But we heeded not the din. Toss in the fruit, hanging from
+the altar-prow! It was done; and then running up our sail, we glided
+away;--Chamois, tent, hostages, and all. Rushing to the now vacant
+stern of their canoe, the Islanders once more lifted up their hands
+and their voices in curses.
+
+A suitable distance gained, we paused to fling overboard the arms we
+had taken; and Jarl proceeded to liberate the hostages.
+
+Meanwhile, I entered the tent, and by many tokens, sought to allay
+the maiden's alarm. Thus engaged, violent plunges were heard: our
+prisoners taking to the sea to regain their canoe. All dripping, they
+were received by their brethren with wild caresses.
+
+From something now said by the captives, the rest seemed suddenly
+inspirited with hopes of revenge; again wildly shaking their spears,
+just before picked up from the sea. With great clamor and confusion
+they soon set their mat-sail; and instead of sailing southward for
+Tedaidee, or northward for Amma their home, they steered straight
+after us, in our wake.
+
+Foremost in the prow stood three; javelins poised for a dart; at
+intervals, raising a yell.
+
+Did they mean to pursue me? Full in my rear they came on, baying like
+hounds on their game. Yillah trembled at their cries. My own heart
+beat hard with undefinable dread. The corpse of Aleema seemed
+floating before: its avengers were raging behind.
+
+But soon these phantoms departed. For very soon it appeared that in
+vain the pagans pursued. Their craft, our fleet Chamois outleaped.
+And farther and farther astern dropped the evil-boding canoe, till at
+last but a speck; when a great swell of the sea surged up before it,
+and it was seen no more. Samoa swore that it must have swamped, and
+gone down. But however it was, my heart lightened apace. I saw none
+but ourselves on the sea: I remembered that our keel left no track as
+it sailed.
+
+Let the Oregon Indian through brush, bramble, and brier, hunt his
+enemy's trail, far over the mountains and down in the vales; comes he
+to the water, he snuffs idly in air.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+Reminiscences
+
+
+In resecuing the gentle Yillah from the hands of the Islanders, a
+design seemed accomplished. But what was now to be done? Here, in our
+adventurous Chamois, was a damsel more lovely than the flushes of
+morning; and for companions, whom had she but me and my comrades?
+Besides, her bosom still throbbed with alarms, her fancies all roving
+through mazes.
+
+How subdue these dangerous imaginings? How gently dispel them?
+
+But one way there was: to lead her thoughts toward me, as her friend
+and preserver; and a better and wiser than Aleema the priest. Yet
+could not this be effected but by still maintaining my assumption of
+a divine origin in the blessed isle of Oroolia; and thus fostering in
+her heart the mysterious interest, with which from the first she had
+regarded me. But if punctilious reserve on the part of her deliverer
+should teach her to regard him as some frigid stranger from the
+Arctic Zone, what sympathy could she have for him? and hence, what
+peace of mind, having no one else to cling to?
+
+Now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried Aleema.
+
+"Think not of him, sweet Yillah," I cried. "Look on me. Am I not
+white like yourself? Behold, though since quitting Oroolia the sun
+has dyed my cheek, am I not even as you? Am I brown like the dusky
+Aleema? They snatched you away from your isle in the sea, too early
+for you to remember me there. But you have not been forgotten
+by me, sweetest Yillah. Ha! ha! shook we not the palm-trees together,
+and chased we not the rolling nuts down the glen? Did we not dive
+into the grotto on the sea-shore, and come up together in the cool
+cavern in the hill? In my home in Oroolia, dear Yillah, I have a lock
+of your hair, ere yet it was golden: a little dark tress like a ring.
+How your cheeks were then changing from olive to white. And when
+shall I forget the hour, that I came upon you sleeping among the
+flowers, with roses and lilies for cheeks. Still forgetful? Know you
+not my voice? Those little spirits in your eyes have seen me before.
+They mimic me now as they sport in their lakes. All the past a dim
+blank? Think of the time when we ran up and down in our arbor, where
+the green vines grew over the great ribs of the stranded whale. Oh
+Yillah, little Yillah, has it all come to this? am I forever
+forgotten? Yet over the wide watery world have I sought thee: from
+isle to isle, from sea to sea. And now we part not. Aleema is gone.
+My prow shall keep kissing the waves, till it kisses the beach at
+Oroolia. Yillah, look up."
+
+Sunk the ghost of Aleema: Sweet Yillah was mine!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+The Chamois With A Roving Commission
+
+
+Through the assiduity of my Viking, ere nightfall our Chamois was
+again in good order. And with many subtle and seamanlike splices the
+light tent was lashed in its place; the sail taken up by a reef.
+
+My comrades now questioned me, as to my purposes; whether they had
+been modified by the events of the day. I replied that our
+destination was still the islands to the westward.
+
+But from these we had steadily been drifting all the morning long; so
+that now no loom of the land was visible. But our prow was kept
+pointing as before.
+
+As evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the
+helm.
+
+How soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. The rays of the sun,
+setting behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of
+a shaded light behind a lattice. And the low breeze, pervaded with
+the peculiar balm of the mid-Pacific near land, was fragrant as the
+breath of a bride.
+
+Such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of Yillah in
+mine seemed no hand, but a touch. Visions flitted before me and in
+me; something hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay.
+
+And now entered a thought into my heart. I reflected how serenely we
+might thus glide along, far removed from all care and anxiety. And
+then, what different scenes might await us upon any of the shores
+roundabout. But there seemed no danger in the balmy sea; the assured
+vicinity of land imparting a sense of security. We had ample
+supplies for several days more, and thanks to the Pagan canoe, an
+abundance of fruit.
+
+Besides, what cared I now for the green groves and bright shore? Was
+not Yillah my shore and my grove? my meadow, my mead, my soft shady
+vine, and my arbor? Of all things desirable and delightful, the full-
+plumed sheaf, and my own right arm the band? Enough: no shore for me
+yet. One sweep of the helm, and our light prow headed round toward
+the vague land of song, sun, and vine: the fabled South.
+
+As we glided along, strange Yillah gazed down in the sea, and would
+fain have had me plunge into it with her, to rove through its depths.
+But I started dismayed; in fancy, I saw the stark body of the priest
+drifting by. Again that phantom obtruded; again guilt laid his red
+hand on my soul. But I laughed. Was not Yillah my own? by my arm
+rescued from ill? To do her a good, I had periled myself. So down,
+down, Aleema.
+
+When next morning, starting from slumber, my comrades beheld the sun
+on our beam, instead of astern as before at that hour, they eagerly
+inquired, "Whither now?" But very briefly I gave them to know, that
+after devoting the night to the due consideration of a matter so
+important, I had determined upon voyaging for the island Tedaidee, in
+place of the land to the westward.
+
+At this, they were not displeased. But to tell the plain truth, I
+harbored some shadowy purpose of merely hovering about for a while,
+till I felt more landwardly inclined.
+
+But had I not declared to Yillah, that our destination was the fairy
+isle she spoke of, even Oroolia? Yet that shore was so exceedingly
+remote, and the folly of endeavoring to reach it in a craft built
+with hands, so very apparent, that what wonder I really nourished no
+thought of it?
+
+So away floated the Chamois, like a vagrant cloud in the heavens:
+bound, no one knew whither.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+Yillah, Jarl, And Samoa
+
+
+But time to tell, how Samoa and Jarl regarded this mystical Yillah;
+and how Yillah regarded them.
+
+As Beauty from the Beast, so at first shrank the damsel from my one-
+armed companion. But seeing my confidence in the savage, a reaction
+soon followed. And in accordance with that curious law, by which,
+under certain conditions, the ugliest mortals become only amiably
+hideous, Yillah at length came to look upon Samoa as a sort of
+harmless and good-natured goblin. Whence came he, she cared not; or
+what was his history; or in what manner his fortunes were united to
+mine.
+
+May be, she held him a being of spontaneous origin.
+
+Now, as every where women are the tamers of the menageries of men; so
+Yillah in good time tamed down Samoa to the relinquishment of that
+horrible thing in his ear, and persuaded him to substitute a vacancy
+for the bauble in his nose. On his part, however, all this was
+conditional. He stipulated for the privilege of restoring both
+trinkets upon suitable occasions.
+
+But if thus gayly the damsel sported with Samoa; how different his
+emotions toward her? The fate to which she had been destined, and
+every nameless thing about her, appealed to all his native
+superstitions, which ascribed to beings of her complexion a more than
+terrestrial origin. When permitted to approach her, he looked timid
+and awkwardly strange; suggesting the likeness of some clumsy satyr,
+drawing in his horns; slowly wagging his tail; crouching abashed
+before some radiant spirit.
+
+And this reverence of his was most pleasing to me, Bravo! thought I;
+be a pagan forever. No more than myself; for, after a different
+fashion, Yillah was an idol to both.
+
+But what of my Viking? Why, of good Jarl I grieve to say, that the
+old-fashioned interest he took in my affairs led him to look upon
+Yillah as a sort of intruder, an Ammonite syren, who might lead me
+astray. This would now and then provoke a phillipic; but he would
+only turn toward my resentment his devotion; and then I was silent.
+
+Unsophisticated as a wild flower in the germ, Yillah seemed incapable
+of perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our
+companions. And like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption,
+that it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove
+otherwise than irresistible to all.
+
+She betrayed much surprise at my Vikings appearance. But most of all
+was she struck by a characteristic device upon the arm of the
+wonderful mariner--our Saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown
+of thorns, and three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one
+from each hand and foot.
+
+Now, honest Jarl did vastly pride himself upon this ornament. It was
+the only piece of vanity about him. And like a lady keeping gloveless
+her hand to show off a fine Turquoise ring, he invariably wore that
+sleeve of his frock rolled up, the better to display the
+embellishment.
+
+And round and round would Yillah turn Jarl's arm, till Jarl was fain
+to stand firm, for fear of revolving all over. How such untutored
+homage would have thrilled the heart of the ingenious artist!
+
+Eventually, through the Upoluan, she made overtures to the Skyeman,
+concerning the possession of his picture in her own proper right. In
+her very simplicity, little heeding, that like a landscape in fresco,
+it could not be removed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+Something Under The Surface
+
+
+Not to omit an occurrence of considerable interest, we must needs
+here present some account of a curious retinue of fish which overtook
+our Chamois, a day or two after parting with the canoe.
+
+A violent creaming and frothing in our rear announced their approach.
+Soon we found ourselves the nucleus of an incredible multitude of
+finny creatures, mostly anonymous.
+
+First, far in advance of our prow, swam the helmeted Silver-heads;
+side by side, in uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas,
+with their flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct
+regiment, wormed and twisted through the water like Archimedean
+screws, the quivering Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and
+file of the Trigger-fish--so called from their quaint dorsal fins
+being set in their backs with a comical curve, as if at half-cock.
+Far astern the rear was brought up by endless battalions of Yellow-
+backs, right martially vested in buff.
+
+And slow sailing overhead were flights of birds; a wing in the air
+for every fin in the sea.
+
+But let the sea-fowls fly on: turn we to the fish.
+
+Their numbers were amazing; countless as the tears shed for
+perfidious lovers. Far abroad on both flanks, they swam in long
+lines, tier above tier; the water alive with their hosts. Locusts of
+the sea, peradventure, going to fall with a blight upon some green,
+mossy province of Neptune. And tame and fearless they were, as the
+first fish that swam in Euphrates; hardly evading the hand; insomuch
+that Samoa caught many without lure or line.
+
+They formed a decorous escort; paddling along by our barnacled sides,
+as if they had been with us from the very beginning; neither scared
+by our craft's surging in the water; nor in the least sympathetic at
+losing a comrade by the hand of Samoa. They closed in their ranks and
+swam on.
+
+How innocent, yet heartless they looked! Had a plank dropped out of
+our boat, we had sunk to the bottom; and belike, our cheerful retinue
+would have paid the last rites to our remains.
+
+But still we kept company; as sociably as you please; Samoa helping
+himself when he listed, and Yillah clapping her hands as the radiant
+creatures, by a simultaneous turning round on their silvery bellies,
+caused the whole sea to glow like a burnished shield.
+
+But what has befallen this poor little Boneeta astern, that he swims
+so toilingly on, with gills showing purple? What has he there, towing
+behind? It is tangled sea-kelp clinging to its fins. But the clogged
+thing strains to keep up with its fellows. Yet little they heed. Away
+they go; every fish for itself, and any fish for Samoa.
+
+At last the poor Boneeta is seen no more. The myriad fins swim on; a
+lonely waste, where the lost one drops behind.
+
+Strange fish! All the live-long day, they were there by our side; and
+at night still tarried and shone; more crystal and scaly in the pale
+moonbeams, than in the golden glare of the sun.
+
+How prettily they swim; all silver life; darting hither and thither
+between their long ranks, and touching their noses, and scraping
+acquaintance. No mourning they wear for the Boneeta left far astern;
+nor for those so cruelly killed by Samoa. No, no; all is glee, fishy
+glee, and frolicking fun; light hearts and light fins; gay backs and
+gay spirits.--Swim away, swim away! my merry fins all. Let us roam
+the flood; let us follow this monster fish with the barnacled sides;
+this strange-looking fish, so high out of water; that goes without
+fins. What fish can it be? What rippling is that? Dost hear
+the great monster breathe? Why, 'tis sharp at both ends; a tail
+either way; nor eyes has it any, nor mouth. What a curious fish! what
+a comical fish! But more comical far, those creatures above, on its
+hollow back, clinging thereto like the snaky eels, that cling and
+slide on the back of the Sword fish, our terrible foe. But what
+curious eels these are! Do they deem themselves pretty as we? No, no;
+for sure, they behold our limber fins, our speckled and beautiful
+scales. Poor, powerless things! How they must wish they were we, that
+roam the flood, and scour the seas with a wish. Swim away; merry
+fins, swim away! Let him drop, that fellow that halts; make a lane;
+close in, and fill up. Let him drown, if he can not keep pace. No
+laggards for us:--
+
+    We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,
+    We care not for friend nor for foe:
+      Our fins are stout,
+      Our tails are out,
+    As through the seas we go.
+
+    Fish, Fish, we are fish with red gills;
+      Naught disturbs us, our blood is at zero:
+    We are buoyant because of our bags,
+      Being many, each fish is a hero.
+    We care not what is it, this life
+      That we follow, this phantom unknown:
+    To swim, it's exceedingly pleasant,--
+      So swim away, making a foam.
+    This strange looking thing by our side,
+      Not for safety, around it we flee:--
+    Its shadow's so shady, that's all,--
+      We only swim under its lee.
+    And as for the eels there above,
+      And as for the fowls in the air,
+    We care not for them nor their ways,
+      As we cheerily glide afar!
+
+    We fish, we fish, we merrily swim,
+    We care not for friend nor for foe:
+      Our fins are stout,
+      Our tails are out,
+    As through the seas we go.
+
+But how now, my fine fish! what alarms your long ranks, and tosses
+them all into a hubbub of scales and of foam? Never mind that long
+knave with the spear there, astern. Pipe away, merry fish, and give
+us a stave or two more, keeping time with your doggerel tails. But
+no, no! their singing was over. Grim death, in the shape of a
+Chevalier, was after them.
+
+How they changed their boastful tune! How they hugged the vilified
+boat! How they wished they were in it, the braggarts! And how they
+all tingled with fear!
+
+For, now here, now there, is heard a terrific rushing sound under
+water, betokening the onslaught of the dread fish of prey, that with
+spear ever in rest, charges in upon the out-skirts of the shoal,
+transfixing the fish on his weapon. Re-treating and shaking them off,
+the Chevalier devours them; then returns to the charge.
+
+Hugging the boat to desperation, the poor fish fairly crowded
+themselves up to the surface, and floundered upon each other, as men
+are lifted off their feet in a mob. They clung to us thus, out of a
+fancied security in our presence. Knowing this, we felt no little
+alarm for ourselves, dreading lest the Chevalier might despise our
+boat, full as much as his prey; and in pursuing the fish, run through
+the poor Chamois with a lunge. A jacket, rolled up, was kept in
+readiness to be thrust into the first opening made; while as the
+thousand fins audibly patted against our slender planks, we felt
+nervously enough; as if treading upon thin, crackling ice.
+
+At length, to our no small delight, the enemy swam away; and again by
+our side merrily paddled our escort; ten times merrier than ever.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+Yillah
+
+
+While for a few days, now this way, now that, as our craft glides
+along, surrounded by these locusts of the deep, let the story of
+Yillah flow on.
+
+Of her beauty say I nothing. It was that of a crystal lake in a
+fathomless wood: all light and shade; full of fleeting revealings;
+now shadowed in depths; now sunny in dimples; but all sparkling and
+shifting, and blending together.
+
+But her wild beauty was a vail to things still more strange. As often
+she gazed so earnestly into my eyes, like some pure spirit looking
+far down into my soul, and seeing therein some upturned faces, I
+started in amaze, and asked what spell was on me, that thus she gazed.
+
+Often she entreated me to repeat over and over again certain
+syllables of my language. These she would chant to herself, pausing
+now and then, as if striving to discover wherein lay their charm.
+
+In her accent, there was something very different from that of the
+people of the canoe. Wherein lay the difference. I knew not; but it
+enabled her to pronounce with readiness all the words which I taught
+her; even as if recalling sounds long forgotten.
+
+If all this filled me with wonder, how much was that wonder
+increased, and yet baffled again, by considering her complexion, and
+the cast of her features.
+
+After endeavoring in various ways to account for these things, I was
+led to imagine, that the damsel must be an Albino (Tulla)
+occasionally to be met with among the people of the Pacific. These
+persons are of an exceedingly delicate white skin, tinted with a
+faint rose hue, like the lips of a shell. Their hair is golden. But,
+unlike the Albinos of other climes, their eyes are invariably blue,
+and no way intolerant of light.
+
+As a race, the Tullas die early. And hence the belief, that they
+pertain to some distant sphere, and only through irregularities in
+the providence of the gods, come to make their appearance upon earth:
+whence, the oversight discovered, they are hastily snatched. And it
+is chiefly on this account, that in those islands where human
+sacrifices are offered, the Tullas are deemed the most suitable
+oblations for the altar, to which from their birth many are
+prospectively devoted. It was these considerations, united to others,
+which at times induced me to fancy, that by the priest, Yillah was
+regarded as one of these beings. So mystical, however, her
+revelations concerning her past history, that often I knew not what
+to divine. But plainly they showed that she had not the remotest
+conception of her real origin.
+
+But these conceits of a state of being anterior to an earthly
+existence may have originated in one of those celestial visions seen
+transparently stealing over the face of a slumbering child. And
+craftily drawn forth and re-echoed by another, and at times repeated
+over to her with many additions, these imaginings must at length have
+assumed in her mind a hue of reality, heightened into conviction by
+the dreamy seclusion of her life.
+
+But now, let her subsequent and more credible history be related, as
+from time to time she rehearsed it.
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+Yillah In Ardair
+
+
+In the verdant glen of Ardair, far in the silent interior of Amma,
+shut in by hoar old cliffs, Yillah the maiden abode.
+
+So small and so deep was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by
+steep acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive
+the shadows that played there; that, from above, it seemed more like
+a lake of cool, balmy air, than a glen: its woodlands and grasses
+gleaming shadowy all, like sea groves and mosses beneath the calm sea.
+
+Here, none came but Aleema the priest, who at times was absent for
+days together. But at certain seasons, an unseen multitude with loud
+chants stood upon the verge of the neighboring precipices, and
+traversing those shaded wilds, slowly retreated; their voices
+lessening and lessening, as they wended their way through the more
+distant groves.
+
+At other times, Yillah being immured in the temple of Apo, a band of
+men entering the vale, surrounded her retreat, dancing there till
+evening came. Meanwhile, heaps of fruit, garlands of flowers, and
+baskets of fish, were laid upon an altar without, where stood Aleema,
+arrayed in white tappa, and muttering to himself, as the offerings
+were laid at his feet.
+
+When Aleema was gone, Yillah went forth into the glen, and wandered
+among the trees, and reposed by the banks of the stream. And ever as
+she strolled, looked down upon her the grim old cliffs, bearded with
+trailing moss.
+
+Toward the lower end of the vale, its lofty walls advancing
+and overhanging their base, almost met in mid air. And a great rock,
+hurled from an adjacent height, and falling into the space
+intercepted, there remained fixed. Aerial trees shot up from its
+surface; birds nested in its clefts; and strange vines roved abroad,
+overrunning the tops of the trees, lying thereon in coils and
+undulations, like anacondas basking in the light. Beneath this rock,
+was a lofty wall of ponderous stones. Between its crevices, peeps
+were had of a long and leafy arcade, quivering far away to where the
+sea rolled in the sun. Lower down, these crevices gave an outlet to
+the waters of the brook, which, in a long cascade, poured over
+sloping green ledges near the foot of the wall, into a deep shady
+pool; whose rocky sides, by the perpetual eddying of the water, had
+been worn into a grotesque resemblance to a group of giants, with
+heads submerged, indolently reclining about the basin.
+
+In this pool, Yillah would bathe. And once, emerging, she heard the
+echoes of a voice, and called aloud. But the only reply, was the
+rustling of branches, as some one, invisible, fled down the valley
+beyond. Soon after, a stone rolled inward, and Aleema the priest
+stood before her; saying that the voice she had heard was his. But it
+was not.
+
+At last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined
+for companionship. When the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves
+of the mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as
+tears in the eye, Yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in
+her soul to awaken. She sang low airs, she thought she had heard in
+Oroolia; but started affrighted, as from dingles and dells, came back
+to her strains more wild than hers. And ever, when sad, Aleema would
+seek to cheer her soil, by calling to mind the bright scenes of
+Oroolia the Blest, to which place, he averred, she was shortly to
+return, never more to depart.
+
+Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak,
+presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose
+shadow, every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain:
+a silent phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen.
+
+At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth,
+and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her
+arms in a caress; saying, "Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?" And at
+last, when it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the
+whole valley in gloom; Aleema would say, "Arise Yillah; Apo hath
+stretched himself to sleep in Ardair. Go, slumber where thou wilt;
+for thou wilt slumber in his arms."
+
+And so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim Apo.
+
+One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something
+that every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully
+still; she went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from
+the peak. Of a sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that
+made it to look as if parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and
+thought it was Apo calling "Yillah! Yillah!" But now it seemed like
+the voice she had heard while bathing in the pool. Glancing upward,
+she beheld a beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down upon her from an
+inaccessible crag. But presently, there was a rustling in the groves
+behind, and swift as thought, something darted through the air. The
+youth bounded forward. Yillah opened her arms to receive him; but he
+fell upon the cliff, and was seen no more. As alarmed, and in tears,
+she fled from the scene, some one out of sight ran before her through
+the wood.
+
+Upon recounting this adventure to Aleema, he said, that the being she
+had seen, must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that
+Apo had slain him.
+
+The sight of this youth, filled Yillah with wild yearnings to escape
+from her lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest
+and the phantom, suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings,
+in regions beyond Ardair. But Aleema sought to put away these
+conceits; saying, that ere long she would be journeying to Oroolia,
+there to rejoin the spirits she dimly remembered.
+
+Soon after, he came to her with a shell--one of those ever moaning of
+ocean--and placing it to her ear, bade her list to the being within,
+which in that little shell had voyaged from Oroolia to bear her
+company in Amma.
+
+Now, the maiden oft held it to her ear, and closing her eyes,
+listened and listened to its soft inner breathings, till visions were
+born of the sound, and her soul lay for hours in a trance of delight.
+
+And again the priest came, and brought her a milk-white bird, with a
+bill jet-black, and eyes like stars. "In this, lurks the soul of a
+maiden; it hath flown from Oroolia to greet you." The soft stranger
+willingly nestled in her bosom; turning its bright eyes upon hers,
+and softly warbling.
+
+Many days passed; and Yillah, the bird, and the shell were
+inseparable. The bird grew familiar; pecked seeds from her mouth;
+perched upon her shoulder, and sang in her ear; and at night, folded
+its wings in her bosom, and, like a sea-fowl, went softly to sleep:
+rising and falling upon the maiden's heart. And every morning it flew
+from its nest, and fluttered and chirped; and sailed to and fro; and
+blithely sang; and brushed Yillah's cheek till she woke. Then came to
+her hand: and Yillah, looking earnestly in its eyes, saw strange
+faces there; and said to herself as she gazed--"These are two souls,
+not one."
+
+But at last, going forth into the groves with the bird, it suddenly
+flew from her side, and perched in a bough; and throwing back its
+white downy throat, there gushed from its bill a clear warbling jet,
+like a little fountain in air. Now the song ceased; when up and away
+toward the head of the vale, flew the bird. "Lil! Lil! come back,
+leave me not, blest souls of the maidens." But on flew the bird, far
+up a defile, winging its way till a speck.
+
+It was shortly after this, and upon the evening of a day which had
+been tumultuous with sounds of warfare beyond the lower wall of the
+glen; that Aleema came to Yillah in alarm; saying--"Yillah, the time
+has come to follow thy bird; come, return to thy home in Oroolia."
+And he told her the way she would voyage there: by the vortex on the
+coast of Tedaidee. That night, being veiled and placed in the tent,
+the maiden was borne to the sea-side, where the canoe was in waiting.
+And setting sail quickly, by next morning the island of Amma was no
+longer in sight.
+
+And this was the voyage, whose sequel has already been recounted.
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+The Dream Begins To Fade
+
+
+Stripped of the strange associations, with which a mind like Yillah's
+must have invested every incident of her life, the story of her abode
+in Ardair seemed not incredible.
+
+But so etherealized had she become from the wild conceits she
+nourished, that she verily believed herself a being of the lands of
+dreams. Her fabulous past was her present.
+
+Yet as our intimacy grew closer and closer, these fancies seemed to
+be losing their hold. And often she questioned me concerning my own
+reminiscences of her shadowy isle. And cautiously I sought to produce
+the impression, that whatever I had said of that clime, had been
+revealed to me in dreams; but that in these dreams, her own
+lineaments had smiled upon me; and hence the impulse which had sent
+me roving after the substance of this spiritual image.
+
+And true it was to say so; and right it was to swear it, upon her
+white arms crossed. For oh, Yillah; were you not the earthly
+semblance of that sweet vision, that haunted my earliest thoughts?
+
+At first she had wildly believed, that the nameless affinities
+between us, were owing to our having in times gone by dwelt together
+in the same ethereal region. But thoughts like these were fast dying
+out. Yet not without many strange scrutinies. More intently than ever
+she gazed into my eyes; rested her ear against my heart, and listened
+to its beatings. And love, which in the eye of its object ever seeks
+to invest itself with some rare superiority, love, sometimes induced
+me to prop my failing divinity; though it was I myself who had
+undermined it.
+
+But if it was with many regrets, that in the sight of Yillah, I
+perceived myself thus dwarfing down to a mortal; it was with quite
+contrary emotions, that I contemplated the extinguishment in her
+heart of the notion of her own spirituality. For as such thoughts
+were chased away, she clung the more closely to me, as unto one
+without whom she would be desolate indeed.
+
+And now, at intervals, she was sad, and often gazed long and fixedly
+into the sea. Nor would she say why it was, that she did so; until at
+length she yielded; and replied, that whatever false things Aleema
+might have instilled into her mind; of this much she was certain:
+that the whirlpool on the coast of Tedaidee prefigured her fate; that
+in the waters she saw lustrous eyes, and beckoning phantoms, and
+strange shapes smoothing her a couch among the mosses.
+
+Her dreams seemed mine. Many visions I had of the green corse of the
+priest, outstretching its arms in the water, to receive pale Yillah,
+as she sunk in the sea.
+
+But these forebodings departed, no happiness in the universe like
+ours. We lived and we loved; life and love were united; in gladness
+glided our days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+World Ho!
+
+
+Five suns rose and set. And Yillah pining for the shore, we turned
+our prow due west, and next morning came in sight of land.
+
+It was innumerable islands; lifting themselves bluely through the
+azure air, and looking upon the distant sea, like haycocks in a hazy
+field. Towering above all, and mid-most, rose a mighty peak; one
+fleecy cloud sloping against its summit; a column wreathed. Beyond,
+like purple steeps in heaven at set of sun, stretched far away, what
+seemed lands on lands, in infinite perspective.
+
+Gliding on, the islands grew more distinct; rising up from the
+billows to greet us; revealing hills, vales, and peaks, grouped
+within a milk-white zone of reef, so vast, that in the distance all
+was dim. The jeweled vapors, ere-while hovering over these violet
+shores, now seemed to be shedding their gems; and as the almost level
+rays of the sun, shooting through the air like a variegated prism,
+touched the verdant land, it trembled all over with dewy sparkles.
+
+Still nearer we came: our sail faintly distended as the breeze died
+away from our vicinity to the isles. The billows rolled listlessly
+by, as if conscious that their long task was nigh done; while gleamed
+the white reef, like the trail of a great fish in a calm. But as yet,
+no sign of paddle or canoe; no distant smoke; no shining thatch.
+Bravo! good comrades, we've discovered some new constellation in the
+sea.
+
+Sweet Yillah, no more of Oroolia; see you not this flowery land?
+Nevermore shall we desire to roam.
+
+Voyaging along the zone, we came to an opening; and quitting the
+firmament blue of the open sea, we glided in upon the still, green
+waters of the wide lagoon. Mapped out in the broad shadows of the
+isles, and tinted here and there with the reflected hues of the sun
+clouds, the mild waters stretched all around us like another sky.
+Near by the break in the reef, was a little island, with palm trees
+harping in the breeze; an aviary of alluring sounds, that seemed
+calling upon us to land. And here, Yillah, whom the sight of the
+verdure had made glad, threw out a merry suggestion. Nothing less,
+than to plant our mast, sail-set, upon the highest hill; and fly
+away, island and all; trees rocking, birds caroling, flowers
+springing; away, away, across the wide waters, to Oroolia! But alas!
+how weigh the isle's coral anchor, leagues down in the fathomless
+sea?
+
+We glanced around; but all the islands seemed slumbering in the
+flooding light.
+
+"A canoe! a canoe!" cried Samoa, as three proas showed themselves
+rounding a neighboring shore. Instantly we sailed for them; but after
+shooting to and fro for a time, and standing up and gazing at us, the
+Islanders retreated behind the headland. Hardly were they out of
+sight, when from many a shore roundabout, other proas pushed off.
+Soon the water all round us was enlivened by fleets of canoes,
+darting hither and thither like frighted water-fowls. Presently they
+all made for one island.
+
+From their actions we argued that these people could have had but
+little or no intercourse with whites; and most probably knew not how
+to account for our appearance among them. Desirous, therefore, of a
+friendly meeting, ere any hostile suspicions might arise, we pointed
+our craft for the island, whither all the canoes were now hastening.
+Whereupon, those which had not yet reached their destination, turned
+and fled; while the occupants of the proas that had landed, ran into
+the groves, and were lost to view.
+
+Crossing the distinct outer line of the isle's shadow on the water,
+we gained the shore; and gliding along its margin, passing canoe
+after canoe, hauled up on the silent beach, which otherwise seemed
+entirely innocent of man.
+
+A dilemma. But I decided at last upon disembarking Jarl and Samoa, to
+seek out and conciliate the natives. So, landing them upon a jutting
+buttress of coral, whence they waded to the shore; I pushed off with
+Yillah into the water beyond, to await the event.
+
+Full an hour must have elapsed; when, to our great joy, loud shouts
+were heard; and there burst into view a tumultuous crowd, in the
+midst of which my Viking was descried, mounted upon the shoulders of
+two brawny natives; while the Upoluan, striding on in advance, seemed
+resisting a similar attempt to elevate him in the world.
+
+Good omens both.
+
+"Come ashore!" cried Jarl. "Aramai!" cried Samoa; while storms of
+interjections went up from the Islanders who with extravagant
+gestures danced about the beach.
+
+Further caution seemed needless: I pointed our prow for the shore. No
+sooner was this perceived, than, raising an applauding shout, the
+Islanders ran up to their waists in the sea. And skimming like a gull
+over the smooth lagoon, the light shallop darted in among them. Quick
+as thought, fifty hands were on the gunwale: and, with all its
+contents, lifted bodily into the air, the little Chamois, upon many a
+dripping shoulder, was borne deep into the groves. Yillah shrieked at
+the rocking motion, and when the boughs of the trees brushed against
+the tent.
+
+With his staff, an old man now pointed to a couple of twin-like
+trees, some four paces apart; and a little way from the ground
+conveniently crotched.
+
+And here, eftsoons, they deposited their burden; lowering the Chamois
+gently between the forks of the trees, whose willow-like foliage
+fringed the tent and its inmate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+The Chamois Ashore
+
+
+Until now, enveloped in her robe, and crouching like a fawn, Yillah
+had been well nigh hidden from view. But presently she withdrew her
+hood.
+
+What saw the Islanders, that they so gazed and adored in silence:
+some retreating, some creeping nearer, and the women all in a
+flutter? Long they gazed; and following Samoa's example, stretched
+forth their arms in reverence.
+
+The adoration of the maiden was extended to myself. Indeed, from the
+singular gestures employed, I had all along suspected, that we were
+being received with unwonted honors.
+
+I now sought to get speech of my comrades. But so obstreperous was
+the crowd, that it was next to impossible. Jarl was still in his
+perch in the air; his enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to
+alight. Samoa, however, who had managed to keep out of the saddle,
+by-and-by contrived to draw nearer to the Chamois.
+
+He advised me, by no means to descend for the present; since in any
+event we were sure of remaining unmolested therein; the Islanders
+regarding it as sacred.
+
+The Upoluan attracted a great deal of attention; chiefly from his
+style of tattooing, which, together with other peculiarities, so
+interested the natives, that they were perpetually hanging about him,
+putting eager questions, and all the time keeping up a violent clamor.
+
+But despite the large demand upon his lungs, Samoa made out to inform
+me, that notwithstanding the multitude assembled, there was no
+high chief, or person of consequence present; the king of the place,
+also those of the islands adjacent, being absent at a festival in
+another quarter of the Archipelago. But upon the first distant
+glimpse of the Chamois, fleet canoes had been dispatched to announce
+the surprising event that had happened.
+
+In good time, the crowd becoming less tumultuous, and abandoning the
+siege of Samoa, I availed myself of this welcome lull, and called
+upon him and my Viking to enter the Chamois; desirous of condensing
+our forces against all emergencies.
+
+Samoa now gave me to understand, that from all he could learn, the
+Islanders regarded me as a superior being. They had inquired of him,
+whether I was not white Taji, a sort of half-and-half deity, now and
+then an Avatar among them, and ranking among their inferior ex-
+officio demi-gods. To this, Samoa had said ay; adding, moreover, all
+he could to encourage the idea.
+
+He now entreated me, at the first opportunity, to announce myself as
+Taji: declaring that if once received under that title, the unbounded
+hospitality of our final reception would be certain; and our persons
+fenced about from all harm.
+
+Encouraging this. But it was best to be wary. For although among some
+barbarians the first strangers landing upon their shores, are
+frequently hailed as divine; and in more than one wild land have been
+actually styled gods, as a familiar designation; yet this has not
+exempted the celestial visitants from peril, when too much presuming
+upon the reception extended to them. In sudden tumults they have been
+slain outright, and while full faith in their divinity had in no wise
+abated. The sad fate of an eminent navigator is a well-known
+illustration of this unaccountable waywardness.
+
+With no small anxiety, therefore, we awaited the approach of some of
+the dignitaries of Mardi; for by this collective appellation,
+the people informed us, their islands were known.
+
+We waited not long. Of a sudden, from the sea-side, a single shrill
+cry was heard. A moment more, and the blast of numerous conch shells
+startled the air; a confused clamor drew nearer and nearer; and
+flying our eyes in the direction of these sounds, we impatiently
+awaited what was to follow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+A Gentleman From The Sun
+
+
+Never before had I seen the deep foliage of woodlands navigated by
+canoes. But on they came sailing through the leaves; two abreast;
+borne on men's shoulders; in each a chief, carried along to the
+measured march of his bearers; paddle blades reversed under arms. As
+they emerged, the multitude made gestures of homage. At the distance
+of some eight or ten paces the procession halted; when the kings
+alighted to the ground.
+
+They were fine-looking men, arrayed in various garbs. Rare the show
+of stained feathers, and jewels, and other adornments. Brave the
+floating of dyed mantles.
+
+The regal bearing of these personages, the deference paid them, and
+their entire self-possession, not a little surprised me. And it
+seemed preposterous, to assume a divine dignity in the presence of
+these undoubted potentates of _terra firma_. Taji seemed oozing from
+my fingers' ends. But courage! and erecting my crest, I strove to
+look every inch the character I had determined to assume.
+
+For a time, it was almost impossible to tell with what emotions
+precisely the chiefs were regarding me. They said not a word.
+
+But plucking up heart of grace, I crossed my cutlass on my chest, and
+reposing my hand on the hilt, addressed their High Mightinesses thus.
+"Men of Mardi, I come from the sun. When this morning it rose and
+touched the wave, I pushed my shallop from its golden beach, and
+hither sailed before its level rays. I am Taji."
+
+More would have been added, but I paused for the effect of my
+exordium.
+
+Stepping back a pace or two, the chiefs eagerly conversed.
+
+Emboldened, I returned to the charge, and labored hard to impress
+them with just such impressions of me and mine, as I deemed
+desirable. The gentle Yillah was a seraph from the sun; Samoa I had
+picked off a reef in my route from that orb; and as for the Skyeman,
+why, as his name imported, he came from above. In a word, we were all
+strolling divinities.
+
+Advancing toward the Chamois, one of the kings, a calm old man, now
+addressed me as follows:--"Is this indeed Taji? he, who according to
+a tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? But that
+period is yet unexpired. What bring'st thou hither then, Taji, before
+thy time? Thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when
+thou dwelt among our sires. But wherefore comest thou, Taji? Truly,
+thou wilt interfere with the worship of thy images, and we have
+plenty of gods besides thee. But comest thou to fight?--We have
+plenty of spears, and desire not thine. Comest thou to dwell?--Small
+are the houses of Mardi. Or comest thou to fish in the sea? Tell us,
+Taji."
+
+Now, all this was a series of posers hard to be answered; furnishing
+a curious example, moreover, of the reception given to strange demi-
+gods when they travel without their portmanteaus; and also of the
+familiar manner in which these kings address the immortals. Much I
+mourned that I had not previously studied better my part, and learned
+the precise nature of my previous existence in the land.
+
+But nothing like carrying it bravely.
+
+"Attend. Taji comes, old man, because it pleases him to come. And
+Taji will depart when it suits him. Ask the shades of your sires
+whether Taji thus scurvily greeted them, when they came stalking into
+his presence in the land of spirits. No. Taji spread the banquet. He
+removed their mantles. He kindled a fire to drive away the damp. He
+said not, 'Come you to fight, you fogs and vapors? come you to dwell?
+or come you to fish in the sea?' Go to, then, kings of Mardi!"
+
+Upon this, the old king fell back; and his place was supplied by a
+noble chief, of a free, frank bearing. Advancing quickly toward the
+boat, he exclaimed--"I am Media, the son of Media. Thrice welcome,
+Taji. On my island of Odo hast thou an altar. I claim thee for my
+guest." He then reminded the rest, that the strangers had voyaged
+far, and needed repose. And, furthermore, that he proposed escorting
+them forthwith to his own dominions; where, next day, he would be
+happy to welcome all visitants.
+
+And good as his word, he commanded his followers to range themselves
+under the Chamois. Springing out of our prow, the Upoluan was
+followed by Jarl; leaving Yillah and Taji to be borne therein toward
+the sea.
+
+Soon, we were once more afloat; by our side, Media sociably seated;
+six of his paddlers, perched upon the gunwale, swiftly urging us over
+the lagoon.
+
+The transition from the grove to the sea was instantaneous. All
+seemed a dream.
+
+The place to which we were hastening, being some distance away, as we
+rounded isle after isle, the extent of the Archipelago grew upon us
+greatly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+Tiffin In A Temple
+
+
+Upon at last drawing nigh to Odo, its appearance somewhat
+disappointed me. A small island, of moderate elevation.
+
+But plumb not the height of the house that feasts you. The beach was
+lined with expectant natives, who, lifting the Chamois, carried us up
+the beach.
+
+Alighting, as they were bearing us along, King Media, designating a
+canoe-house hard by, ordered our craft to be deposited therein. This
+being done, we stepped upon the soil. It was the first we had pressed
+in very many days. It sent a sympathetic thrill through our frames.
+
+Turning his steps inland, Media signed us to follow.
+
+Soon we came to a rude sort of inclosure, fenced in by an imposing
+wall. Here a halt was sounded, and in great haste the natives
+proceeded to throw down a portion of the stones. This accomplished,
+we were signed to enter the fortress thus carried by storm. Upon an
+artificial mound, opposite the breach, stood a small structure of
+bamboo, open in front. Within, was a long pedestal, like a settee,
+supporting three images, also of wood, and about the size of men;
+bearing, likewise, a remote resemblance to that species of animated
+nature. Before these idols was an altar, and at its base many fine
+mats.
+
+Entering the temple, as if he felt very much at home, Media disposed
+these mats so as to form a very pleasant lounge; where he
+deferentially entreated Yillah to recline. Then deliberately removing
+the first idol, he motioned me to seat myself in its place.
+Setting aside the middle one, he quietly established himself in its
+stead. The displaced ciphers, meanwhile, standing upright before us,
+and their blank faces looking upon this occasion unusually
+expressive. As yet, not a syllable as to the meaning of this cavalier
+treatment of their wooden godships.
+
+We now tranquilly awaited what next might happen, and I earnestly
+prayed, that if sacrilege was being committed, the vengeance of the
+gods might be averted from an ignoramus like me; notwithstanding the
+petitioner himself hailed from the other world. Perfect silence was
+preserved: Jarl and Samoa standing a little without the temple; the
+first looking quite composed, but his comrade casting wondering
+glances at my sociable apotheosis with Media.
+
+Now happening to glance upon the image last removed, I was not long
+in detecting a certain resemblance between it and our host. Both were
+decorated in the same manner; the carving on the idol exactly
+corresponding with the tattooing of the king.
+
+Presently, the silence was relieved by a commotion without: and a
+butler approached, staggering under an immense wooden trencher;
+which, with profound genuflexions, he deposited upon the altar before
+us. The tray was loaded like any harvest wain; heaped up with good
+things sundry and divers: Bread-fruit, and cocoanuts, and plantains,
+and guavas; all pleasant to the eye, and furnishing good earnest of
+something equally pleasant to the palate.
+
+Transported at the sight of these viands, after so long an
+estrangement from full indulgence in things green, I was forthwith
+proceeding to help Yillah and myself, when, like lightning, a most
+unwelcome query obtruded. Did deities dine? Then also recurred what
+Media had declared about my shrine in Odo. Was this it? Self-
+sacrilegious demigod that I was, was I going to gluttonize on the
+very offerings, laid before me in my own sacred fane? Give heed to
+thy ways, oh Taji, lest thou stumble and be lost.
+
+But hereupon, what saw we, but his cool majesty of Odo tranquilly
+proceeding to lunch in the temple?
+
+How now? Was Media too a god? Egad, it must be so. Else, why his
+image here in the fane, and the original so entirely at his ease,
+with legs full cosily tucked away under the very altar itself. This
+put to flight all appalling apprehensions of the necessity of
+starving to keep up the assumption of my divinity. So without more
+ado I helped myself right and left; taking the best care of Yillah;
+who over fed her flushed beauty with juicy fruits, thereby
+transferring to her cheek the sweet glow of the guava.
+
+Our hunger appeased, and Media in token thereof celestially laying
+his hand upon the appropriate region, we proceeded to quit the
+inclosure. But coming to the wall where the breach had been made, lo,
+and behold, no breach was to be seen. But down it came tumbling
+again, and forth we issued.
+
+This overthrowing of walls, be it known, is an incidental compliment
+paid distinguished personages in this part of Mardi. It would seem to
+signify, that such gentry can go nowhere without creating an
+impression; even upon the most obdurate substances.
+
+But to return to our ambrosial lunch.
+
+Sublimate, as you will, the idea of our ethereality as intellectual
+beings; no sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast
+deal of satisfaction in dining. More: there is a savor of life and
+immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till
+filled.
+
+And well knowing this, nature has provided this jolly round board,
+our globe, which in an endless sequence of courses and crops, spreads
+a perpetual feast. Though, as with most public banquets, there is no
+small crowding, and many go away famished from plenty.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+King Media A Host
+
+
+Striking into a grove, about sunset we emerged upon a fine, clear
+space, and spied a city in the woods.
+
+In the middle of all, like a generalissimo's marquee among tents, was
+a structure more imposing than the rest. Here, abode King Media.
+
+Disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were many palm posts
+staked firmly in the earth. A man's height from the ground, these
+supported numerous horizontal trunks, upon which lay a flooring of
+habiscus. High over this dais, but resting upon independent supports
+beyond, a gable-ended roof sloped away to within a short distance of
+the ground.
+
+Such was the palace.
+
+We entered it by an arched, arbored entrance, at one of its palmetto-
+thatched ends. But not through this exclusive portal entered the
+Islanders. Humbly stooping, they found ingress under the drooping
+eaves. A custom immemorial, and well calculated to remind all
+contumacious subjects of the dignity of the habitation thus entered.
+
+Three steps led to the summit of the dais, where piles of soft mats,
+and light pillows of woven grass, stuffed with the golden down of a
+wild thistle, invited all loiterers to lounge.
+
+How pleasant the twilight that welled up from under the low eaves,
+above which we were seated. And how obvious now the design of the
+roof. No shade more grateful and complete; the garish sun lingering
+without like some lackey in waiting.
+
+But who is this in the corner, gaping at us like a butler in a
+quandary? Media's household deity, in the guise of a plethoric
+monster, his enormous head lolling back, and wide, gaping mouth
+stuffed full of fresh fruits and green leaves. Truly, had the idol
+possessed a soul under his knotty ribs, how tantalizing to hold so
+glorious a mouthful without the power of deglutition. Far worse than
+the inexorable lock-jaw, which will not admit of the step preliminary
+to a swallow.
+
+This jolly Josh image was that of an inferior deity, the god of Good
+Cheer, and often after, we met with his merry round mouth in many
+other abodes in Mardi. Daily, his jaws are replenished, as a flower
+vase in summer.
+
+But did the demi-divine Media thus brook the perpetual presence of a
+subaltern divinity? Still more; did he render it homage? But ere long
+the Mardian mythology will be discussed, thereby making plain what
+may now seem anomalous.
+
+Politely escorting us into his palace, Media did the honors by
+inviting his guests to recline. He then seemed very anxious to
+impress us with the fact, that, by bringing us to his home, and
+thereby charging the royal larder with our maintenance, he had taken
+no hasty or imprudent step. His merry butlers kept piling round us
+viands, till we were well nigh walled in. At every fresh deposit,
+Media directing our attention to the same, as yet additional evidence
+of his ample resources as a host. The evidence was finally closed by
+dragging under the eaves a felled plantain tree, the spike of red
+ripe fruit, sprouting therefrom, blushing all over, at so rude an
+introduction to the notice of strangers.
+
+During this scene, Jarl was privily nudging Samoa, in wonderment, to
+know what upon earth it all meant. But Samoa, scarcely deigning to
+notice interrogatories propounded through the elbow, only let drop a
+vague hint or two.
+
+It was quite amusing, what airs Samoa now gave himself, at least
+toward my Viking. Among the Mardians he was at home. And who,
+when there, stretches not out his legs, and says unto himself, "Who
+is greater than I?"
+
+To be plain: concerning himself and the Skyeman, the tables were
+turned. At sea, Jarl had been the oracle: an old sea-sage, learned in
+hemp and helm. But our craft high and dry, the Upoluan lifted his
+crest as the erudite pagan; master of Gog and Magog, expounder of all
+things heathenish and obscure.
+
+An hour or two was now laughed away in very charming conversation
+with Media; when I hinted, that a couch and solitude would be
+acceptable. Whereupon, seizing a taper, our host escorted us without
+the palace. And ushering us into a handsome unoccupied mansion, gave
+me to understand that the same was mine. Mounting to the dais, he
+then instituted a vigorous investigation, to discern whether every
+thing was in order. Not fancying something about the mats, he rolled
+them up into bundles, and one by one sent them flying at the heads of
+his servitors; who, upon that gentle hint made off with them, soon
+after returning with fresh ones. These, with mathematical precision,
+Media in person now spread on the dais; looking carefully to the
+fringes or ruffles with which they were bordered, as if striving to
+impart to them a sentimental expression.
+
+This done, he withdrew.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+Taji Takes Counsel With Himself
+
+
+My brief intercourse with our host, had by this time enabled me to
+form a pretty good notion of the light, in which I was held by him
+and his more intelligent subjects.
+
+His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my
+assumptions, he was no way overawed by them; treating me as
+familiarly, indeed, as if I were a mere mortal, one of the abject
+generation of mushrooms.
+
+The scene in the temple, however, had done much toward explaining
+this demeanor of his. A demi-god in his own proper person, my claims
+to a similar dignity neither struck him with wonder, nor lessened his
+good opinion of himself.
+
+As for any thing foreign in my aspect, and my ignorance of Mardian
+customs---all this, instead of begetting a doubt unfavorable to my
+pretensions, but strengthened the conviction of them as verities.
+Thus has it been in similar instances; but to a much greater extent.
+The celebrated navigator referred to in a preceding chapter, was
+hailed by the Hawaiians as one of their demi-gods, returned to earth,
+after a wide tour of the universe. And they worshiped him as such,
+though incessantly he was interrogating them, as to who under the sun
+his worshipers were; how their ancestors came on the island; and
+whether they would have the kindness to provide his followers with
+plenty of pork during his stay.
+
+But a word or two concerning the idols in the shrine at Odo. Superadded
+to the homage rendered him as a temporal prince, Media was there
+worshiped as a spiritual being. In his corporeal absence, his effigy
+receiving all oblations intended for him. And in the days of his
+boyhood, listening to the old legends of the Mardian mythology,
+Media had conceived a strong liking for the fabulous Taji; a deity
+whom he had often declared was worthy a niche in any temple extant.
+Hence he had honored my image with a place in his own special shrine;
+placing it side by side with his worshipful likeness.
+
+I appreciated the compliment. But of the close companionship of the
+other image there, I was heartily ashamed. And with reason. The
+nuisance in question being the image of a deified maker of plantain-
+pudding, lately deceased; who had been famed far and wide as the most
+notable fellow of his profession in the whole Archipelago. During his
+sublunary career, having been attached to the household of Media, his
+grateful master had afterward seen fit to crown his celebrity by this
+posthumous distinction: a circumstance sadly subtracting from the
+dignity of an apotheosis. Nor must it here be omitted, that in this
+part of Mardi culinary artists are accounted worthy of high
+consideration. For among these people of Odo, the matter of eating
+and drinking is held a matter of life and of death. "Drag away my
+queen from my arms," said old Tyty when overcome of Adommo, "but
+leave me my cook."
+
+Now, among the Mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to
+keep me in countenance. Most of the kings of the Archipelago, besides
+Media, claiming homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of
+hereditary descent, the divine spark being transmissable from father
+to son. In illustration of this, was the fact, that in several
+instances the people of the land addressed the supreme god Oro, in
+the very same terms employed in the political adoration of their
+sublunary rulers.
+
+Ay: there were deities in Mardi far greater and taller than I:
+right royal monarchs to boot, living in jolly round tabernacles of
+jolly brown clay; and feasting, and roystering, and lording it in
+yellow tabernacles of bamboo. These demi-gods had wherewithal to
+sustain their lofty pretensions. If need were, could crush out of him
+the infidelity of a non-conformist. And by this immaculate union of
+church and state, god and king, in their own proper persons reigned
+supreme Caesars over the souls and bodies of their subjects.
+
+Beside these mighty magnates, I and my divinity shrank into nothing.
+In their woodland ante-chambers plebeian deities were kept lingering.
+For be it known, that in due time we met with several decayed, broken
+down demi-gods: magnificos of no mark in Mardi; having no temples
+wherein to feast personal admirers, or spiritual devotees. They
+wandered about forlorn and friendless. And oftentimes in their
+dinnerless despair hugely gluttonized, and would fain have grown fat,
+by reflecting upon the magnificence of their genealogies. But poor
+fellows! like shabby Scotch lords in London in King James's time, the
+very multitude of them confounded distinction. And since they could
+show no rent-roll, they were permitted to fume unheeded.
+
+Upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in Mardi,
+that I held my divinity but cheaply. And seeing such a host of
+immortals, and hearing of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their
+nature, haunting woodlands and streams; my views of theology grew
+strangely confused; I began to bethink me of the Jew that rejected
+the Talmud, and his all-permeating principle, to which Goethe and
+others have subscribed.
+
+Instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to
+palm myself off as a god--the way in which the thing first impressed
+me--I now perceived that I might be a god as much as I pleased, and
+yet not whisk a lion's tail after all at least on that special
+account.
+
+As for Media's reception, its graciousness was not wholly
+owing to the divine character imputed to me. His, he believed to be
+the same. But to a whim, a freakishness in his soul, which led him to
+fancy me as one among many, not as one with no peer.
+
+But the apparent unconcern of King Media with respect to my godship,
+by no means so much surprised me, as his unaffected indifference to
+my amazing voyage from the sun; his indifference to the sun itself;
+and all the wonderful circumstances that must have attended my
+departure. Whether he had ever been there himself, that he regarded a
+solar trip with so much unconcern, almost became a question in my
+mind. Certain it is, that as a mere traveler he must have deemed me
+no very great prodigy.
+
+My surprise at these things was enhanced by reflecting, that to the
+people of the Archipelago the map of Mardi was the map of the world.
+With the exception of certain islands out of sight and at an
+indefinite distance, they had no certain knowledge of any isles but
+their own.
+
+And, no long time elapsed ere I had still additional reasons to cease
+wondering at the easy faith accorded to the story which I had given
+of myself. For these Mardians were familiar with still greater
+marvels than mine; verily believing in prodigies of all sorts. Any
+one of them put my exploits to the blush.
+
+Look to thy ways then, Taji, thought I, and carry not thy crest too
+high. Of a surety, thou hast more peers than inferiors. Thou art
+overtopped all round. Bear thyself discreetly and not haughtily,
+Taji. It will not answer to give thyself airs. Abstain from all
+consequential allusions to the other world, and the genteel deities
+among whom thou hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy raiment,
+because it is novel in Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy
+Chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree,
+Taji; for Media himself will measure it with thee there by the
+furlong. Be not a "snob," Taji.
+
+So then, weighing all things well, and myself severely, I
+resolved to follow my Mentor's wise counsel; neither arrogating
+aught, nor abating of just dues; but circulating freely, sociably,
+and frankly, among the gods, heroes, high_ priests, kings, and
+gentlemen, that made up the principalities of Mardi.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+Mardi By Night And Yillah By Day
+
+
+During the night following our arrival, many dreams were no doubt
+dreamt in Odo. But my thoughts were wakeful. And while all others
+slept, obeying a restless impulse, I stole without into the magical
+starlight. There are those who in a strange land ever love to view it
+by night.
+
+It has been said, that the opening in the groves where was situated
+Media's city, was elevated above the surrounding plains. Hence was
+commanded a broad reach of prospect.
+
+Far and wide was deep low-sobbing repose of man and nature. The
+groves were motionless; and in the meadows, like goblins, the shadows
+advanced and retreated. Full before me, lay the Mardian fleet of
+isles, profoundly at anchor  within their coral harbor. Near by was
+one belted round by a frothy luminous reef, wherein it lay, like
+Saturn in its ring.
+
+From all their summits, went up a milk-white smoke, as from Indian
+wigwams in the hazy harvest-moon.  And floating away, these vapors
+blended with the faint mist, as of a cataract, hovering over the
+circumvallating reef. Far beyond all, and far into the infinite
+night, surged the jet-black ocean.
+
+But how tranquil the wide lagoon, which mirrored the burning spots in
+heaven! Deep down into its innermost heart penetrated the slanting
+rays of Hesperus like a shaft of light, sunk far into mysterious
+Golcondas, where myriad gnomes seemed toiling. Soon a light
+breeze rippled the water, and the shaft was seen no more. But the
+moon's bright wake was still revealed: a silver track, tipping every
+wave-crest in its course, till each seemed a pearly, scroll-prowed
+nautilus, buoyant with some elfin crew.
+
+From earth to heaven! High above me was Night's shadowy bower,
+traversed, vine-like, by the Milky Way, and heavy with golden
+clusterings. Oh stars! oh eyes, that see me, wheresoe'er I roam:
+serene, intent, inscrutable for aye, tell me Sybils, what I am.--
+Wondrous worlds on worlds! Lo, round and round me, shining, awful
+spells: all glorious, vivid constellations, God's diadem ye are! To
+you, ye stars, man owes his subtlest raptures, thoughts unspeakable,
+yet full of faith.
+
+But how your mild effulgence stings the boding heart. Am I a
+murderer, stars?
+
+Hours pass. The starry trance is departed. Long waited for, the dawn
+now comes.
+
+First, breaking along the waking face; peeping from out the languid
+lids; then shining forth in longer glances; till, like the sun, up
+comes the soul, and sheds its rays abroad.
+
+When thus my Yillah did daily dawn, how she lit up my world; tinging
+more rosily the roseate clouds, that in her summer cheek played to
+and fro, like clouds in Italian air.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+Their Morning Meal
+
+
+Not wholly is our world made up of bright stars and bright eyes: so
+now to our story.
+
+A conscientious host should ever be up betimes, to look after the
+welfare of his guests, and see to it that their day begin
+auspiciously. King Media announced the advent of the sun, by rustling
+at my bower's eaves in person.
+
+A repast was spread in an adjoining arbor, which Media's pages had
+smoothed for our reception, and where his subordinate chiefs were in
+attendance. Here we reclined upon mats. Balmy and fresh blew the
+breath of the morning; golden vapors were upon the mountains, silver
+sheen upon the grass; and the birds were at matins in the groves;
+their bright plumage flashing into view, here and there, as if some
+rainbow were crouching in the foliage.
+
+Spread before us were viands, served in quaint-shaped, curiously-dyed
+gourds, not Sevres, but almost as tasteful; and like true porcelain,
+fire had tempered them. Green and yielding, they are plucked from the
+tree; and emptied of their pulp, are scratched over with minute
+marks, like those of a line engraving. The ground prepared, the
+various figures are carefully etched. And the outlines filled up with
+delicate punctures, certain vegetable oils are poured over them, for
+coloring. Filled with a peculiar species of earth, the gourd is now
+placed in an oven in the ground. And in due time exhumed, emptied of
+its contents, and washed in the stream, it presents a deep-dyed
+exterior; every figure distinctly traced and opaque, but the
+ground semi-transparent. In some cases, owing to the variety of dyes
+employed, each figure is of a different hue.
+
+More glorious goblets than these for the drinking of wine, went never
+from hand to mouth. Capacious as pitchers, they almost superseded
+decanters.
+
+Now, in a tropical climate, fruit, with light wines, forms the only
+fit meal of a morning. And with orchards and vineyards forever in
+sight, who but the Hetman of the Cossacs would desire more? We had
+plenty of the juice of the grape. But of this hereafter; there are
+some fine old cellars, and plenty of good cheer in store.
+
+During the repast, Media, for a time, was much taken up with our
+raiment. He begged me to examine for a moment the texture of his
+right royal robe, and observe how much superior it was to my own. It
+put my mantle to the blush; being tastefully stained with rare
+devices in red and black; and bordered with dyed fringes of feathers,
+and tassels of red birds' claws.
+
+Next came under observation the Skyeman's Guayaquil hat; at whose
+preposterous shape, our host laughed in derision; clapping a great
+conical calabash upon the head of an attendant, and saying that now
+he was Jarl. At this, and all similar sallies, Samoa was sure to roar
+louder than any; though mirth was no constitutional thing with him.
+But he seemed rejoiced at the opportunity of turning upon us the
+ridicule, which as a barbarian among whites, he himself had so often
+experienced.
+
+These pleasantries over, King Media very slightly drew himself up, as
+if to make amends for his previous unbending. He discoursed
+imperially with his chiefs; nodded his sovereign will to his pages;
+called for another gourd of wine; in all respects carrying his
+royalty bravely.
+
+The repast concluded, we journeyed to the canoe-house, where we found
+the little Chamois stabled like a steed. One solitary depredation had
+been committed. Its sides and bottom had been completely
+denuded of the minute green barnacles, and short sea-grass, which,
+like so many leeches, had fastened to our planks during our long,
+lazy voyage.
+
+By the people they had been devoured as dainties.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+Belshazzar On The Bench
+
+
+Now, Media was king of Odo. And from the simplicity of his manners
+hitherto, and his easy, frank demeanor toward ourselves, had we
+foolishly doubted that fact, no skepticism could have survived an
+illustration of it, which this very day we witnessed at noon.
+
+For at high noon, Media was wont to don his dignity with his symbols
+of state; and sit on his judgment divan or throne, to hear and try
+all causes brought before him, and fulminate his royal decrees.
+
+This divan was elevated at one end of a spacious arbor, formed by an
+avenue of regal palms, which in brave state, held aloft their
+majestical canopy.
+
+The crown of the island prince was of the primitive old Eastern
+style; in shape, similar, perhaps, to that jauntily sported as a
+foraging cap by his sacred majesty King Nimrod, who so lustily
+followed the hounds. It was a plaited turban of red tappa, radiated
+by the pointed and polished white bones of the Ray-fish. These
+diverged from a bandeau or fillet of the most precious pearls;
+brought up from the sea by the deepest diving mermen of Mardi. From
+the middle of the crown rose a tri-foiled spear-head. And a spear-
+headed scepter graced the right hand of the king.
+
+Now, for all the rant of your democrats, a fine king on a throne is a
+very fine sight to behold. He looks very much like a god. No wonder
+that his more dutiful subjects so swore, that their good lord and
+master King Media was demi-divine.
+
+A king on his throne! Ah, believe me, ye Gracchi, ye Acephali, ye
+Levelers, it is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at
+Babylon the Tremendous, when Nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old Scone
+in the days of Macbeth; at Rheims, among Oriflammes, at the
+coronation of Louis le Grand; at Westminster Abbey, when the
+gentlemanly George doffed his beaver for a diadem; or under the soft
+shade of palm trees on an isle in the sea.
+
+Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that
+Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he
+behold it in heaven. But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the
+Persians, or the conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his
+car, was not a whit more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently
+ringing for his valet.
+
+A king on his throne! It is Jupiter nodding in the councils of
+Olympus; Satan, seen among the coronets in Hell.
+
+A king on his throne! It is the sun over a mountain; the sun over
+law-giving Sinai; the sun in our system: planets, duke-like, dancing
+attendance, and baronial satellites in waiting.
+
+A king on his throne! After all, but a gentleman seated. And thus sat
+the good lord, King Media.
+
+Time passed. And after trying and dismissing several minor affairs,
+Media called for certain witnesses to testify concerning one Jiromo,
+a foolhardy wight, who had been silly enough to plot against the
+majesty now sitting judge and jury upon him.
+
+His guilt was clear. And the witnesses being heard, from a bunch of
+palm plumes Media taking a leaf, placed it in the hand of a runner or
+pursuivant, saying, "This to Jiromo, where he is prisoned; with his
+king's compliments; say we here wait for his head."
+
+It was doffed like a turban before a Dey, and brought back on the
+instant.
+
+Now came certain lean-visaged, poverty-stricken, and hence
+suspicious-looking varlets, grumbling and growling, and amiable as
+Bruin. They came muttering some wild jargon about "bulwarks,"
+"bulkheads," "cofferdams," "safeguards," "noble charters," "shields,"
+and "paladiums," "great and glorious birthrights," and other
+unintelligible gibberish.
+
+Of the pursuivants, these worthies asked audience of Media.
+
+"Go, kneel at the throne," was the answer.
+
+"Our knee-pans are stiff with sciatics," was the rheumatic reply.
+
+"An artifice to keep on your legs," said the pursuivants.
+
+And advancing they salamed, and told Media the excuse of those sour-
+looking varlets. Whereupon my lord commanded them to down on their
+marrow-bones instanter, either before him or the headsman,
+whichsoever they pleased.
+
+They preferred the former. And as they there kneeled, in vain did men
+with sharp ears (who abound in all courts) prick their auriculars, to
+list to that strange crackling and firing off of bone balls and
+sockets, ever incident to the genuflections of rheumatic courtiers.
+
+In a row, then, these selfsame knee-pans did kneel before the king;
+who eyed them as eagles in air do goslings on dunghills; or hunters,
+hounds crouching round their calves.
+
+"Your prayer?" said Media.
+
+It was a petition, that thereafter all differences between man and
+man in Ode, together with all alleged offenses against the state,
+might be tried by twelve good men and true. These twelve to be
+unobnoxious to the party or parties concerned; their peers; and
+previously unbiased touching the matter at issue. Furthermore, that
+unanimity in these twelve should be indispensable to a verdict; and
+no dinner be vouchsafed till unanimity came.
+
+Loud and long laughed King Media in scorn.
+
+"This be your judge," he cried, swaying his scepter. "What! are
+twelve wise men more wise than one? or will twelve fools, put
+together, make one sage? Are twelve honest men more honest than one?
+or twelve knaves less knavish than one? And if, of twelve men, three
+be fools, and three wise, three knaves, and three upright, how obtain
+real unanimity from such?
+
+"But if twelve judges be better than one, then are twelve hundred
+better than twelve. But take the whole populace for a judge, and you
+will long wait for a unanimous verdict.
+
+"If upon a thing dubious, there be little unanimity in the
+conflicting opinions of one man's mind, how expect it in the uproar
+of twelve puzzled brains? though much unanimity be found in twelve
+hungry stomachs.
+
+"Judges unobnoxious to the accused! Apply it to a criminal case. Ha!
+ha! if peradventure a Cacti be rejected, because he had seen the
+accused commit the crime for which he is arraigned. Then, his mind
+would be biased: no impartiality from him! Or your testy accused
+might object to another, because of his tomahawk nose, or a cruel
+squint of the eye.
+
+"Of all follies the most foolish! Know ye from me, that true peers
+render not true verdicts. Jiromo was a rebel. Had I tried him by his
+peers, I had tried him by rebels; and the rebel had rebelled to some
+purpose.
+
+"Away! As unerring justice dwells in a unity, and as one judge will
+at last judge the world beyond all appeal; so--though often here
+below justice be hard to attain--does man come nearest the mark, when
+he imitates that model divine. Hence, one judge is better than
+twelve."
+
+"And as Justice, in ideal, is ever painted high lifted above the
+crowd; so, from the exaltation of his rank, an honest king is the
+best of those unical judges, which individually are better than
+twelve. And therefore am I, King Media, the best judge in this land."
+
+"Subjects! so long as I live, I will rule you and judge you alone.
+And though you here kneeled before me till you grew into the ground,
+and there took root, no yea to your petition will you get from this
+throne. I am king: ye are slaves. Mine to command: yours to obey. And
+this hour I decree, that henceforth no gibberish of bulwarks and
+bulkheads be heard in this land. For a dead bulwark and a bulkhead,
+to dam off sedition, will I make of that man, who again but breathes
+those bulky words. Ho! spears! see that these knee-pans here kneel
+till set of sun."
+
+High noon was now passed; and removing his crown, and placing it on
+the dais for the kneelers to look at during their devotions, King
+Media departed from that place, and once more played the agreeable
+host.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+An Incognito
+
+
+For the rest of that day, and several that followed, we were
+continually receiving visits from the neighboring islands; whose
+inhabitants in fleets and flotillas flocked round Odo to behold the
+guests of its lord. Among them came many messengers from the
+neighboring kings with soft speeches and gifts.
+
+But it were needless to detail our various interviews, or relate in
+what manifold ways, the royal strangers gave token of their interest
+concerning us.
+
+Upon the third day, however, there was noticed a mysterious figure,
+like the inscrutable incognitos sometimes encountered, crossing the
+tower-shadowed Plaza of Assignations at Lima. It was enveloped in a
+dark robe of tappa, so drawn and plaited about the limbs; and with
+one hand, so wimpled about the face, as only to expose a solitary
+eye. But that eye was a world. Now it was fixed upon Yillah with a
+sinister glance, and now upon me, but with a different expression.
+However great the crowd, however tumultuous, that fathomless eye
+gazed on; till at last it seemed no eye, but a spirit, forever prying
+into my soul. Often I strove to approach it, but it would evade me,
+soon reappearing.
+
+Pointing out the apparition to Media, I intreated him to take means
+to fix it, that my suspicions might be dispelled, as to its being
+incorporeal. He replied that, by courtesy, incognitos were sacred.
+Insomuch that the close-plaited robe and the wimple were secure as a
+castle. At last, to my relief, the phantom disappeared, and was seen
+no more.
+
+Numerous and fervent the invitations received to return the calls
+wherewith we were honored. But for the present we declined them;
+preferring to establish ourselves firmly in the heart of Media, ere
+encountering the vicissitudes of roaming. In a multitude of
+acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
+
+Now, while these civilities were being received, and on the fourth
+morning after our arrival, there landed on the beach three black-eyed
+damsels, deep brunettes, habited in long variegated robes, and with
+gay blossoms on their heads.
+
+With many salams, the strangers were ushered into my presence by an
+old white-haired servitor of Media's, who with a parting conge
+murmured, "From Queen Hautia," then departed. Surprised, I stood
+mute, and welcomed them.
+
+The first, with many smiles and blandishments, waved before me a
+many-tinted Iris: the flag-flower streaming with pennons. Advancing,
+the second then presented three rose-hued purple-veined Circea
+flowers, the dew still clinging to them. The third placed in my hand
+a moss-rose bud; then, a Venus-car.
+
+"Thanks for your favors! now your message."
+
+Starting at this reception, graciously intended, they conferred a
+moment; when the Iris-bearer said in winning phrase, "We come from
+Hautia, whose moss-rose you hold."
+
+"All thanks to Hautia then; the bud is very fragrant."
+
+Then she pointed to the Venus-car.
+
+"This too is sweet; thanks to Hautia for her flowers. Pray, bring me
+more."
+
+"He mocks our mistress," and gliding from me, they waved witch-
+hazels, leaving me alone and wondering.
+
+Informing Media of this scene, he smiled; threw out queer hints of
+Hautia; but knew not what her message meant.
+
+At first this affair occasioned me no little uneasiness, with much
+matter for marveling; but in the novel pleasure of our sojourn in
+Odo, it soon slipped from my mind; nor for some time, did I again
+hear aught of Queen Hautia.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+Taji Retires From The World
+
+
+After a while, when the strangers came not in shoals as before, I
+proposed to our host, a stroll over his dominions; desirous of
+beholding the same, and secretly induced by the hope of selecting an
+abode, more agreeable to my fastidious taste, than the one already
+assigned me.
+
+The ramble over--a pleasant one it was--it resulted in a
+determination on my part to quit Odo. Yet not to go very far; only
+ten or twelve yards, to a little green tuft of an islet; one of many,
+which here and there, all round the island, nestled like birds' nests
+in the branching boughs of the coral grove, whose roots laid hold of
+the foundations of the deep. Between these islets and the shore,
+extended shelving ledges, with shallows above, just sufficient to
+float a canoe. One of these islets was wooded and wined; an arbor in
+the sea. And here, Media permitting, I decided to dwell.
+
+Not long was Media in complying; nor long, ere my retreat was in
+readiness. Laced together, the twisting boughs were closely thatched.
+And thatched were the sides also, with deep crimson pandannus leaves;
+whose long, forked spears, lifted by the breeze, caused the whole
+place to blaze, as with flames. Canes, laid on palm trunks, formed
+the floor. How elastic! In vogue all over Odo, among the chiefs, it
+imparted such a buoyancy to the person, that to this special cause
+may be imputed in good part the famous fine spirits of the nobles.
+
+Hypochondriac! essay the elastic flooring! It shall so
+pleasantly and gently jolt thee, as to shake up, and pack off the
+stagnant humors mantling thy pool-like soul.
+
+Such was my dwelling. But I make no mention of sundry little
+appurtenances of tropical housekeeping: calabashes, cocoanut shells,
+and rolls of fine tappa; till with Yillah seated at last in my arbor,
+I looked round, and wanted for naught.
+
+But what of Jarl and Samoa? Why Jarl must needs be fanciful, as well
+as myself. Like a bachelor in chambers, he settled down right
+opposite to me, on the main land, in a little wigwam in the grove.
+
+But Samoa, following not his comrade's example, still tarried in the
+camp of the Hittites and Jebusites of Odo. Beguiling men of their
+leisure by his marvelous stories: and maidens of their hearts by his
+marvelous wiles.
+
+When I chose, I was completely undisturbed in my arbor; an ukase of
+Media's forbidding indiscriminate intrusion. But thrice in the day
+came a garrulous old man with my viands.
+
+Thus sequestered, however, I could not entirely elude the pryings of
+the people of the neighboring islands; who often passed by, slowly
+paddling, and earnestly regarding my retreat. But gliding along at a
+distance, and never essaying a landing, their occasional vicinity
+troubled me but little. But now and then of an evening, when thick
+and fleet the shadows were falling, dim glimpses of a canoe would be
+spied; hovering about the place like a ghost. And once, in the
+stillness of the night, hearing the near ripple of a prow, I sallied
+forth, but the phantom quickly departed.
+
+That night, Yillah shuddered as she slept. "The whirl-pool," she
+murmured, "sweet mosses." Next day she was lost in reveries, plucking
+pensive hyacinths, or gazing intently into the lagoon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+Odo And Its Lord
+
+
+Time now to enter upon some further description of the island and its
+lord.
+
+And first for Media: a gallant gentleman and king. From a goodly
+stock he came. In his endless pedigree, reckoning deities by
+decimals, innumerable kings, and scores of great heroes, chiefs, and
+priests. Nor in person, did he belie his origin. No far-descended
+dwarf was he, the least of a receding race. He stood like a palm
+tree; about whose acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the
+silken fringes, than Media's locks upon his noble brow. Strong was
+his arm to wield the club, or hurl the javelin; and potent, I ween,
+round a maiden's waist.
+
+Thus much here for Media. Now comes his isle.
+
+Our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by itself; full of
+beauties as a garden; chequered by charming groves; watered by roving
+brooks; and fringed all round by a border of palm trees, whose roots
+drew nourishment from the water. But though abounding in other
+quarters of the Archipelago, not a solitary bread-fruit grew in Odo.
+A noteworthy circumstance, observable in these regions, where islands
+close adjoining, so differ in their soil, that certain fruits growing
+genially in one, are foreign to another. But Odo was famed for its
+guavas, whose flavor was likened to the flavor of new-blown lips; and
+for its grapes, whose juices prompted many a laugh and many a groan.
+
+Beside the city where Media dwelt, there were few other
+clusters of habitations in Odo. The higher classes living, here and
+there, in separate households; but not as eremites. Some buried
+themselves in the cool, quivering bosoms of the groves. Others,
+fancying a marine vicinity, dwelt hard by the beach in little cages
+of bamboo; whence of mornings they sallied out with jocund cries, and
+went plunging into the refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the
+threshold of their dwellings. Others still, like birds, built their
+nests among the sylvan nooks of the elevated interior; whence all
+below, and hazy green, lay steeped in languor the island's throbbing
+heart.
+
+Thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. The common sort,
+including serfs, and Helots, war-captives held in bondage, lived in
+secret places, hard to find. Whence it came, that, to a stranger, the
+whole isle looked care-free and beautiful. Deep among the ravines and
+the rocks, these beings lived in noisome caves, lairs for beasts, not
+human homes; or built them coops of rotten boughs--living trees were
+banned them--whose mouldy hearts hatched vermin. Fearing infection of
+some plague, born of this filth, the chiefs of Odo seldom passed that
+way and looking round within their green retreats, and pouring out
+their wine, and plucking from orchards of the best, marveled how
+these swine could grovel in the mire, and wear such sallow cheeks.
+But they offered no sweet homes; from that mire they never sought to
+drag them out; they open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the
+mandates that condemned their drudges to a life of deaths. Sad sight!
+to see those round-shouldered Helots, stooping in their trenches:
+artificial, three in number, and concentric: the isle well nigh
+surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from
+heaven, and bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious
+Taro.
+
+Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief
+that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man
+toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he
+gives to them--then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew
+cracks. So with these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be
+the brutes they seemed.
+
+Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed,
+and plenty without a pause?--Odo, in whose lurking-places infants
+turned from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.--Odo, in whose
+inmost haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard
+most dismal cries, and voices cursing Media. There, men were
+scourged; their crime, a heresy; the heresy, that Media was no
+demigod. For this they shrieked. Their fathers shrieked before; their
+fathers, who, tormented, said, "Happy we to groan, that our
+children's children may be glad." But their children's children
+howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous generations, and loudly
+swore, "The pit that's dug for us may prove another's grave."
+
+But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo
+seemed a happy land. The palm-trees waved--though here and there you
+marked one sear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed--though dead
+ones moldered in decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee--though,
+receding, they sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.
+
+But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle.
+Did men in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon's fountain there? For
+near and far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations
+harvested in winrows. In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a
+gentle epitaph; no _requiescat-in-pace_ mocked a sinner damned; no
+_memento-mori_ admonished men to live while yet they might. Here
+Death hid his skull; and hid it in the sea, the common sepulcher of
+Odo. Not dust to dust, but dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. For
+all who died upon that isle were carried out beyond the outer reef,
+and there were buried with their sires' sires. Hence came the
+thought, that of gusty nights, when round the isles, and  high
+toward heaven, flew the white reef's rack and foam, that then and
+there, kept chattering watch and ward, the myriads that were ocean-
+tombed.
+
+But why these watery obsequies?
+
+Odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead,
+and Life's small colony be dislodged by Death's grim hosts; as the
+gaunt tribes of Tamerlane o'erspread the tented pastures of the Khan?
+
+And now, what follows, said these Islanders: "Why sow corruption in
+the soil which yields us life? We would not pluck our grapes from
+over graves. This earth's an urn for flowers, not for ashes."
+
+They said that Oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea.
+
+And what more glorious grave? Was Mausolus more sublimely urned? Or
+do the minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of Charlemagne, show
+more of pomp, than all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked
+mariner?
+
+But no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not
+their company; though full soon we shall all have them for fellows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+Yillah A Phantom
+
+
+For a time we were happy in Odo: Yillah and I in our islet. Nor did
+the pearl on her bosom glow more rosily than the roses in her cheeks;
+though at intervals they waned and departed; and deadly pale was her
+glance, when she murmured of the whirlpool and mosses. As pale my
+soul, bethinking me of Aleema the priest.
+
+But day by day, did her spell weave round me its magic, and all the
+hidden things of her being grew more lovely and strange. Did I
+commune with a spirit? Often I thought that Paradise had overtaken me
+on earth, and that Yillah was verily an angel, and hence the
+mysteries that hallowed her.
+
+But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.--Long
+memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how
+common are ye to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say--"Lo,
+thy felicity, my soul?" No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except
+when looked back upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come
+out of, to behold.
+
+Sped the hours, the days, the one brief moment of our joys. Fairy
+bower in the fair lagoon, scene of sylvan ease and heart's repose,--
+Oh, Yillah, Yillah! All the woods repeat the sound, the wild, wild
+woods of my wild soul. Yillah! Yillah! cry the small strange voices
+in me, and evermore, and far and deep, they echo on.
+
+Days passed. When one morning I found the arbor vacant. Gone! A
+dream. I closed my eyes, and would have dreamed her back. In
+vain. Starting, I called upon her name; but none replied. Fleeing
+from the islet, I gained the neighboring shore, and searched among
+the woods; and my comrades meeting, besought their aid. But idle all.
+No glimpse of aught, save trees and flowers. Then Media was sought
+out; the event made known; and quickly, bands were summoned to range
+the isle.
+
+Noon came; but no Yillah. When Media averred she was no longer in
+Odo. Whither she was gone, or how, he knew not; nor could any
+imagine.
+
+At this juncture, there chanced to arrive certain messengers from
+abroad; who, presuming that all was well with Taji, came with renewed
+invitations to visit various pleasant places round about. Among
+these, came Queen Hautia's heralds, with their Iris flag, once more
+bringing flowers. But they came and went unheeded.
+
+Setting out to return, these envoys were accompanied by numerous
+followers of Media, dispatched to the neighboring islands, to seek
+out the missing Yillah. But three days passed; and, one by one, they
+all returned; and stood before me silently.
+
+For a time I raved. Then, falling into outer repose, lived for a
+space in moods and reveries, with eyes that knew no closing, one
+glance forever fixed.
+
+They strove to rouse me. Girls danced and sang; and tales of fairy
+times were told; of monstrous imps, and youths enchanted; of groves
+and gardens in the sea. Yet still I moved not, hearing all, yet
+noting naught. Media cried, "For shame, oh Taji; thou, a god?" and
+placed a spear in my nerveless hand. And Jarl loud called upon me to
+awake. Samoa marveled.
+
+Still sped the days. And at length, my memory was restored. The
+thoughts of things broke over me like returning billows on a beach
+long bared. A rush, a foam of recollections!--Sweet Yillah gone, and
+I bereaved.
+
+Another interval, and that mood was past. Misery became a
+memory. The keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the
+thing remembered; though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that
+lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges
+still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. Common woes, like
+fluids, mix all round. Not so with that other grief. Some mourners
+load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from
+hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells.
+
+At last I turned to Media, saying I must hie from Odo, and rove
+throughout all Mardi; for Yillah might yet be found.
+
+But hereafter, in words, little more of the maiden, till perchance
+her fate be learned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+Taji Makes Three Acquaintances
+
+
+Down to this period, I had restrained Samoa from wandering to the
+neighboring islands, though he had much desired it, in compliance
+with the invitations continually received. But now I informed both
+him, and his comrade, of the tour I purposed; desiring their company.
+
+Upon the announcement of my intention to depart, to my no small
+surprise Media also proposed to accompany me: a proposition gladly
+embraced. It seems, that for some reason, he had not as yet extended
+his travels to the more distant islands. Hence the voyage in prospect
+was particularly agreeable to him. Nor did he forbear any pains to
+insure its prosperity; assuring me, furthermore, that its object must
+eventually be crowned with success. "I myself am interested in this
+pursuit," said he; "and trust me, Yillah will be found."
+
+For the tour of the lagoon, the docile Chamois was proposed; but
+Media dissented; saying, that it befitted not the lord of Odo to
+voyage in the equipage of his guest. Therefore, three canoes were
+selected from his own royal fleet.
+
+One for ourselves, and a trio of companions whom he purposed
+introducing to my notice; the rest were reserved for attendants.
+
+Thanks to Media's taste and heedfulness, the strangers above
+mentioned proved truly acceptable.
+
+The first was Mohi, or Braid-Beard, so called from the manner in
+which he wore that appendage, exceedingly long and gray. He
+was a venerable teller of stories and legends, one of the Keepers of
+the Chronicles of the Kings of Mardi.
+
+The second was Babbalanja, a man of a mystical aspect, habited in a
+voluminous robe. He was learned in Mardian lore; much given to
+quotations from ancient and obsolete authorities: the Ponderings of
+Old Bardianna: the Pandects of Alla-Malolla.
+
+Third and last, was Yoomy, or the Warbler. A youthful, long-haired,
+blue-eyed minstrel; all fits and starts; at times, absent of mind,
+and wan of cheek; but always very neat and pretty in his apparel;
+wearing the most becoming of turbans, a Bird of Paradise feather its
+plume, and sporting the gayest of sashes. Most given was Yoomy to
+amorous melodies, and rondos, and roundelays, very witching to hear.
+But at times disdaining the oaten reed, like a clarion he burst forth
+with lusty lays of arms and battle; or, in mournful strains, sounded
+elegies for departed bards and heroes.
+
+Thus much for Yoomy as a minstrel. In other respects, it would be
+hard to depict him. He was so capricious a mortal; so swayed by
+contrary moods; so lofty, so humble, so sad, so merry; so made up of
+a thousand contradictions, that we must e'en let him depict himself
+as our story progresses. And herein it is hoped he will succeed;
+since no one in Mardi comprehended him.
+
+Now the trio, thus destined for companions on our voyage, had for
+some time been anxious to take the tour of the Archipelago. In
+particular, Babbalanja had often expressed the most ardent desire to
+visit every one of the isles, in quest of some object, mysteriously
+hinted. He murmured deep concern for my loss, the sincerest sympathy;
+and pressing my hand more than once, said lowly, "Your pursuit is
+mine, noble Taji. Where'er you search, I follow."
+
+So, too, Yoomy addressed me; but with still more feeling. And
+something like this, also, Braid-Beard repeated.
+
+But to my sorrow, I marked that both Mohi and Babbalanja, especially
+the last, seemed not so buoyant of hope, concerning lost Yillah, as
+the youthful Yoomy, and his high-spirited lord, King Media.
+
+As our voyage would embrace no small period of time, it behoved King
+Media to appoint some trustworthy regent, to rule during his absence.
+This regent was found in Almanni, a stem-eyed, resolute warrior, a
+kinsman of the king.
+
+All things at last in readiness, and the ensuing morning appointed
+for a start, Media, on the beach, at eventide, when both light and
+water waned, drew a rude map of the lagoon, to compensate for the
+obstructions in the way of a comprehensive glance at it from Odo.
+
+And thus was sketched the plan of our voyage; which islands first to
+visit; and which to touch at, when we should be homeward bound.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI
+With A Fair Wind, At Sunrise They Sail
+
+
+True each to his word, up came the sun, and round to my isle came
+Media.
+
+
+How glorious a morning! The new-born clouds all dappled with gold,
+and streaked with violet; the sun in high spirits; and the pleasant
+air cooled overnight by the blending circumambient fountains, forever
+playing all round the reef; the lagoon within, the coral-rimmed
+basin, into which they poured, subsiding, hereabouts, into green
+tranquillity.
+
+But what monsters of canoes! Would they devour an innocent voyager?
+their great black prows curling aloft, and thrown back like trunks of
+elephants; a dark, snaky length behind, like the sea-serpent's train.
+
+The prow of the foremost terminated in a large, open, shark's mouth,
+garnished with ten rows of pearly human teeth, curiously inserted
+into the sculptured wood. The gunwale was ornamented with rows of
+rich spotted Leopard and Tiger-shells; here and there, varied by
+others, flat and round, and spirally traced; gay serpents petrified
+in coils. These were imbedded in a grooved margin, by means of a
+resinous compound, exhaling such spices, that the canoes were
+odoriferous as the Indian chests of the Maldives.
+
+The likeness of the foremost canoe to an elephant, was helped by a
+sort of canopied Howdah in its stern, of heavy, russet-dyed tappa,
+tasselled at the corners with long bunches of cocoanut fibres,
+stained red. These swayed to and fro, like the fox-tails on a
+Tuscarora robe.
+
+But what is this, in the head of the canoe, just under the
+shark's mouth? A grinning little imp of an image; a ring in its nose;
+cowrie shells jingling at its ears; with an abominable leer, like
+that of Silenus reeling on his ass. It was taking its ease; cosily
+smoking a pipe; its bowl, a duodecimo edition of the face of the
+smoker. This image looked sternward; everlastingly mocking us.
+
+Of these canoes, it may be well to state, that although during our
+stay in Odo, so many barges and shallops had touched there, nothing
+similar to Media's had been seen. But inquiring whence his sea-
+equipage came, we were thereupon taught to reverence the same as
+antiquities and heir-looms; claw-keeled, dragon-prowed crafts of a
+bygone generation; at present, superseded in general use by the more
+swan-like canoes, significant of the advanced stage of marine
+architecture in Mardi. No sooner was this known, than what had seemed
+almost hideous in my eyes, became merely grotesque. Nor could I help
+being greatly delighted with the good old family pride of our host.
+
+The upper corners of our sails displayed the family crest of Media;
+three upright boars' tusks, in an heraldic field argent. A fierce
+device: Whom rends he?
+
+All things in readiness, we glided away: the multitude waving adieu;
+and our flotilla disposed in the following order.
+
+First went the royal Elephant, carrying Media, myself, Jarl, and
+Samoa; Mohi the Teller of Legends, Babbalanja, and Yoomy, and six
+vivacious paddlers; their broad paddle-blades carved with the royal
+boars' tusks, the same tattooed on their chests for a livery.
+
+And thus, as Media had promised, we voyaged in state. To crown all,
+seated sideways in the high, open shark's-mouth of our prow was a
+little dwarf of a boy, one of Media's pages, a red conch-shell,
+bugle-wise suspended at his side. Among various other offices, it was
+the duty of little Vee-Vee to announce the advent of his master, upon
+drawing near to the islands in our route. Two short bars,
+projecting from one side of the prow, furnished him the means
+of ascent to his perch.
+
+As we gained the open lagoon with bellied sails, and paddles playing,
+a sheaf of foam borne upright at our prow; Yoomy, standing where the
+spicy spray flew over him, stretched forth his hand and cried--"The
+dawn of day is passed, and Mardi lies all before us: all her isles,
+and all her lakes; all her stores of good and evil. Storms may come,
+our barks may drown. But blow before us, all ye winds; give us a
+lively blast, good clarion; rally round us all our wits; and be this
+voyage full gayly sailed, for Yillah will yet be found."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII
+Little King Peepi
+
+
+Valapee, or the Isle of Yams, being within plain sight of Media's
+dominions, we were not very long in drawing nigh to its shores.
+
+Two long parallel elevations, rising some three arrow-flights into
+the air, double-ridge the island's entire length, lapping between, a
+widening vale, so level withal, that at either extremity, the green
+of its groves blends with the green of the lagoon; and the isle seems
+divided by a strait.
+
+Within several paces of the beach, our canoes keeled the bottom, and
+camel-like mutely hinted that we voyagers must dismount.
+
+Hereupon, the assembled islanders ran into the water, and with bent
+shoulders obsequiously desired the honor of transporting us to land.
+The beach gained, all present wearing robes instantly stripped them
+to the waist; a naked chest being their salute to kings. Very
+convenient for the common people, this; their half-clad forms
+presenting a perpetual and profound salutation.
+
+Presently, Peepi, the ruler of Valapee drew near: a boy, hardly ten
+years old, striding the neck of a burly mute, bearing a long spear
+erect before him, to which was attached a canopy of five broad banana
+leaves, new plucked. Thus shaded, little Peepi advanced, steadying
+himself by the forelock of his bearer.
+
+Besides his bright red robe, the young prince wore nothing but the
+symbol of Valapeean royalty; a string of small, close-fitting,
+concave shells, coiled and ambushed in his profuse, curly
+hair; one end falling over his ear, revealing a serpent's head,
+curiously carved from a nutmeg.
+
+Quite proverbial, the unembarrassed air of young slips of royalty.
+But there was something so surprisingly precocious in this young
+Peepi, that at first one hardly knew what to conclude.
+
+The first compliments over, the company were invited inland to a
+shady retreat.
+
+As we pursued the path, walking between old Mohi the keeper of
+chronicles and Samoa the Upoluan, Babbalanja besought the former to
+enlighten a stranger concerning the history of this curious Peepi.
+Whereupon the chronicler gave us the following account; for all of
+which he alone is responsible.
+
+Peepi, it seems, had been proclaimed king before he was born; his
+sire dying some few weeks previous to that event; and vacating his
+divan, declared that he left a monarch behind.
+
+Marvels were told of Peepi. Along with the royal dignity, and
+superadded to the soul possessed in his own proper person, the infant
+monarch was supposed to have inherited the valiant spirits of some
+twenty heroes, sages, simpletons, and demi-gods, previously lodged in
+his sire.
+
+Most opulent in spiritual gifts was this lord of Valapee; the
+legatee, moreover, of numerous anonymous souls, bequeathed to him by
+their late loyal proprietors. By a slavish act of his convocation of
+chiefs, he also possessed the reversion of all and singular the
+immortal spirits, whose first grantees might die intestate in
+Valapee. Servile, yet audacious senators! thus prospectively to
+administrate away the inalienable rights of posterity. But while yet
+unborn, the people of Valapee had been deprived of more than they now
+sought to wrest from their descendants. And former Peepies, infant
+and adult, had received homage more profound, than Peepi the Present.
+Witness the demeanor of the chieftains of old, upon every new
+investiture of the royal serpent. In a fever of loyalty, they
+were wont to present themselves before the heir to the isle, to go
+through with the court ceremony of the Pupera; a curious proceeding,
+so called: inverted endeavors to assume an erect posture: the nasal
+organ the base.
+
+It was to the frequent practice of this ceremony, that most
+intelligent observers imputed the flattened noses of the elderly
+chiefs of the island; who, nevertheless, much gloried therein.
+
+It was these chiefs, also, who still observed the old-fashioned
+custom of retiring from the presence of royalty with their heads
+between their thighs; so that while advancing in the contrary
+direction, their faces might be still deferentially turned toward
+their lord and master. A fine view of him did they obtain. All
+objects look well through an arch.
+
+But to return to Peepi, the inheritor of souls and subjects. It was
+an article of faith with the people of Valapee, that Peepi not only
+actually possessed the souls bequeathed to him; but that his own was
+enriched by their peculiar qualities: The headlong valor of the late
+Tongatona; the pusillanimous discretion of Blandoo; the cunning of
+Voyo; the simplicity of Raymonda; the prodigality of Zonoree; the
+thrift of Titonti.
+
+But had all these, and similar opposite qualities, simultaneously
+acted as motives upon Peepi, certes, he would have been a most
+pitiable mortal, in a ceaseless eddy of resolves, incapable of a
+solitary act.
+
+But blessed be the gods, it was otherwise. Though it fared little
+better for his subjects as it was. His assorted souls were uppermost
+and active in him, one by one. Today, valiant Tongatona ruled the
+isle, meditating wars and invasions; tomorrow, thrice discreet
+Blandoo, who, disbanding the levies, turned his attention to the
+terraces of yams. And so on in rotation to the end.
+
+Whence, though capable of action, Peepi, by reason of these
+revolving souls in him, was one of the most unreliable of beings.
+What the open-handed Zonoree promised freely to-day, the parsimonious
+Titonti withheld to-morrow; and forever Raymonda was annulling the
+doings of Voyo; and Voyo the doings of Raymonda.
+
+What marvel then, that in Valapee all was legislative uproar and
+confusion; advance and retreat;  abrogations and revivals; foundations
+without superstructures; nothing permanent but the island itself.
+
+Nor were there those in the neighboring countries, who failed to reap
+profit from this everlasting transition state of the affairs of the
+kingdom. All boons from Peepi were entreated when the prodigal
+Zonoree was lord of the ascendant. And audacious claims were urged
+upon the state when the pusillanimous Blandoo shrank from the thought
+of resisting them.
+
+Thus subject to contrary impulses, over which he had not the faintest
+control, Peepi was plainly denuded of all moral obligation to virtue.
+He was no more a free agent, than the heart which beat in his bosom.
+Wherefore, his complaisant parliament had passed a law, recognizing
+that curious, but alarming fact; solemnly proclaiming, that King
+Peepi was minus a conscience. Agreeable to truth. But when they went
+further, and vowed by statute, that Peepi could do no wrong, they
+assuredly did violence to the truth; besides, making a sad blunder in
+their logic. For far from possessing an absolute aversion to evil, by
+his very nature it was the hardest thing in the world for Peepi to do
+right.
+
+Taking all these things into consideration, then, no wonder that this
+wholly irresponsible young prince should be a lad of considerable
+assurance, and the easiest manners imaginable.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII
+How Teeth Were Regarded In Valapee
+
+
+Coiling through the thickets, like the track of a serpent, wound
+along the path we pursued. And ere long we came to a spacious grove,
+embowering an oval arbor. Here, we reclined at our ease, and
+refreshments were served.
+
+Little worthy of mention occurred, save this. Happening to catch a
+glimpse of the white even teeth of Hohora one of our attendants, King
+Peepi coolly begged of Media the favor, to have those same dentals
+drawn on the spot, and presented to him.
+
+Now human teeth, extracted, are reckoned among the most valuable
+ornaments in Mardi. So open wide thy strong box, Hohora, and show thy
+treasures. What a gallant array! standing shoulder to shoulder,
+without a hiatus between. A complete set of jewelry, indeed, thought
+Peepi. But, it seems, not destined for him; Media leaving it to the
+present proprietor, whether his dentals should change owners or not.
+
+And here, to prepare the way for certain things hereafter to be
+narrated, something farther needs be said concerning the light in
+which men's molars are regarded in Mardi.
+
+Strung together, they are sported for necklaces, or hung in drops
+from the ear; they are wrought into dice; in lieu of silken locks,
+are exchanged for love tokens.
+
+As in all lands, men smite their breasts, and tear their hair, when
+transported with grief; so, in some countries, teeth are stricken out
+under the sway of similar emotions. To a very great extent, this was
+once practiced in the Hawaiian Islands, ere idol and altar
+went down. Still living in Oahu, are many old chiefs, who were
+present at the famous obsequies of their royal old generalissimo,
+Tammahammaha, when there is no telling how many pounds of ivory were
+cast upon his grave.
+
+Ah! had the regal white elephants of Siam been there, doubtless they
+had offered up their long, hooked tusks, whereon they impale the
+leopards, their foes; and the unicorn had surrendered that fixed
+bayonet in his forehead; and the imperial Cachalot-whale, the long
+chain of white towers in his jaw; yea, over that grim warrior's
+grave, the mooses, and elks, and stags, and fallow-deer had stacked
+their antlers, as soldiers their arms on the field.
+
+Terrific shade of tattooed Tammahammaha! if, from a vile dragon's
+molars, rose mailed men, what heroes shall spring from the cannibal
+canines once pertaining to warriors themselves!--Am I the witch of
+Endor, that I conjure up this ghost? Or, King Saul, that I so quake
+at the sight? For, lo! roundabout me Tammahammaha's tattooing
+expands, till all the sky seems a tiger's skin. But now, the spotted
+phantom sweeps by; as a man-of-war's main-sail, cloud-like, blown far
+to leeward in a gale.
+
+Banquo down, we return.
+
+In Valapee, prevails not the barbarous Hindoo custom of offering up
+widows to the shades of their lords; for, bereaved, the widows there
+marry again. Nor yet prevails the savage Hawaiian custom of offering
+up teeth to the manes of the dead; for, at the decease of a friend,
+the people rob not their own mouths to testify their woe. On the
+contrary, they extract the teeth from the departed, distributing them
+among the mourners for memorial legacies; as elsewhere, silver spoons
+are bestowed.
+
+From the high value ascribed to dentals throughout the archipelago of
+Mardi, and also from their convenient size, they are circulated as
+money; strings of teeth being regarded by these people very much as
+belts of wampum among the Winnebagoes of the North; or cowries, among
+the Bengalese. So, that in Valapee the very beggars are born with a
+snug investment in their mouths; too soon, however, to be appropriated
+by their lords; leaving them toothless for the rest of their days, and
+forcing them to diet on poee-pudding and banana blanc-mange.
+
+As a currency, teeth are far less clumsy than cocoanuts; which, among
+certain remote barbarians, circulate for coin; one nut being
+equivalent, perhaps, to a penny. The voyager who records the fact,
+chuckles over it hugely; as evincing the simplicity of those
+heathens; not knowing that he himself was the simpleton; since that
+currency of theirs was purposely devised by the men, to check the
+extravagance of their women; cocoanuts, for spending money, being
+such a burden to carry.
+
+It only remains to be added, that the most solemn oath of a native of
+Valapee is that sworn by his tooth. "By this tooth," said Bondo to
+Noojoomo, "by this tooth I swear to be avenged upon thee, oh
+Noojoomo!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX
+The Company Discourse, And Braid-Beard Rehearses A Legend
+
+
+Finding in Valapee no trace of her whom we sought, and but little
+pleased with the cringing demeanor of the people, and the wayward
+follies of Peepi their lord, we early withdrew from the isle.
+
+As we glided away, King Media issued a sociable decree. He declared
+it his royal pleasure, that throughout the voyage, all stiffness and
+state etiquette should be suspended: nothing must occur to mar the
+freedom of the party. To further this charming plan, he doffed his
+symbols of royalty, put off his crown, laid aside his scepter, and
+assured us that he would not wear them again, except when we landed;
+and not invariably, then.
+
+"Are we not all now friends and companions?" he said. "So companions
+and friends let us be. I unbend my bow; do ye likewise."
+
+"But are we not to be dignified?" asked Babbalanja.
+
+"If dignity be free and natural, be as dignified as you please; but
+away with rigidities."
+
+"Away they go," said Babbalanja; "and, my lord, now that you mind me
+of it, I have often thought, that it is all folly and vanity for any
+man to attempt a dignified carriage. Why, my lord,"--frankly crossing
+his legs where he lay--"the king, who receives his embassadors with a
+majestic toss of the head, may have just recovered from the tooth-
+ache. That thought should cant over the spine he bears so bravely."
+
+"Have a care, sir! there is a king within hearing."
+
+"Pardon, my lord; I was merely availing myself of the immunity
+bestowed upon the company. Hereafter, permit a subject to rebel
+against your sociable decrees. I will not be so frank any more."
+
+"Well put, Babbalanja; come nearer; here, cross your legs by mine;
+you have risen a cubit in my regard. Vee-Vee, bring us that gourd of
+wine; so, pass it round with the cups. Now, Yoomy, a song!"
+
+And a song was sung.
+
+And thus did we sail; pleasantly reclining on the mats stretched out
+beneath the canopied howdah.
+
+At length, we drew nigh to a rock, called Pella, or The Theft. A
+high, green crag, toppling over its base, and flinging a cavernous
+shadow upon the lagoon beneath, bubbling with the moisture that
+dropped.
+
+Passing under this cliff was like finding yourself, as some sea-
+hunters unexpectedly have, beneath the open, upper jaw of a whale;
+which, descending, infallibly entombs you. But familiar with the
+rock, our paddlers only threw back their heads, to catch the cool,
+pleasant tricklings from the mosses above.
+
+Wiping away several glittering beads from his beard, old Mohi turning
+round where he sat, just outside the canopy, solemnly affirmed, that
+the drinking of that water had cured many a man of ambition.
+
+"How so, old man?" demanded Media.
+
+"Because of its passing through the ashes of ten kings, of yore
+buried in a sepulcher, hewn in the heart of the rock."
+
+"Mighty kings, and famous, doubtless," said Babbalanja, "whose bones
+were thought worthy of so noble and enduring as urn. Pray, Mohi,
+their names and terrible deeds."
+
+"Alas! their sepulcher only remains."
+
+"And, no doubt, like many others, they made that sepul for
+themselves. They sleep sound, my word for it, old man. But I
+very much question, if, were the rock rent, any ashes would be found.
+Mohi, I deny that those kings ever had any bones to bury."
+
+"Why, Babbalanja," said Media, "since you intimate that they never
+had ghosts to give up, you ignore them in toto; denying the very fact
+of their being even defunct."
+
+"Ten thousand pardons, my lord, no such discourtesy would I do the
+anonymous memory of the illustrious dead. But whether they ever lived
+or not, it is all the same with them now. Yet, grant that they lived;
+then, if death be a deaf-and-dumb death, a triumphal procession over
+their graves would concern them not. If a birth into brightness, then
+Mardi must seem to them the most trivial of reminiscences. Or,
+perhaps, theirs may be an utter lapse of memory concerning sublunary
+things; and they themselves be not themselves, as the butterfly is
+not the larva."
+
+Said Yoomy, "Then, Babbalanja, you account that a fit illustration of
+the miraculous change to be wrought in man after death?"
+
+"No; for the analogy has an unsatisfactory end. From its chrysalis
+state, the silkworm but becomes a moth, that very quickly expires.
+Its longest existence is as a worm. All vanity, vanity, Yoomy, to
+seek in nature for positive warranty to these aspirations of ours.
+Through all her provinces, nature seems to promise immortality to
+life, but destruction to beings. Or, as old Bardianna has it, if not
+against us, nature is not for us."
+
+Said Media, rising, "Babbalanja, you have indeed put aside the
+courtier; talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi-
+god! To renown, for your theme: a more agreeable topic."
+
+"Pardon, once again, my lord. And since you will, let us discourse of
+that subject. First, I lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that in
+itself all posthumous renown, which is the only renown, is valueless.
+Be not offended, my lord. To the nobly ambitious, renown hereafter
+may be something to anticipate. But analyzed, that feverish
+typhoid feeling of theirs may be nothing more than a flickering
+fancy, that now, while living, they are recognized as those who will
+be as famous in their shrouds, as in their girdles."
+
+Said Yoomy, "But those great and good deeds, Babbalanja, of which the
+philosophers so often discourse: must it not be sweet to believe that
+their memory will long survive us; and we ourselves in them?"
+
+"I speak now," said Babbalanja, "of the ravening for fame which even
+appeased, like thirst slaked in the desert, yields no felicity, but
+only relief; and which discriminates not in aught that will satisfy
+its cravings. But let me resume. Not an hour ago, Braid-Beard was
+telling us that story of prince Ottimo, who inodorous while living,
+expressed much delight at the prospect of being perfumed and
+embalmed, when dead. But was not Ottimo the most eccentric of
+mortals? For few men issue orders for their shrouds, to inspect their
+quality beforehand. Far more anxious are they about the texture of
+the sheets in which their living limbs lie. And, my lord, with some
+rare exceptions, does not all Mardi, by its actions, declare, that it
+is far better to be notorious now, than famous hereafter?"
+
+"A base sentiment, my lord," said Yoomy. "Did not poor Bonja, the
+unappreciated poet, console himself for the neglect of his
+contemporaries, by inspiriting thoughts of the future?"
+
+"In plain words by bethinking him of the glorious harvest of bravos
+his ghost would reap for him," said Babbalanja; "but Banjo,--Bonjo,--
+Binjo,--I never heard of him."
+
+"Nor I," said Mohi.
+
+"Nor I," said Media.
+
+"Poor fellow!" cried Babbalanja; "I fear me his harvest is not yet
+ripe."
+
+"Alas!" cried Yoomy; "he died more than a century ago."
+
+"But now that you speak of unappreciated poets, Yoomy," said
+Babbalanja, "Shall I give you a piece of my mind?" "Do," said Mohi,
+stroking his beard.
+
+"He, who on all hands passes for a cypher to-day, if at all
+remembered hereafter, will be sure to pass for the same. For there is
+more likelihood of being overrated while living, than of being
+underrated when dead. And to insure your fame, you must die."
+
+"A rather discouraging thought for your race. But answer: I assume
+that King Media is but a mortal like you; now, how may I best
+perpetuate my name?"
+
+Long pondered Babbalanja; then said, "Carve it, my lord, deep into a
+ponderous stone, and sink it, face downward, into the sea; for the
+unseen foundations of the deep are more enduring than the palpable
+tops of the mountains."
+
+Sailing past Pella, we gained a view of its farther side; and seated
+in a lofty cleft, beheld a lonely fisherman; solitary as a seal on an
+iceberg; his motionless line in the water.
+
+"What recks he of the ten kings," said Babbalanja.
+
+"Mohi," said Media, "methinks there is another tradition concerning
+that rock: let us have it."
+
+"In old times of genii and giants, there dwelt in barren lands, not
+very remote from our outer reef, but since submerged, a band of evil-
+minded, envious goblins, furlongs in stature, and with immeasurable
+arms; who from time to time cast covetous glances upon our blooming
+isles. Long they lusted; till at last, they waded through the sea,
+strode over the reef, and seizing the nearest islet, rolled it over
+and over, toward an adjoining outlet.
+
+"But the task was hard; and day-break surprised them in the midst of
+their audacious thieving; while in the very act of giving the devoted
+land another doughty surge and Somerset. Leaving it bottom upward and
+midway poised, gardens under water, its foundations in air, they
+precipitately fled; in their great haste, deserting a comrade, vainly
+struggling to liberate his foot caught beneath the overturned land."
+
+"This poor fellow now raised such an outcry, as to awaken the god
+Upi, or the Archer, stretched out on a long cloud in the East; who
+forthwith resolved to make an example of the unwilling lingerer.
+Snatching his bow, he let fly an arrow. But overshooting its mark, it
+pierced through and through, the lofty promontory of a neighboring
+island; making an arch in it, which remaineth even unto this day. A
+second arrow, however, accomplished its errand: the slain giant
+sinking prone to the bottom."
+
+"And now," added Mohi, "glance over the gunwale, and you will see his
+remains petrified into white ribs of coral."
+
+"Ay, there they are," said Yoomy, looking down into the water where
+they gleamed. "A fanciful legend, Braid-beard."
+
+"Very entertaining," said Media.
+
+"Even so," said Babbalanja. "But perhaps we lost time in listening to
+it; for though we know it, we are none the wiser."
+
+"Be not a cynic," said Media. "No pastime is lost time."
+
+Musing a moment, Babbalanja replied, "My lord, that maxim may be good
+as it stands; but had you made six words of it, instead of six
+syllables, you had uttered a better and a deeper."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX
+The Minstrel Leads Off With A Paddle-Song; And A Message Is Received
+From Abroad
+
+
+From seaward now came a breeze so blithesome and fresh, that it made
+us impatient of Babbalanja's philosophy, and Mohi's incredible
+legends. One and all, we called upon the minstrel Yoomy to give us
+something in unison with the spirited waves wide-foaming around us.
+
+"If my lord will permit, we will give Taji the Paddle-Chant of the
+warriors of King Bello."
+
+"By all means," said Media.
+
+So the three canoes were brought side to side; their sails rolled up;
+and paddles in hand, our paddlers seated themselves sideways on the
+gunwales; Yoomy, as leader, occupying the place of the foremast, or
+Bow-Paddler of the royal barge.
+
+Whereupon the six rows of paddle-blades being uplifted, and every eye
+on the minstrel, this song was sung, with actions corresponding; the
+canoes at last shooting through the water, with a violent roll.
+
+          (_All._)
+      Thrice waved on high,
+      Our paddles fly:
+  Thrice round the head, thrice dropt to feet:
+      And then well timed,
+      Of one stout mind,
+  All fall, and back the waters heap!
+
+          (_Bow-Paddler._)
+      Who lifts this chant?
+      Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+          (_All._)
+  The wild sea song, to the billows' throng,
+      Rising, falling,
+      Hoarsely calling,
+  Now high, now low, as fast we go,
+  Fast on our flying foe!
+
+          (_Bow-Paddler._)
+      Who lifts this chant?
+      Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+          (_All._)
+  Dip, dip, in the brine our paddles dip,
+  Dip, dip, the fins of our swimming ship!
+      How the waters part,
+      As on we dart;
+        Our sharp prows fly,
+        And curl on high,
+  As the upright fin of the rushing shark,
+  Rushing fast and far on his flying mark!
+      Like him we prey;
+      Like him we slay;
+        Swim on the fog,
+        Our prow a blow!
+
+          (_Bow-Paddler._)
+      Who lifts this chant?
+      Who sounds this vaunt?
+
+          (_All._)
+  Heap back; heap back; the waters back!
+  Pile them high astern, in billows black;
+      Till we leave our wake,
+      In the slope we make;
+      And rush and ride,
+      On the torrent's tide!
+
+Here we were overtaken by a swift gliding canoe, which, bearing down
+upon us before the wind, lowered its sail when close by: its
+occupants signing our paddlers to desist.
+
+I started.
+
+The strangers were three hooded damsels the enigmatical Queen
+Hautia's heralds.
+
+Their pursuit surprised and perplexed me. Nor was there
+wanting a vague feeling of alarm to heighten these emotions. But
+perhaps I was mistaken, and this time they meant not me.
+
+Seated in the prow, the foremost waved her Iris flag. Cried Yoomy,
+"Some message! Taji, that Iris points to you."
+
+It was then, I first divined, that some meaning must have lurked in
+those flowers they had twice brought me before.
+
+The second damsel now flung over to me Circe flowers; then, a faded
+jonquil, buried in a tuft of wormwood leaves.
+
+The third sat in the shallop's stern, and as it glided from us,
+thrice waved oleanders.
+
+"What dumb show is this?" cried Media. "But it looks like poetry:
+minstrel, you should know."
+
+"Interpret then," said I.
+
+"Shall I, then, be your Flora's flute, and Hautia's dragoman? Held
+aloft, the Iris signified a message. These purple-woven Circe flowers
+mean that some spell is weaving. That golden, pining jonquil, which
+you hold, buried in those wormwood leaves, says plainly to you--
+Bitter love in absence."
+
+Said Media, "Well done, Taji, you have killed a queen." "Yet no Queen
+Hautia have these eyes beheld."
+
+Said Babbalanja, "The thrice waved oleanders, Yoomy; what meant
+they?"
+
+"Beware--beware--beware."
+
+"Then that, at least, seems kindly meant," said Babbalanja; "Taji,
+beware of Hautia."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI
+They Land Upon The Island Of Juam
+
+
+Crossing the lagoon, our course now lay along the reel to Juam; a
+name bestowed upon one of the largest islands hereabout; and also,
+collectively, upon several wooded isles engulfing it, which together
+were known as the dominions of one monarch. That monarch was
+Donjalolo. Just turned of twenty-five, he was accounted not only the
+handsomest man in his dominions, but throughout the lagoon. His
+comeliness, however, was so feminine, that he was sometimes called
+"Fonoo," or the Girl.
+
+Our first view of Juam was imposing. A dark green pile of cliffs,
+towering some one hundred toises; at top, presenting a range of
+steep, gable-pointed projections; as if some Titanic hammer and
+chisel had shaped the mass.
+
+Sailing nearer, we perceived an extraordinary rolling of the sea;
+which bursting into the lagoon through an adjoining breach in the
+reef, surged toward Juam in enormous billows. At last, dashing
+against the wall of the cliff; they played there in unceasing
+fountains. But under the brow of a beetling crag, the spray came and
+went unequally. There, the blue billows seemed swallowed up, and
+lost.
+
+Right regally was Juam guarded. For, at this point, the rock was
+pierced by a cave, into which the great waves chased each other like
+lions; after a hollow, subterraneous roaring issuing forth with manes
+disheveled.
+
+Cautiously evading the dangerous currents here ruffling the lagoon,
+we rounded the wall of cliff; and shot upon a smooth expanse; on one
+side, hemmed in by the long, verdent, northern shore of Juam;
+and across the water, sentineled by its tributary islets.
+
+With sonorous Vee-Vee in the shark's mouth, we swept toward the
+beach, tumultuous with a throng.
+
+Our canoes were secured. And surrounded by eager glances, we passed
+the lower ends of several populous valleys; and crossing a wide, open
+meadow, gradually ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs.
+Here, we wended our way down a narrow defile, almost cleaving this
+quarter of the island to its base. Black crags frowned overhead:
+among them the shouts of the Islanders reverberated. Yet steeper grew
+the defile, and more overhanging the crags till at last, the keystone
+of the arch seemed dropped into its place. We found ourselves in a
+subterranean tunnel, dimly lighted by a span of white day at the end.
+
+Emerging, what a scene was revealed! All round, embracing a circuit
+of some three leagues, stood heights inaccessible, here and there,
+forming buttresses, sheltering deep recesses between. The bosom of
+the place was vivid with verdure.
+
+Shining aslant into this wild hollow, the afternoon sun lighted up
+its eastern side with tints of gold. But opposite, brooded a somber
+shadow, double-shading the secret places between the salient spurs of
+the mountains. Thus cut in twain by masses of day and night, it
+seemed as if some Last Judgment had been enacted in the glen.
+
+No sooner did we emerge from the defile, than we became sensible of a
+dull, jarring sound; and Yoomy was almost tempted to turn and flee,
+when informed that the sea-cavern, whose mouth we had passed, was
+believed to penetrate deep into the opposite hills; and that the
+surface of the amphitheater was depressed beneath that of the lagoon.
+But all over the lowermost hillsides, and sloping into the glen,
+stood grand old groves; still and stately, as if no insolent waves
+were throbbing in the mountain's heart.
+
+Such was Willamilla, the hereditary abode of the young monarch of Juam.
+
+Was Yillah immured in this strange retreat? But from those around us
+naught could we learn.
+
+Our attention was now directed to the habitations of the glen;
+comprised in two handsome villages; one to the west, the other to the
+east; both stretching along the base of the cliffs.
+
+Said Media, "Had we arrived at Willamilla in the morning, we had
+found Donjalolo and his court in the eastern village; but being
+afternoon, we must travel farther, and seek him in his western
+retreat; for that is now in the shade."
+
+Wending our way, Media added, that aside from his elevated station as
+a monarch, Donjalolo was famed for many uncommon traits; but more
+especially for certain peculiar deprivations, under which he labored.
+
+Whereupon Braid-Beard unrolled his old chronicles; and regaled us
+with the history, which will be found in the following chapter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII
+A Book From The Chronicles Of Mohi
+
+
+Many ages ago, there reigned in Juam a king called Teei. This Teei's
+succession to the sovereignty was long disputed by his brother
+Marjora; who at last rallying round him an army, after many
+vicissitudes, defeated the unfortunate monarch in a stout fight of
+clubs on the beach.
+
+In those days, Willamilla during a certain period of the year was a
+place set apart for royal games and diversions; and was furnished
+with suitable accommodations for king and court. From its peculiar
+position, moreover, it was regarded as the last stronghold of the
+Juam monarchy: in remote times having twice withstood the most
+desperate assaults from without. And when Roonoonoo, a famous
+upstart, sought to subdue all the isles in this part of the
+Archipelago, it was to Willamilla that the banded kings had repaired
+to take counsel together; and while there conferring, were surprised
+at the sudden onslaught of Roonoonoo in person. But in the end, the
+rebel was captured, he and all his army, and impaled on the tops of
+the hills.
+
+Now, defeated and fleeing for his life, Teei with his surviving
+followers was driven across the plain toward the mountains. But to
+cut him off from all escape to inland Willamilla, Marjora dispatched
+a fleet band of warriors to occupy the entrance of the defile.
+Nevertheless, Teei the pursued ran faster than his pursuers; first
+gained the spot; and with his chiefs, fled swiftly down the gorge,
+closely hunted by Marjora's men. But arriving at the further end,
+they in vain sought to defend it. And after much desperate
+fighting, the main body of the foe corning up with great slaughter
+the fugitives were driven into the glen.
+
+They ran to the opposite wall of cliff; where turning, they fought at
+bay, blood for blood, and life for life, till at last, overwhelmed by
+numbers, they were all put to the point of the spear.
+
+With fratricidal hate, singled out by the ferocious Marjora, Teei
+fell by that brother's hand. When stripping from the body the regal
+girdle, the victor wound it round his own loins; thus proclaiming
+himself king over Juam.
+
+Long torn by this intestine war, the island acquiesced in the new
+sovereignty. But at length a sacred oracle declared, that since the
+conqueror had slain his brother in deep Willamilla, so that Teei
+never more issued from that refuge of death; therefore, the same fate
+should be Marjora's; for never, thenceforth, from that glen, should
+he go forth; neither Marjora; nor any son of his girdled loins; nor
+his son's sons; nor the uttermost scion of his race.
+
+But except this denunciation, naught was denounced against the usurper;
+who, mindful of the tenure by which he reigned, ruled over the island
+for many moons; at his death bequeathing the girdle to his son.
+
+In those days, the wildest superstitions concerning the interference
+of the gods in things temporal, prevailed to a much greater extent
+than at present. Hence Marjora himself, called sometimes in the
+traditions of the island, The-Heart-of-Black-Coral, even unscrupulous
+Marjora had quailed before the oracle. "He bowed his head," say the
+legends. Nor was it then questioned, by his most devoted adherents,
+that had he dared to act counter to that edict, he had dropped dead,
+the very instant he went under the shadow of the defile. This
+persuasion also guided the conduct of the son of Marjora, and that of
+his grandson.
+
+But there at last came to pass a change in the popular fancies
+concerning this ancient anathema. The penalty denounced against the
+posterity of the usurper should they issue from the glen, came
+to be regarded as only applicable to an invested monarch, not to his
+relatives, or heirs.
+
+A most favorable construction of the ban; for all those related to
+the king, freely passed in and out of Willamilla.
+
+From the time of the usurpation, there had always been observed a
+certain ceremony upon investing the heir to the sovereignty with the
+girdle of Teei. Upon these occasions, the chief priests of the island
+were present, acting an important part. For the space of as many
+days, as there had reigned kings of Marjora's dynasty, the inner
+mouth of the defile remained sealed; the new monarch placing the last
+stone in the gap. This symbolized his relinquishment forever of all
+purpose of passing out of the glen. And without this observance, was
+no king girdled in Juam.
+
+It was likewise an invariable custom, for the heir to receive the
+regal investiture immediately upon the decease of his sire. No delay
+was permitted. And instantly upon being girdled, he proceeded to take
+part in the ceremony of closing the cave; his predecessor yet
+remaining uninterred on the purple mat where he died.
+
+In the history of the island, three instances were recorded; wherein,
+upon the vacation of the sovereignty, the immediate heir had
+voluntarily renounced all claim to the succession, rather than
+surrender the privilege of roving, to which he had been entitled, as
+a prince of the blood.
+
+Said Rani, one of these young princes, in reply to the remonstrances
+of his friends, "What! shall I be a king, only to be a slave? Teei's
+girdle would clasp my waist less tightly, than my soul would be
+banded by the mountains of Willamilla. A subject, I am free. No slave
+in Juam but its king; for all the tassels round his loins."
+
+To guard against a similar resolution in the mind of his only son,
+the wise sire of Donjalolo, ardently desirous of perpetuating his
+dignities in a child so well beloved, had from his earliest infancy,
+restrained the boy from passing out of the glen, to contract in the
+free air of the Archipelago, tastes and predilections fatal to
+the inheritance of the girdle.
+
+But as he grew in years, so impatient became young Donjalolo of the
+king his father's watchfulness over him, though hitherto a most
+dutiful son, that at last he was prevailed upon by his youthful
+companions to appoint a day, on which to go abroad, and visit Mardi.
+Hearing this determination, the old king sought to vanquish it. But
+in vain. And early on the morning of the day, that Donjalolo was to
+set out, he swallowed poison, and died; in order to force his son
+into the instant assumption of the honors thus suddenly inherited.
+
+The event, but not its dreadful circumstances, was communicated to
+the prince; as with a gay party of young chiefs, he was about to
+enter the mouth of the defile.
+
+"My sire dead!" cried Donjalolo. "So sudden, it seems a bolt from
+Heaven." And bursting into exclamations of grief, he wept upon the
+bosom of Talara his friend.
+
+But starting from his side:--"My fate converges to a point. If I but
+cross that shadow, my kingdom is lost. One lifting of my foot, and
+the girdle goes to my proud uncle Darfi, who would so joy to be my
+master. Haughty Dwarf! Oh Oro! would that I had ere this passed thee,
+fatal cavern; and seen for myself, what outer Mardi is. Say ye true,
+comrades, that Willamilla is less lovely than the valleys without?
+that there is bright light in the eyes of the maidens of Mina? and
+wisdom in the hearts of the old priests of Maramma; that it is
+pleasant to tread the green earth where you will; and breathe the
+free ocean air? Would, oh would, that I were but the least of yonder
+sun-clouds, that look down alike on Willamilla and all places
+besides, that I might determine aright. Yet why do I pause? did not
+Rani, and Atama, and Mardonna, my ancestors, each see for himself,
+free Mardi; and did they not fly the proffered girdle; choosing
+rather to be free to come and go, than bury themselves forever in
+this fatal glen? Oh Mardi! Mardi! art thou then so fair to
+see? Is liberty a thing so glorious? Yet can I be no king, and behold
+thee! Too late, too late, to view thy charms and then return. My
+sire! my sire! thou hast wrung my heart with this agony of doubt.
+Tell me, comrades,--for ye have seen it,--is Mardi sweeter to behold,
+than it is royal to reign over Juam? Silent, are ye? Knowing what ye
+do, were ye me, would ye be kings? Tell me, Talara.--No king: no
+king:--that were to obey, and not command. And none hath Donjalolo
+ere obeyed but the king his father. A king, and my voice may be heard
+in farthest Mardi, though I abide in narrow Willamilla. My sire! my
+sire! Ye flying clouds, what look ye down upon? Tell me, what ye see
+abroad? Methinks sweet spices breathe from out the cave."
+
+"Hail, Donjalolo, King of Juam," now sounded with acclamations from
+the groves.
+
+Starting, the young prince beheld a multitude approaching: warriors
+with spears, and maidens with flowers; and Kubla, a priest, lifting
+on high the tasseled girdle of Teei, and waving it toward him.
+
+The young chiefs fell back. Kubla, advancing, came close to the
+prince, and unclasping the badge of royalty, exclaimed, "Donjalolo,
+this instant it is king or subject with thee: wilt thou be girdled
+monarch?"
+
+Gazing one moment up the dark defile, then staring vacantly,
+Donjalolo turned and met the eager gaze of Darfi. Stripping off his
+mantle, the next instant he was a king.
+
+Loud shouted the multitude, and exulted; but after mutely assisting
+at the closing of the cavern, the new-girdled monarch retired sadly
+to his dwelling, and was not seen again for many days.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII
+Something More Of The Prince
+
+
+Previous to recording our stay in his dominions, it only remains to
+be related of Donjalolo, that after assuming the girdle, a change
+came over him.
+
+During the lifetime of his father, he had been famed for his
+temperance and discretion. But when Mardi was forever shut out; and
+he remembered the law of his isle, interdicting abdication to its
+kings; he gradually fell into desperate courses, to drown the
+emotions at times distracting him.
+
+His generous spirit thirsting after some energetic career, found
+itself narrowed down within the little glen of Willamilla, where
+ardent impulses seemed idle. But these are hard to die; and repulsed
+all round, recoil upon themselves.
+
+So with Donjalolo; who, in many a riotous scene, wasted the powers
+which might have compassed the noblest designs.
+
+Not many years had elapsed since the death of the king, his father.
+But the still youthful prince was no longer the bright-eyed and
+elastic boy who at the dawn of day had sallied out to behold the
+landscapes of the neighboring isles.
+
+Not more effeminate Sardanapalus, than he. And, at intervals, he was
+the victim of unaccountable vagaries; haunted by specters, and
+beckoned to by the ghosts of his sires.
+
+At times, loathing his vicious pursuits, which brought him no solid
+satisfaction, but ever filled him with final disgust, he would
+resolve to amend his ways; solacing himself for his bitter captivity,
+by the society of the wise and discreet.
+
+But brief the interval of repentance. Anew, he burst into excesses, a
+hundred fold more insane than ever.
+
+Thus vacillating between virtue and vice; to neither constant, and
+upbraided by both; his mind, like his person in the glen, was
+continually passing and repassing between opposite extremes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV
+Advancing Deeper Into The Vale, They Encounter Donjalolo
+
+
+From the mouth of the cavern, a broad shaded way over-arched by
+fraternal trees embracing in mid-air, conducted us to a cross-path,
+on either hand leading to the opposite cliffs, shading the twin
+villages before mentioned.
+
+Level as a meadow, was the bosom of the glen. Here, nodding with
+green orchards of the Bread-fruit and the Palm; there, flashing with
+golden plantations of the Banana. Emerging from these, we came out
+upon a grassy mead, skirting a projection of the mountain. And soon
+we crossed a bridge of boughs, spanning a trench, thickly planted
+with roots of the Tara, like alligators, or Hollanders, reveling in
+the soft alluvial. Strolling on, the wild beauty of the mountains
+excited our attention. The topmost crags poured over with vines;
+which, undulating in the air, seemed leafy cascades; their sources
+the upland groves.
+
+Midway up the precipice, along a shelf of rock, sprouted the
+multitudinous roots of an apparently trunkless tree. Shooting from
+under the shallow soil, they spread all over the rocks below,
+covering them with an intricate net-work. While far aloft, great
+boughs--each a copse--clambered to the very summit of the mountain;
+then bending over, struck anew into the soil; forming along the verge
+an interminable colonnade; all manner of antic architecture standing
+against the sky.
+
+According to Mohi, this tree was truly wonderful; its seed having
+been dropped from the moon; where were plenty more similar
+forests, causing the dark spots on its surface.
+
+Here and there, the cool fluid in the veins of the mountains gushed
+forth in living springs; their waters received in green mossy tanks,
+half buried in grasses.
+
+In one place, a considerable stream, bounding far out from a wooded
+height, ere reaching the ground was dispersed in a wide misty shower,
+falling so far from the base of the cliff; that walking close
+underneath, you felt little moisture. Passing this fall of vapors, we
+spied many Islanders taking a bath.
+
+But what is yonder swaying of the foliage? And what now issues forth,
+like a habitation astir? Donjalolo drawing nigh to his guests.
+
+He came in a fair sedan; a bower, resting upon three long, parallel
+poles, borne by thirty men, gayly attired; five at each pole-end.
+Decked with dyed tappas, and looped with garlands of newly-plucked
+flowers, from which, at every step, the fragrant petals were blown;
+with a sumptuous, elastic motion the gay sedan came on; leaving
+behind it a long, rosy wake of fluttering leaves and odors.
+
+Drawing near, it revealed a slender, enervate youth, of pallid
+beauty, reclining upon a crimson mat, near the festooned arch of the
+bower. His anointed head was resting against the bosom of a girl;
+another stirred the air, with a fan of Pintado plumes. The pupils of
+his eyes were as floating isles in the sea. In a soft low tone he
+murmured "Media!"
+
+The bearers paused; and Media advancing; the Island Kings bowed their
+foreheads together.
+
+Through tubes ignited at the end, Donjaloln's reclining attendants
+now blew an aromatic incense around him. These were composed of the
+stimulating leaves of the "Aina," mixed with the long yellow blades
+of a sweet-scented upland grass; forming a hollow stem. In general,
+the agreeable fumes of the "Aina" were created by one's own
+inhalations; but Donjalolo deeming the solace too dearly purchased by
+any exertion of the royal lungs, regaled himself through those of his
+attendants, whose lips were as moss-rose buds after a shower.
+
+In silence the young prince now eyed us attentively; meanwhile gently
+waving his hand, to obtain a better view through the wreaths of
+vapor. He was about to address us, when chancing to catch a glimpse
+of Samoa, he suddenly started; averted his glance; and wildly
+commanded the warrior out of sight. Upon this, his attendants would
+have soothed him; and Media desired the Upoluan to withdraw.
+
+While we were yet lost in wonder at this scene, Donjalolo, with eyes
+closed, fell back into the arms of his damsels. Recovering, he
+fetched a deep sigh, and gazed vacantly around.
+
+It seems, that he had fancied Samoa the noon-day specter of his
+ancestor Marjora; the usurper having been deprived of an arm in the
+battle which gained him the girdle. Poor prince: this was one of
+those crazy conceits, so puzzling to his subjects.
+
+Media now hastened to assure Donjalolo, that Samoa, though no cherub
+to behold, was good flesh and blood, nevertheless. And soon the king
+unconcernedly gazed; his monomania having departed as a dream.
+
+But still suffering from the effects of an overnight feast, he
+presently murmured forth a desire to be left to his women; adding
+that his people would not fail to provide for the entertainment of
+his guests.
+
+The curtains of the sedan were now drawn; and soon it disappeared in
+the groves. Journeying on, ere long we arrived at the western side of
+the glen; where one of the many little arbors scattered among the
+trees, was assigned for our abode. Here, we reclined to an agreeable
+repast. After which, we strolled forth to view the valley at large;
+more especially the far-famed palaces of the prince.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV
+Time And Temples
+
+
+In the oriental Pilgrimage of the pious old Purchas, and in the fine
+old folio Voyages of Hakluyt, Thevenot, Ramusio, and De Bry, we read
+of many glorious old Asiatic temples, very long in erecting. And
+veracious Gaudentia di Lucca hath a wondrous narration of the time
+consumed in rearing that mighty three-hundred-and-seventy-five-
+pillared Temple of the Year, somewhere beyond Libya; whereof, the
+columns did signify days, and all round fronted upon concentric zones
+of palaces, cross-cut by twelve grand avenues symbolizing the signs
+of the zodiac, all radiating from the sun-dome in their midst. And in
+that wild eastern tale of his, Marco Polo tells us, how the Great
+Mogul began him a pleasure-palace on so imperial a scale, that his
+grandson had much ado to complete it.
+
+But no matter for marveling all this: great towers take time to
+construct.
+
+And so of all else.
+
+And that which long endures full-fledged, must have long lain in the
+germ. And duration is not of the future, but of the past; and
+eternity is eternal, because it has been, and though a strong new
+monument be builded to-day, it only is lasting because its blocks are
+old as the sun. It is not the Pyramids that are ancient, but the
+eternal granite whereof they are made; which had been equally ancient
+though yet in the quarry. For to make an eternity, we must build with
+eternities; whence, the vanity of the cry for any thing alike durable
+and new; and the folly of the reproach--Your granite hath come from
+the old-fashioned hills. For we are not gods and creators; and
+the controversialists have debated, whether indeed the All-Plastic
+Power itself can do more than mold. In all the universe is but one
+original; and the very suns must to their source for their fire; and
+we Prometheuses must to them for ours; which, when had, only
+perpetual Vestal tending will keep alive.
+
+But let us back from fire to store. No fine firm fabric ever yet grew
+like a gourd. Nero's House of Gold was not raised in a day; nor the
+Mexican House of the Sun; nor the Alhambra; nor the Escurial; nor
+Titus's Amphitheater; nor the Illinois Mounds; nor Diana's great
+columns at Ephesus; nor Pompey's proud Pillar; nor the Parthenon; nor
+the Altar of Belus; nor Stonehenge; nor Solomon's Temple; nor
+Tadmor's towers; nor Susa's bastions; nor Persepolis' pediments.
+Round and round, the Moorish turret at Seville was not wound
+heavenward in the revolution of a day; and from its first founding,
+five hundred years did circle, ere Strasbourg's great spire lifted
+its five hundred feet into the air. No: nor were the great grottos of
+Elephanta hewn out in an hour; nor did the Troglodytes dig Kentucky's
+Mammoth Cave in a sun; nor that of Trophonius, nor Antiparos; nor the
+Giant's Causeway. Nor were the subterranean arched sewers of Etruria
+channeled in a trice; nor the airy arched aqueducts of Nerva thrown
+over their values in the ides of a month. Nor was Virginia's Natural
+Bridge worn under in a year; nor, in geology, were the eternal
+Grampians upheaved in an age. And who shall count the cycles that
+revolved ere earth's interior sedimentary strata were crystalized
+into stone. Nor Peak of Piko, nor Teneriffe, were chiseled into
+obelisks in a decade; nor had Mount Athos been turned into
+Alexander's statue so soon. And the bower of Artaxerxes took a whole
+Persian summer to grow; and the Czar's Ice Palace a long Muscovite
+winter to congeal. No, no: nor was the Pyramid of Cheops masoned in a
+month; though, once built, the sands left by the deluge might
+not have submerged such a pile. Nor were the broad boughs of Charles'
+Oak grown in a spring; though they outlived the royal dynasties of
+Tudor and Stuart. Nor were the parts of the great Iliad put together
+in haste; though old Homer's temple shall lift up its dome, when St.
+Peter's is a legend. Even man himself lives months ere his Maker
+deems him fit to be born; and ere his proud shaft gains its full
+stature, twenty-one long Julian years must elapse. And his whole
+mortal life brings not his immortal soul to maturity; nor will all
+eternity perfect him. Yea, with uttermost reverence, as to human
+understanding, increase of dominion seems increase of power; and day
+by day new planets are being added to elder-born Saturn, even as six
+thousand years ago our own Earth made one more in this system; so, in
+incident, not in essence, may the Infinite himself be not less than
+more infinite now, than when old Aldebaran rolled forth from his
+hand. And if time was, when this round Earth, which to innumerable
+mortals has seemed an empire never to be wholly explored; which, in
+its seas, concealed all the Indies over four thousand five hundred
+years; if time was, when this great quarry of Assyrias and Romes was
+not extant; then, time may have been, when the whole material
+universe lived its Dark Ages; yea, when the Ineffable Silence,
+proceeding from its unimaginable remoteness, espied it as an isle in
+the sea. And herein is no derogation. For the Immeasurable's altitude
+is not heightened by the arches of Mahomet's heavens; and were all
+space a vacuum, yet would it be a fullness; for to Himself His own
+universe is He.
+
+Thus deeper and deeper into Time's endless tunnel, does the winged
+soul, like a night-hawk, wend her wild way; and finds eternities
+before and behind; and her last limit is her everlasting beginning.
+
+But sent over the broad flooded sphere, even Noah's dove came back,
+and perched on his hand. So comes back my spirit to me, and folds up
+her wings.
+
+Thus, then, though Time be the mightiest of Alarics, yet is he the
+mightiest mason of all. And a tutor, and a counselor, and a
+physician, and a scribe, and a poet, and a sage, and a king.
+
+Yea, and a gardener, as ere long will be shown.
+
+But first must we return to the glen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI
+A Pleasant Place For A Lounge
+
+
+Whether the hard condition of their kingly state, very naturally
+demanding some luxurious requital, prevailed upon the monarchs of
+Juam to house themselves so delightfully as they did; whether buried
+alive in their glen, they sought to center therein a secret world of
+enjoyment; however it may have been, throughout the Archipelago this
+saying was a proverb--"You are lodged like the king in Willamilla."
+Hereby was expressed the utmost sumptuousness of a palace.
+
+A well warranted saying; for of all the bright places, where my soul
+loves to linger, the haunts of Donjalolo are most delicious.
+
+In the eastern quarter of the glen was the House of the Morning. This
+fanciful palace was raised upon a natural mound, many rods square,
+almost completely filling up a deep recess between deep-green and
+projecting cliffs, overlooking many abodes distributed in the shadows
+of the groves beyond.
+
+Now, if it indeed be, that from the time employed in its
+construction, any just notion may be formed of the stateliness of an
+edifice, it must needs be determined, that this retreat of Donjalolo
+could not be otherwise than imposing.
+
+Full five hundred moons was the palace in completing; for by some
+architectural arborist, its quadrangular foundations had been laid in
+seed-cocoanuts, requiring that period to sprout up into pillars. In
+front, these were horizontally connected, by elaborately carved
+beams, of a scarlet hue, inserted into the vital wood; which,
+swelling out, and over lapping, firmly secured them. The beams
+supported the rafters, inclining from the rear; while over the
+aromatic grasses covering the roof, waved the tufted tops of the
+Palms, green capitals to their dusky shafts.
+
+Through and through this vibrating verdure, bright birds flitted and
+sang; the scented and variegated thatch seemed a hanging-garden; and
+between it and the Palm tops, was leaf-hung an arbor in the air.
+
+Without these columns, stood a second and third colonnade, forming
+the most beautiful bowers; advancing through which, you fancied that
+the palace beyond must be chambered in a fountain, or frozen in a
+crystal. Three sparkling rivulets flowing from the heights were led
+across its summit, through great trunks half buried in the thatch;
+and emptying into a sculptured channel, running along the eaves,
+poured over in one wide sheet, plaited and transparent. Received into
+a basin beneath, they were thence conducted down the vale.
+
+The sides of the palace were hedged by Diomi bushes bearing a flower,
+from its perfume, called Lenora, or Sweet Breath; and within these
+odorous hedges, were heavy piles of mats, richly dyed and embroidered.
+
+Here lounging of a glowing noon, the plaited cascade playing, the
+verdure waving, and the birds melodious, it was hard to say, whether
+you were an inmate of a garden in the glen, or a grotto in the sea.
+
+But enough for the nonce, of the House of the Morning. Cross we the
+hollow, to the House of the Afternoon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII
+The House Of The Afternoon
+
+
+For the most part, the House of the Afternoon was but a wing built
+against a mansion wrought by the hand of Nature herself; a grotto
+running into the side of the mountain. From high over the mouth of
+this grotto, sloped a long arbor, supported by great blocks of stone,
+rudely chiseled into the likeness of idols, each bearing a carved
+lizard on its chest: a sergeant's guard of the gods condescendingly
+doing duty as posts.
+
+From the grotto thus vestibuled, issued hilariously forth the most
+considerable stream of the glen; which, seemingly overjoyed to find
+daylight in Willamilla, sprang into the arbor with a cheery, white
+bound. But its youthful enthusiasm was soon repressed; its waters
+being caught in a large stone basin, scooped out of the natural rock;
+whence, staid and decorous, they traversed sundry moats; at last
+meandering away, to join floods with the streams trained to do
+service at the other end of the vale.
+
+Truant streams: the livelong day wending their loitering path to the
+subterraneous outlet, flowing into which, they disappeared. But no
+wonder they loitered; passing such ravishing landscapes. Thus with
+life: man bounds out of night; runs and babbles in the sun; then
+returns to his darkness again; though, peradventure, once more to
+emerge.
+
+But the grotto was not a mere outlet to the stream. Flowing through a
+dark flume in the rock, on both sides it left a dry, elevated shelf,
+to which you ascend from the arbor by three artificially-wrought
+steps, sideways disposed, to avoid the spray of the rejoicing
+cataract. Mounting these, and pursuing the edge of the flume, the
+grotto gradually expands and heightens; your way lighted by rays in
+the inner distance. At last you come to a lofty subterraneous dome,
+lit from above by a cleft in the mountain; while full before you, in
+the opposite wall, from a low, black arch, midway up, and
+inaccessible, the stream, with a hollow ring and a dash, falls in a
+long, snowy column into a bottomless pool, whence, after many an eddy
+and whirl, it entered the flume, and away with a rush. Half hidden
+from view by an overhanging brow of the rock, the white fall looked
+like the sheeted ghost of the grotto.
+
+Yet gallantly bedecked was the cave, as any old armorial hall hung
+round with banners and arras. Streaming from the cleft, vines swung
+in the air; or crawled along the rocks, wherever a tendril could be
+fixed. High up, their leaves were green; but lower down, they were
+shriveled; and dyed of many colors; and tattered and torn with much
+rustling; as old banners again; sore raveled with much triumphing.
+
+In the middle of this hall in the hill was incarcerated the stone
+image of one Demi, the tutelar deity of Willamina. All green and oozy
+like a stone under water, poor Demi looked as if sore harassed with
+sciatics and lumbagos.
+
+But he was cheered from aloft, by the promise of receiving a garland
+all blooming on his crown; the Dryads sporting in the woodlands
+above, forever peeping down the cleft, and essaying to drop him a
+coronal.
+
+Now, the still, panting glen of Willamilla, nested so close by the
+mountains, and a goodly green mark for the archer in the sun, would
+have been almost untenable were it not for the grotto. Hereby, it
+breathed the blessed breezes of Omi; a mountain promontory
+buttressing the island to the east, receiving the cool stream of the
+upland Trades; much pleasanter than the currents beneath.
+
+At all times, even in the brooding noon-day, a gush of cool air came
+hand-in-hand with the cool waters, that burst with a shout into the
+palace of Donjalolo. And as, after first refreshing the king, as in
+loyalty bound, the stream flowed at large through the glen, and
+bathed its verdure; so, the blessed breezes of Omi, not only made
+pleasant the House of the Afternoon; but finding ample outlet in its
+wide, open front, blew forth upon the bosom of all Willamilla.
+
+"Come let us take the air of Omi," was a very common saying in the
+glen. And the speaker would hie with his comrade toward the grotto;
+and flinging himself on the turf, pass his hand through his locks,
+and recline; making a joy and a business of breathing; for truly the
+breezes of Omi were as air-wine to the lungs.
+
+Yet was not this breeze over-cool; though at times the zephyrs grew
+boisterous. Especially at the season of high sea, when the strong
+Trades drawn down the cleft in the mountain, rushed forth from the
+grotto with wonderful force. Crossing it then, you had much ado to
+keep your robe on your back.
+
+Thus much for the House of the Afternoon. Whither--after spending the
+shady morning under the eastern cliffs of the glen--daily, at a
+certain hour, Donjalolo in his palanquin was borne; there, finding
+new shades; and there tarrying till evening; when again he was
+transported whence he came: thereby anticipating the revolution of
+the sun. Thus dodging day's luminary through life, the prince hied to
+and fro in his dominions; on his smooth, spotless brow Sol's rays
+never shining.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII
+Babbalanja Solus
+
+
+Of the House of the Afternoon something yet remains to be said.
+
+It was chiefly distinguished by its pavement, where, according to the
+strange customs of the isle, were inlaid the reputed skeletons of
+Donjalolo's sires; each surrounded by a mosaic of corals,--red,
+white, and black, intermixed with vitreous stones fallen from the
+skies in a meteoric shower. These delineated the tattooing of the
+departed. Near by, were imbedded their arms: mace, bow, and spear, in
+similar marquetry; and over each skull was the likeness of a scepter.
+
+First and conspicuous lay the half-decayed remains of Marjora, the
+father of these Coral Kings; by his side, the storied, sickle-shaped
+weapon, wherewith he slew his brother Teei.
+
+"Line of kings and row of scepters," said Babbalanja as he gazed.
+"Donjalolo, come forth and ponder on thy sires. Here they lie, from
+dread Marjora down to him who fathered thee. Here are their bones,
+their spears, and their javelins; their scepters, and the very
+fashion of their tattooing: all that can be got together of what they
+were. Tell me, oh king, what are thy thoughts? Dotest thou on these
+thy sires? Art thou more truly royal, that they were kings? Or more a
+man, that they were men? Is it a fable, or a verity about Marjora and
+the murdered Teei? But here is the mighty conqueror,--ask him. Speak
+to him: son to sire: king to king. Prick him; beg; buffet;
+entreat; spurn; split the globe, he will not budge. Walk over and
+over thy whole ancestral line, and they will not start. They are not
+here. Ay, the dead are not to be found, even in their graves. Nor
+have they simply departed; for they willed not to go; they died not
+by choice; whithersoever they have gone, thither have they been
+dragged; and if so be, they are extinct, their nihilities went not
+more against their grain, than their forced quitting of Mardi. Either
+way, something has become of them that they sought not. Truly, had
+stout-hearted Marjora sworn to live here in Willamilla for ay, and
+kept the vow, _that_ would have been royalty indeed; but here he
+lies. Marjora! rise! Juam revolteth! Lo, I stamp upon thy scepter;
+base menials tread upon thee where thou hest! Up, king, up! What? no
+reply? Are not these bones thine? Oh, how the living triumph over the
+dead! Marjora! answer. Art thou? or art thou not? I see thee not; I
+hear thee not; I feel thee not; eyes, ears, hands, are worthless to
+test thy being; and if thou art, thou art something beyond all human
+thought to compass. We must have other faculties to know thee by.
+Why, thou art not even a sightless sound; not the echo of an echo;
+here are thy bones. Donjalolo, methinks I see thee fallen upon by
+assassins:--which of thy fathers riseth to the rescue? I see thee
+dying:--which of them telleth thee what cheer beyond the grave? But
+they have gone to the land unknown. Meet phrase. Where is it? Not one
+of Oro's priests telleth a straight story concerning it; 'twill be
+hard finding their paradises. Touching the life of Alma, in Mohi's
+chronicles, 'tis related, that a man was once raised from the tomb.
+But rubbed he not his eyes, and stared he not most vacantly? Not one
+revelation did he make. Ye gods! to have been a bystander there!
+
+"At best, 'tis but a hope. But will a longing bring the thing
+desired? Doth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative.
+The fire I shrink from, may consume me.--But dead, and yet
+alive; alive, yet dead;--thus say the sages of Maramma. But die we
+then living? Yet if our dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why
+not our unborn sons? For backward or forward, eternity is the same;
+already have we been the nothing we dread to be. Icy thought! But
+bring it home,--it will not stay. What ho, hot heart of mine: to beat
+thus lustily awhile, to feel in the red rushing blood, and then be
+ashes,--can this be so? But peace, peace, thou liar in me, telling me
+I am immortal--shall I not be as these bones? To come to this! But
+the balsam-dropping palms, whose boles run milk, whose plumes wave
+boastful in the air, they perish in their prime, and bow their
+blasted trunks. Nothing abideth; the river of yesterday floweth not
+to-day; the sun's rising is a setting; living is dying; the very
+mountains melt; and all revolve:--systems and asteroids; the sun
+wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a revolution. Ah gods!
+in all this universal stir, am _I_ to prove one stable thing?
+
+"Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dust
+of beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and
+filch their skulls. _This_, great Marjora's arm? No, some old
+paralytic's. _Ye_, kings? _ye_, men? Where are your vouchers? I do
+reject your brother-hood, ye libelous remains. But no, no; despise
+them not, oh Babbalanja! Thy own skeleton, thou thyself dost carry
+with thee, through this mortal life; and aye would view it, but for
+kind nature's screen; thou art death alive; and e'en to what's before
+thee wilt thou come. Ay, thy children's children will walk over thee:
+thou, voiceless as a calm."
+
+And over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX
+The Center Of Many Circumferences
+
+
+Like Donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we pace
+to the House of the Morning.
+
+In its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to less
+public apartments.
+
+Traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you to
+open ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of the
+prince: a square structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, as
+inscrutable. Down to the very ground, its walls are thatched; but on
+the farther side a passage-way opens, which you enter. But not yet
+are you within. Scarce a yard distant, stands an inner thatched wall,
+blank as the first. Passing along the intervening corridor, lighted
+by narrow apertures, you reach the opposite side, and a second
+opening is revealed. This entering, another corridor; lighted as the
+first, but more dim, and a third blank wall. And thus, three times
+three, you worm round and round, the twilight lessening as you
+proceed; until at last, you enter the citadel itself: the innermost
+arbor of a nest; whereof, each has its roof, distinct from the rest.
+
+The heart of the place is but small; illuminated by a range of open
+sky-lights, downward contracting.
+
+Innumerable as the leaves of an endless folio, multitudinous mats
+cover the floor; whereon reclining by night, like Pharaoh on the top
+of his patrimonial pile, the inmate looks heavenward, and heavenward
+only; gazing at the torchlight processions in the skies, when, in
+state, the suns march to be crowned.
+
+And here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered the
+universe-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef-
+sashed, mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped,
+self-hugged, indivisible Donjalolo, absolute monarch of Juam:--the
+husk-inhusked meat in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; the
+juice-nested seed in a goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in an
+effeminate peach; the insphered sphere of spheres.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX
+Donjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
+
+
+To pretend to relate the manner in which Juam's ruler passed his
+captive days, without making suitable mention of his harem, would be
+to paint one's full-length likeness and omit the face. For it was his
+harem that did much to stamp the character of Donjalolo.
+
+And had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous, surely,
+to have overlooked the princess; much more, then, as it is; and by
+how-much the more, a plurality exceeds a unit.
+
+Exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the person of
+the king, he had wives thirty in number, corresponding in name to the
+nights of the moon. For, in Juam, time is not reckoned by days, but
+by nights; each night of the lunar month having its own designation;
+which, relatively only, is extended to the day.
+
+In uniform succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of the king's
+heart. An arrangement most wise and judicious; precluding much of
+that jealousy and confusion prevalent in ill-regulated seraglios. For
+as thirty spouses must be either more desirable, or less desirable
+than one; so is a harem thirty times more difficult to manage than an
+establishment with one solitary mistress. But Donjalolo's wives were
+so nicely drilled, that for the most part, things went on very
+smoothly. Nor were his brows much furrowed with wrinkles referable to
+domestic cares and tribulations. Although, as in due time will be
+seen, from these he was not altogether exempt.
+
+Now, according to Braid-Beard, who, among other abstruse political
+researches, had accurately informed himself concerning the internal
+administration of Donjalolo's harem, the following was the method
+pursued therein.
+
+On the Aquella, or First Night of the month, the queen of that name
+assumes her diadem, and reigns. So too with Azzolino the Second, and
+Velluvi the Third Night of the Moon; and so on, even unto the utter
+eclipse thereof; through Calends, Nones, and Ides.
+
+For convenience, the king is furnished with a card, whereon are
+copied the various ciphers upon the arms of his queens; and parallel
+thereto, the hieroglyphics significant of the corresponding Nights of
+the month. Glancing over this, Donjalolo predicts the true time of
+the rising and setting of all his stars.
+
+This Moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios, which few
+mortals beheld. For, so deeply were they buried in a grove; so
+overpowered with verdure; so overrun with vines; and so hazy with the
+incense of flowers; that they were almost invisible, unless closely
+approached. Certain it was, that it demanded no small enterprise,
+diligence, and sagacity, to explore the mysterious wood in search of
+them. Though a strange, sweet, humming sound, as of the clustering
+and swarming of warm bees among roses, at last hinted the royal honey
+at hand. High in air, toward the summit of the cliff, overlooking
+this side of the glen, a narrow ledge of rocks might have been seen,
+from which, rumor whispered, was to be caught an angular peep at the
+tip of the apex of the roof of the nearest seraglio. But this wild
+report had never been established. Nor, indeed, was it susceptible of
+a test. For was not that rock inaccessible as the eyrie of young
+eagles? But to guard against the possibility of any visual
+profanation, Donjalolo had authorized an edict, forever tabooing that
+rock to foot of man or pinion of fowl. Birds and bipeds both trembled
+and obeyed; taking a wide circuit to avoid the spot.
+
+Access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors leading from
+the palace. The seraglio to the right was denominated "Ravi"
+(Before), that to the left "Zono" (After). The meaning of which was,
+that upon the termination of her reign the queen wended her way to
+the Zono; there tarrying with her predecessors till the Ravi was
+emptied; when the entire Moon of wives, swallow-like, migrated back
+whence they came; and the procession was gone over again.
+
+In due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with their
+respective ciphers. In the Ravi, the mat of the queen-apparent, or
+next in succession, was spread by the portal. In the Zono, the newly-
+widowed queen reposed furthest from it.
+
+But alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned.
+Notwithstanding these excellent arrangements, the mature result of
+ages of progressive improvement in the economy of the royal seraglios
+in Willamilla, it must needs be related, that at times the order of
+precedence became confused, and was very hard to restore.
+
+At intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to the no small
+delight of the remainder; but to their equal vexation her place would
+soon after be supplied by some beautiful stranger; who assuming the
+denomination of the vacated Night of the Moon, thenceforth commenced
+her monthly revolutions in the king's infallible calendar.
+
+In constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone, thin of
+leg, and puny of frame; whose grateful task it was, to tarry in the
+garden of Donjalolo's delights, without ever touching the roses.
+Along with innumerable other duties, they were perpetually kept
+coming and going upon ten thousand errands; for they had it in strict
+charge to obey the slightest behests of the damsels; and with all
+imaginable expedition to run, fly, swim, or dissolve into impalpable
+air, at the shortest possible notice.
+
+So laborious their avocations, that none could discharge them
+for more than a twelvemonth, at the end of that period giving up the
+ghost out of pure exhaustion of the locomotive apparatus. It was this
+constant drain upon the stock of masculine old age in the glen, that
+so bethinned its small population of gray-beards and hoary-heads. And
+any old man hitherto exempted, who happened to receive a summons to
+repair to the palace, and there wait the pleasure of the king: this
+unfortunate, at once suspecting his doom, put his arbor in order;
+oiled and suppled his joints; took a long farewell of his friends;
+selected his burial-place; and going resigned to his fate, in due
+time expired like the rest.
+
+Had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance, he
+might possibly have derived some little consolation from the thought,
+that though a slave to the whims of thirty princesses, he was
+nevertheless one of their guardians, and as such, he might
+ingeniously have concluded, their superior. But small consolation
+this. For the damsels were as blithe as larks, more playful than
+kittens; never looking sad and sentimental, projecting clandestine
+escapes. But supplied with the thirtieth part of all that Aspasia
+could desire; glorying in being the spouses of a king; nor in the
+remotest degree anxious about eventual dowers; they were care-free,
+content, and rejoicing, as the rays of the morning.
+
+Poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of your fate, one
+drop of the balm of consolation. For, commissioned to watch over
+those who forever kept you on the trot, affording you no time to hunt
+up peccadilloes; was not this circumstance an aggravation of hard
+times? a sharpening and edge-giving to the steel in your souls?
+
+But much yet remains unsaid.
+
+To dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident to these
+attenuated old warders, they were intensely hated by the damsels.
+Inasmuch, as it was archly opined, for what ulterior purposes they
+were retained.
+
+Nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless old
+bronze dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old men ever and anon
+cried out mightily, by reason of sore pinches and scratches received
+in the dark: And tri-trebly-tri-triply girt about as he was,
+Donjalolo himself started from his slumbers, raced round and round
+through his ten thousand corridors; at last bursting all dizzy among
+his twenty-nine queens, to see what under the seventh-heavens was the
+matter. When, lo and behold! there lay the innocents all sound
+asleep; the dragons moaning over their mysterious bruises.
+
+Ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight and the
+torment of the days and nights of Donjalolo.
+
+And in one special matter was he either eminently miserable, or
+otherwise: for all his multiplicity of wives, he had never an heir.
+Not his, the proud paternal glance of the Grand Turk Solyman, looking
+round upon a hundred sons, all bone of his bone, and squinting with
+his squint.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXI
+Wherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The Land
+Of Shades
+
+
+At our morning repast on the second day of our stay in the hollow,
+our party indulged in much lively discourse.
+
+"Samoa," said I, "those isles of yours, of whose beauty you so often
+make vauntful mention, can those isles, good Samoa, furnish a valley
+in all respects equal to Willamilla?"
+
+Disdainful answer was made, that Willamilla might be endurable enough
+for a sojourn, but as a permanent abode, any glen of his own natal
+isle was unspeakably superior.
+
+"In the great valley of Savaii," cried Samoa, "for every leaf grown
+here in Willamilla, grows a stately tree; and for every tree here
+waving, in Savaii flourishes a goodly warrior."
+
+Immeasurable was the disgust of the Upoluan for the enervated
+subjects of Donjalolo; and for Donjalolo himself; though it was
+shrewdly divined, that his annoying reception at the hands of the
+royalty of Juam, had something to do with his disdain.
+
+To Jarl, no similar question was put; for he was sadly deficient in a
+taste for the picturesque. But he cursorily observed, that in his
+blue-water opinion, Willamilla was next to uninhabitable, all view of
+the sea being intercepted.
+
+And here it may be well to relate a comical blunder on the part of
+honest Jarl; concerning which, Samoa, the savage, often afterward
+twitted him; as indicating a rusticity, and want of polish in his
+breeding. It rather originated, however, in his not heeding the
+conventionalities of the strange people among whom he was thrown.
+
+The anecdote is not an epic; but here it is.
+
+Reclining in our arbor, we breakfasted upon a marble slab; so frost-
+white, and flowingly traced with blue veins, that it seemed a little
+lake sheeted over with ice: Diana's virgin bosom congealed.
+
+Before each guest was a richly carved bowl and gourd, fruit and wine
+freighted also the empty hemisphere of a small nut, the purpose of
+which was a problem. Now, King Jarl scorned to admit the slightest
+degree of under-breeding in the matter of polite feeding. So nothing
+was a problem to him. At once reminded of the morsel of Arvaroot in
+his mouth, a substitute for another sort of sedative then
+unattainable, he was instantly illuminated concerning the purpose of
+the nut; and very complacently introduced each to the other; in the
+innocence of his ignorance making no doubt that he had acquitted
+himself with discretion; the little hemisphere plainly being intended
+as a place of temporary deposit for the Arva of the guests.
+
+The company were astounded: Samoa more than all. King Jarl,
+meanwhile, looking at all present with the utmost serenity. At
+length, one of the horrified attendants, using two sticks for a
+forceps, disappeared with the obnoxious nut, Upon which, the meal
+proceeded.
+
+This attendant was not seen again for many days; which gave rise to
+the supposition, that journeying to the sea-side, he had embarked for
+some distant strand; there, to bury out of sight the abomination with
+which he was freighted.
+
+Upon this, his egregious misadventure, calculated to do discredit to
+our party, and bring Media himself into contempt, Babbalanja had no
+scruples in taking Jarl roundly to task. He assured him, that it
+argued but little brains to evince a desire to be thought familiar
+with all things; that however desirable as incidental attainments,
+conventionalities, in themselves, were the very least of arbitrary
+trifles; the knowledge of them, innate with no man. "Moreover Jarl,"
+he added, "in essence, conventionalities are but mimickings,
+at which monkeys succeed best. Hence, when you find yourself at a
+loss in these matters, wait patiently, and mark what the other
+monkeys do: and then follow suit. And by so doing, you will gain a
+vast reputation as an accomplished ape. Above all things, follow not
+the silly example of the young spark Karkeke, of whom Mohi was
+telling me. Dying, and entering the other world with a mincing gait,
+and there finding certain customs quite strange and new; such as
+friendly shades passing through each other by way of a salutation;--
+Karkeke, nevertheless, resolved to show no sign of embarrassment.
+Accosted by a phantom, with wings folded pensively, plumes
+interlocked across its chest, he off head; and stood obsequiously
+before it. Staring at him for an instant, the spirit cut him dead;
+murmuring to itself, 'Ah, some terrestrial bumpkin, I fancy,' and
+passed on with its celestial nose in the highly rarified air. But
+silly Karkeke undertaking to replace his head, found that it would no
+more stay on; but forever tumbled off; even in the act of nodding a
+salute; which calamity kept putting him out of countenance. And thus
+through all eternity is he punished for his folly, in having
+pretended to be wise, wherein he was ignorant. Head under arm, he
+wanders about, the scorn and ridicule of the other world."
+
+Our repast concluded, messengers arrived from the prince, courteously
+inviting our presence at the House of the Morning. Thither we went;
+journeying in sedans, sent across the hollow, for that purpose, by
+Donjalolo.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXII
+How Donjalolo, Sent Agents To The Surrounding Isles; With The Result
+
+
+Ere recounting what was beheld on entering the House of the Morning,
+some previous information is needful. Though so many of Donjalolo's
+days were consumed by sloth and luxury, there came to him certain
+intervals of thoughtfulness, when all his curiosity concerning the
+things of outer Mardi revived with augmented intensity. In these
+moods, he would send abroad deputations, inviting to Willamilla the
+kings of the neighboring islands; together with the most celebrated
+priests, bards, story-tellers, magicians, and wise men; that he might
+hear them converse of those things, which he could not behold for
+himself.
+
+But at last, he bethought him, that the various narrations he had
+heard, could not have been otherwise than unavoidably faulty; by
+reason that they had been principally obtained from the inhabitants
+of the countries described; who, very naturally, must have been
+inclined to partiality or uncandidness in their statements. Wherefore
+he had very lately dispatched to the isles special agents of his own;
+honest of heart, keen of eye, and shrewd of understanding; to seek
+out every thing that promised to illuminate him concerning the places
+they visited, and also to collect various specimens of interesting
+objects; so that at last he might avail himself of the researches of
+others, and see with their eyes.
+
+But though two observers were sent to every one of the
+neighboring lands; yet each was to act independently; make his own
+inquiries; form his own conclusions; and return with his own
+specimens; wholly regardless of the proceedings of the other.
+
+It so came to pass, that on the very day of our arrival in the glen,
+these pilgrims returned from their travels. And Donjalolo had set
+apart the following morning to giving them a grand public reception.
+And it was to this, that our party had been invited, as related in
+the chapter preceding.
+
+In the great Palm-hall of the House of the Morning, we were assigned
+distinguished mats, to the right of the prince; his chiefs,
+attendants, and subjects assembled in the open colonnades without.
+
+When all was in readiness, in marched the company of savans and
+travelers; and humbly standing in a semi-circle before the king,
+their numerous hampers were deposited at their feet.
+
+Donjalolo was now in high spirits, thinking of the rich store of
+reliable information about to be furnished.
+
+"Zuma," said he, addressing the foremost of the company, "you and
+Varnopi were directed to explore the island of Rafona. Proceed now,
+and relate all you know of that place. Your narration heard, we will
+list to Varnopi."
+
+With a profound inclination the traveler obeyed.
+
+But soon Donjalolo interrupted him. "What say you, Zuma, about the
+secret cavern, and the treasures therein? A very different account,
+this, from all I have heard hitherto; but perhaps yours is the true
+version. Go on."
+
+But very soon, poor Zuma was again interrupted by exclamations of
+surprise. Nay, even to the very end of his mountings.
+
+But when he had done, Donjalolo observed, that if from any cause Zuma
+was in error or obscure, Varnopi would not fail to set him right.
+
+So Varnopi was called upon.
+
+But not long had Varnopi proceeded, when Donjalolo changed color.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, "will ye contradict each other before our very
+face. Oh Oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! Fifty
+accounts have I had of Rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here,
+these two varlets, sent expressly to behold and report, these two
+lying knaves, speak crookedly both. How is it? Are the lenses in
+their eyes diverse-hued, that objects seem different to both; for
+undeniable is it, that the things they thus clashingly speak of are
+to be known for the same; though represented with unlike colors and
+qualities. But dumb things can not lie nor err. Unpack thy hampers,
+Zuma. Here, bring them close: now: what is this?"
+
+"That," tremblingly replied Zuma, "is a specimen of the famous reef-
+bar on the west side of the island of Rafona; your highness perceives
+its deep red dyes."
+
+Said Donjalolo, "Varnopi, hast thou a piece of this coral, also?"
+
+"I have, your highness," said Varnopi; "here it is."
+
+Taking it from his hand, Donjalolo gazed at its bleached, white hue;
+then dashing it to the pavement, "Oh mighty Oro! Truth dwells in her
+fountains; where every one must drink for himself. For me, vain all
+hope of ever knowing Mardi! Away! Better know nothing, than be
+deceived. Break up!"
+
+And Donjalolo rose, and retired.
+
+All present now broke out in a storm of vociferation; some siding
+with Zuma; others with Varnopi; each of whom, in turn, was declared
+the man to be relied upon.
+
+Marking all this, Babbalanja, who had been silently looking on,
+leaning against one of the palm pillars, quietly observed to Media:--
+"My lord, I have seen this same reef at Rafona. In various places, it
+is of various hues. As for Zuma and Varnopi, both are wrong, and both
+are right."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIII
+They Visit The Tributary Islets
+
+
+In Willamilla, no Yillah being found, on the third day we took leave
+of Donjalolo; who lavished upon us many caresses and, somewhat
+reluctantly on Media's part, we quitted the vale.
+
+One by one, we now visited the outer villages of Juam; and crossing
+the waters, wandered several days among its tributary isles. There we
+saw the viceroys of him who reigned in the hollow: chieftains of whom
+Donjalolo was proud; so honest, humble, and faithful; so bent upon
+ameliorating the condition of those under their rule. For, be it
+said, Donjalolo was a charitable prince; in his serious intervals,
+ever seeking the welfare of his subjects, though after an imperial
+view of his own. But alas, in that sunny donjon among the mountains,
+where he dwelt, how could Donjalolo be sure, that the things he
+decreed were executed in regions forever remote from his view. Ah!
+very bland, very innocent, very pious, the faces his viceroys
+presented during their monthly visits to Willamilla. But as cruel
+their visage, when, returned to their islets, they abandoned
+themselves to all the license of tyrants; like Verres reveling down
+the rights of the Sicilians.
+
+Like Carmelites, they came to Donjalolo, barefooted; but in their
+homes, their proud latchets were tied by their slaves. Before their
+king-belted prince, they stood rope-girdled like self-abased monks of
+St. Francis; but with those ropes, before their palaces, they hung
+Innocence and Truth.
+
+As still seeking Yillah, and still disappointed, we roved through
+the lands which these chieftains ruled, Babbalanja exclaimed--"Let us
+depart; idle our search, in isles that have viceroys for kings."
+
+At early dawn, about embarking for a distant land, there came to us
+certain messengers of Donjalolo, saying that their lord the king,
+repenting of so soon parting company with Media and Taji, besought
+them to return with all haste; for that very morning, in Willamilla,
+a regal banquet was preparing; to which many neighboring kings had
+been invited, most of whom had already arrived.
+
+Declaring that there was no alternative but compliance, Media
+acceded; and with the king's messengers we returned to the glen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIV
+Taji Sits Down To Dinner With Five-And-Twenty Kings, And A Royal Time
+They Have
+
+
+It was afternoon when we emerged from the defile. And informed that
+our host was receiving his guests in the House of the Afternoon,
+thither we directed our steps.
+
+Soft in our face, blew the blessed breezes of Omi, stirring the
+leaves overhead; while, here and there, through the trees, showed the
+idol-bearers of the royal retreat, hand in hand, linked with festoons
+of flowers. Still beyond, on a level, sparkled the nodding crowns of
+the kings, like the constellation Corona-Borealis, the horizon just
+gained.
+
+Close by his noon-tide friend, the cascade at the mouth of the
+grotto, reposed on his crimson mat, Donjalolo:--arrayed in a vestment
+of the finest white tappa of Mardi, figured all over with bright
+yellow lizards, so curiously stained in the gauze, that he seemed
+overrun, as with golden mice.
+
+Marjora's girdle girdled his loins, tasseled with the congregated
+teeth of his sires. A jeweled turban-tiara, milk-white, surmounted
+his brow, over which waved a copse of Pintado plumes.
+
+But what sways in his hand? A scepter, similar to those likenesses of
+scepters, imbedded among the corals at his feet. A polished thigh-
+bone; by Braid-Beard declared once Teei's the Murdered. For to
+emphasize his intention utterly to rule, Marjora himself had selected
+this emblem of dominion over mankind.
+
+But even this last despite done to dead Teei had once been
+transcended. In the usurper's time, prevailed the belief, that
+the saliva of kings must never touch ground; and Mohi's Chronicles
+made mention, that during the life time of Marjora, Teei's skull had
+been devoted to the basest of purposes: Marjora's, the hate no turf
+could bury.
+
+Yet, traditions like these ever seem dubious. There be many who deny
+the hump, moral and physical, of Gloster Richard.
+
+Still advancing unperceived, in social hilarity we descried their
+Highnesses, chatting together like the most plebeian of mortals; full
+as merry as the monks of old. But marking our approach, all changed.
+A pair of potentates, who had been playfully trifling, hurriedly
+adjusted their diadems, threw themselves into attitudes, looking
+stately as statues. Phidias turned not out his Jupiter so soon.
+
+In various-dyed robes the five-and-twenty kings were arrayed; and
+various their features, as the rows of lips, eyes and ears in John
+Caspar Lavater's physiognomical charts. Nevertheless, to a king, all
+their noses were aquiline.
+
+There were long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins,
+like those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows
+and wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one
+king was deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a
+dotard. They were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly,
+fat and lean, cunning and simple.
+
+With animated courtesy our host received us; assigning a neighboring
+bower for Babbalanja and the rest; and among so many right-royal,
+demi-divine guests, how could the demi-gods Media and Taji be
+otherwise than at home?
+
+The unwonted sprightliness of Donjalolo surprised us. But he was in
+one of those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his
+failures in efforts to amend his life. And the bootless issue of his
+late mission to outer Mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry.
+Nor had he lately shunned a wild wine, called Morando.
+
+A slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated
+freely.
+
+Not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the Morando much. A nutty,
+pungent flavor it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the
+Philippine isles. And a marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving
+the crystalization of the brain; leaving nothing but precious little
+drops of good humor, beading round the bowl of the cranium.
+
+Meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars,
+and stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended
+hangings of crimson tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the
+pavement they rustled in the breeze from the grot.
+
+Presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a
+porphyry hue, deep-hollowed out of a tree. Outside, were innumerable
+grotesque conceits; conspicuous among which, for a border, was an
+endless string of the royal lizards circumnavigating the basin in
+inverted chase of their tails.
+
+Peculiar to the groves of Willamilla, the yellow lizard formed part
+of the arms of Juam. And when Donjalolo's messenger went abroad, they
+carried its effigy, as the emblem of their royal master; themselves
+being known, as the Gentlemen of the Golden Lizard.
+
+The porphyry-hued basin planted full in our midst, the attendants
+forthwith filled the same with the living waters from the cascade; a
+proceeding, for which some of the company were at a loss to account,
+unless his highness, our host, with all the coolness of royalty,
+purposed cooling himself still further, by taking a bath in presence
+of his guests. A conjecture, most premature; for directly, the basin
+being filled to within a few inches of the lizards, the attendants
+fell to launching therein divers goodly sized trenchers, all laden
+with choice viands:--wild boar meat; humps of grampuses; embrowned
+bread-fruit, roasted in odoriferous fires of sandal wood, but
+suffered to cool; gold fish, dressed with the fragrant juices
+of berries; citron sauce; rolls of the baked paste of yams; juicy
+bananas, steeped in a saccharine oil; marmalade of plantains; jellies
+of guava; confections of the treacle of palm sap; and many other
+dainties; besides numerous stained calabashes of Morando, and other
+beverages, fixed in carved floats to make them buoyant.
+
+The guests assigned seats, by the woven handles attached to his
+purple mat, the prince, our host, was now gently moved by his
+servitors to the head of the porphyry-hued basin. Where, flanked by
+lofty crowned-heads, white-tiaraed, and radiant with royalty, he sat;
+like snow-turbaned Mont Blanc, at sunrise presiding over the head
+waters of the Rhone; to right and left, looming the gilded summits of
+the Simplon, the Gothard, the Jungfrau, the Great St. Bernard, and
+the Grand Glockner.
+
+Yet turbid from the launching of its freight, Lake Como tossed to and
+fro its navies of good cheer, the shadows of the king-peaks wildly
+flitting thereupon.
+
+But no frigid wine and fruit cooler, Lake Como; as at first it did
+seem; but a tropical dining table, its surface a slab of light blue
+St. Pons marble in a state of fluidity.
+
+Now, many a crown was doffed; scepters laid aside; girdles slackened;
+and among those verdant viands the bearded kings like goats did
+browse; or tusking their wild boar's meat, like mastiffs ate.
+
+And like unto some well-fought fight, beginning calmly, but pressing
+forward to a fiery rush, this well-fought feast did now wax warm.
+
+A few royal epicures, however, there were: epicures intent upon
+concoctions, admixtures, and masterly compoundings; who comported
+themselves with all due deliberation and dignity; hurrying themselves
+into no reckless deglutition of the dainties. Ah! admirable conceit,
+Lake Como: superseding attendants. For, from hand to hand the
+trenchers sailed; no sooner gaining one port, than dispatched over
+sea to another.
+
+Well suited they were for the occasion; sailing high out of
+water, to resist the convivial swell at times ruffling the sociable
+sea; and sharp at both ends, still better adapting them to easy
+navigation.
+
+But soon, the Morando, in triumphant decanters, went round, reeling
+like barks before a breeze. But their voyages were brief; and ere
+long, in certain havens, the accumulation of empty vessels threatened
+to bridge the lake with pontoons. In those directions, Trade winds
+were setting. But full soon, cut out were all unladen and
+unprofitable gourds; and replaced by jolly-bellied calabashes, for a
+time sailing deep, yawing heavily to the push.
+
+At last, the whole flotilla of trenchers--wrecks and all--were sent
+swimming to the further end of Lake Como; and thence removed, gave
+place to ruddy hillocks of fruit, and floating islands of flowers.
+Chief among the former, a quince-like, golden sphere, that filled the
+air with such fragrance, you thought you were tasting its flavor.
+
+Nor did the wine cease flowing. That day the Juam grape did bleed;
+that day the tendril ringlets of the vines, did all uncurl and grape
+by grape, in sheer dismay, the sun ripe clusters dropped. Grape-glad
+were five-and-twenty kings: five-and-twenty kings were merry.
+
+Morando's vintage had no end; nor other liquids, in the royal cellar
+stored, somewhere secret in the grot. Oh! where's the endless Niger's
+source? Search ye here, or search ye there; on, on, through ravine,
+vega, vale--no head waters will ye find. But why need gain the hidden
+spring, when its lavish stream flows by? At three-fold mouths that
+Delta-grot discharged; rivers golden, white, and red.
+
+But who may sing for aye? Down I come, and light upon the old and
+prosy plain.
+
+Among other decanters set afloat, was a pompous, lordly-looking
+demijohn, but old and reverend withal, that sailed about,
+consequential as an autocrat going to be crowned, or a treasure-
+freighted argosie bound home before the wind. It looked
+solemn, however, though it reeled; peradventure, far gone with its
+own potent contents.
+
+Oh! russet shores of Rhine and Rhone! oh, mellow memories of ripe old
+vintages! oh, cobwebs in the Pyramids! oh, dust on Pharaoh's tomb!--
+all, all recur, as I bethink me of that glorious gourd, its contents
+cogent as Tokay, itself as old as Mohi's legends; more venerable to
+look at than his beard. Whence came it? Buried in vases, so saith the
+label, with the heart of old Marjora, now dead one hundred thousand
+moons. Exhumed at last, it looked no wine, but was shrunk into a
+subtile syrup.
+
+This special calabash was distinguished by numerous trappings,
+caparisoned like the sacred bay steed led before the Great Khan of
+Tartary. A most curious and betasseled network encased it; and the
+royal lizard was jealously twisted about its neck, like a hand on a
+throat containing some invaluable secret.
+
+All Hail, Marzilla! King's Own Royal Particular! A vinous Percy!
+Dating back to the Conquest! Distilled of yore from purple berries
+growing in the purple valley of Ardair! Thrice hail.
+
+But the imperial Marzilla was not for all; gods only could partake;
+the Kings and demigods of the isles; excluding left-handed
+descendants of sad rakes of immortals, in old times breaking heads
+and hearts in Mardi, bequeathing bars-sinister to many mortals, who
+now in vain might urge a claim to a cup-full of right regal Marzilla.
+
+The Royal Particular was pressed upon me, by the now jovial
+Donjalolo. With his own sceptered hand charging my flagon to the
+brim, he declared his despotic pleasure, that I should quaff it off
+to the last lingering globule. No hard calamity, truly; for the
+drinking of this wine was as the singing of a mighty ode, or frenzied
+lyric to the soul.
+
+"Drink, Taji," cried Donjalolo, "drink deep. In this wine a king's
+heart is dissolved. Drink long; in this wine lurk the seeds of the
+life everlasting Drink deep; drink long: thou drinkest wisdom
+and valor at every draught. Drink forever, oh Taji, for thou drinkest
+that which will enable thee to stand up and speak out before mighty
+Oro himself."
+
+"Borabolla," he added, turning round upon a domed old king at his
+left, "Was it not the god Xipho, who begged of my great-great-
+grandsire a draught of this same wine, saying he was about to beget a
+hero?"
+
+"Even so. And thy glorious Marzilla produced thrice valiant Ononna,
+who slew the giants of the reef."
+
+"Ha, ha, hear'st that, oh Taji?" And Donjalolo drained another cup.
+
+Amazing! the flexibility of the royal elbow, and the rigidity of the
+royal spine! More especially as we had been impressed with a notion
+of their debility. But, sometimes these seemingly enervated young
+blades approve themselves steadier of limb, than veteran revelers of
+very long standing.
+
+"Discharge the basin, and refill it with wine," cried Donjalolo.
+"Break all empty gourds! Drink, kings, and dash your cups at every
+draught."
+
+So saying, he started from his purple mat; and with one foot planted
+unknowingly upon the skull of Marjora; while all the skeletons
+grinned at him from the pavement; Donjalolo, holding on high his
+blood-red goblet, burst forth with the following invocation:--
+
+    Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all;
+    Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call!
+    Fill fast, and fill frill; 'gainst the goblet ne'er sin;
+    Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:--
+      Flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim!
+
+    Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his cares?
+    Who sighs to be wise, when wine in him flares?
+    Water sinks down below, in currents full slow;
+    But wine mounts on high with its genial glow:--
+      Welling up, till the brain overflow!
+
+    As the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul,
+    Others golden, with music, revolve round the pole;
+
+    So let our cups, radiant with many hued wines,
+    Round and round in groups circle, our Zodiac's Signs:--
+      Round reeling, and ringing their chimes!
+
+    Then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment brings;
+    It bounds through the veins; there, jubilant sings.
+    Let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never grows dim;
+    Drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded rim:--
+      Fill up, every cup, to the brim!
+
+
+Caught by all present, the chorus resounded again and again. The
+beaded wine danced on many a beard; the cataract lifted higher its
+voice; the grotto sent back a shout; the ghosts of the Coral Monarchs
+seemed starting from their insulted bones. But ha, ha, ha, roared
+forth the five-and-twenty kings--alive, not dead--holding both hands
+to their girdles, and baying out their laughter from abysses; like
+Nimrod's hounds over some fallen elk.
+
+Mad and crazy revelers, how ye drank and roared! but kings no more:
+vestures loosed; and scepters rolling on the ground.
+
+Glorious agrarian, thou wine! bringing all hearts on a level, and at
+last all legs to the earth; even those of kings, who, to do them
+justice, have been much maligned for imputed qualities not theirs.
+For whoso has touched flagons with monarchs, bear they their back
+bones never so stiffly on the throne, well know the rascals, to be at
+bottom royal good fellows; capable of a vinous frankness exceeding
+that of base-born men. Was not Alexander a boon companion? And daft
+Cambyses? and what of old Rowley, as good a judge of wine and other
+matters, as ever sipped claret or kisses.
+
+If ever Taji joins a club, be it a Beef-Steak Club of Kings!
+
+Donjalolo emptied yet another cup.
+
+The mirth now blew a gale; like a ship's shrouds in a Typhoon, every
+tendon vibrated; the breezes of Omi came forth with a rush; the
+hangings shook; the goblets danced fandangos; and Donjalolo,
+clapping his hands, called before him his dancing women.
+
+Forth came from the grotto a reed-like burst of song, making all
+start, and look that way to behold such enchanting strains. Sounds
+heralding sights! Swimming in the air, emerged the nymphs, lustrous
+arms interlocked like Indian jugglers' glittering snakes. Round the
+cascade they thronged; then paused in its spray. Of a sudden, seemed
+to spring from its midst, a young form of foam, that danced into the
+soul like a thought. At last, sideways floating off, it subsided into
+the grotto, a wave. Evening drawing on apace, the crimson draperies
+were lifted, and festooned to the arms of the idol-pillars, admitting
+the rosy light of the even.
+
+Yielding to the re-action of the banquet, the kings now reclined; and
+two mute damsels entered: one with a gourd of scented waters; the
+other with napkins. Bending over Donjalolo's steaming head, the first
+let fall a shower of aromatic drops, slowly aborbed by her companion.
+Thus, in turn, all were served; nothing heard but deep breathing.
+
+In a marble vase they now kindled some incense: a handful of spices.
+
+Shortly after, came three of the king's beautiful smokers; who,
+lighting their tubes at this odorous fire, blew over the company the
+sedative fumes of the Aina.
+
+Steeped in languor, I strove against it long; essayed to struggle out
+of the enchanted mist. But a syren hand seemed ever upon me, pressing
+me back.
+
+Half-revealed, as in a dream, and the last sight that I saw, was
+Donjalolo:--eyes closed, face pale, locks moist, borne slowly to his
+sedan, to cross the hollow, and wake in the seclusion of his harem.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXV
+After Dinner
+
+
+As in dreams I behold thee again, Willamila! as in dreams, once again
+I stroll through thy cool shady groves, oh fairest of the vallies of
+Mardi! the thought of that mad merry feasting steals over my soul
+till I faint.
+
+Prostrate here and there over the bones of Donjalolo's sires, the
+royal bacchanals lay slumbering till noon.
+
+"Which are the deadest?" said Babbalanja, peeping in, "the live
+kings, or the dead ones?"
+
+But the former were drooping flowers sought to be revived by
+watering. At intervals the sedulous attendants went to and fro,
+besprinkling their heads with the scented contents of their vases.
+
+At length, one by one, the five-and-twenty kings lifted their
+ambrosial curls; and shaking the dew therefrom, like eagles opened
+their right royal eyes, and dilated their aquiline nostrils, full
+upon the golden rays of the sun.
+
+But why absented himself, Donjalolo? Had he cavalierly left them to
+survive the banquet by themselves? But this apparent incivility was
+soon explained by heralds, announcing to their prone majesties, that
+through the over solicitude of his slaves, their lord the king had
+been borne to his harem, without being a party to the act. But to
+make amends, in his sedan, Donjalolo was even now drawing nigh. Not,
+however, again to make merry; but socially to sleep in company with
+his guests; for, together they had all got high, and together they
+must all lie low.
+
+So at it they went: each king to his bones, and slumbered like
+heroes till evening; when, availing themselves of the cool moonlight
+approaching, the royal guests bade adieu to their host; and summoning
+their followers, quitted the glen.
+
+Early next day, having determined to depart for our canoes, we
+proceeded to the House of the Morning, to take leave of Donjalolo.
+
+An amazing change, one night of solitude had wrought! Pale and
+languid, we found him reclining: one hand on his throbbing temples.
+
+Near an overturned vessel of wine, the royal girdle lay tossed at his
+feet. He had waved off his frightened attendants, who crouched out of
+sight.
+
+We advanced.
+
+"Do ye too leave me? Ready enough are ye to partake of my
+banquetings, which, to such as ye, are but mad incidents in one round
+of more tranquil diversions. But heed me not, Media;--I am mad. Oh,
+ye gods! am I forever a captive?--Ay, free king of Odo, when you
+list, condescend to visit the poor slave in Willamilla. I account
+them but charity, your visits; would fain allure ye by sumptuous
+fare. Go, leave me; go, and be rovers again throughout blooming
+Mardi. For, me, I am here for aye.--Bring me wine, slaves! quick!
+that I may pledge my guests fitly. Alas, Media, at the bottom of this
+cup are no sparkles as at top. Oh, treacherous, treacherous friend!
+full of smiles and daggers. Yet for such as me, oh wine, thou art
+e'en a prop, though it pierce the side; for man must lean. Thou wine
+art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all. King Media,
+let us drink. More cups!--And now, farewell."
+
+Falling back, he averted his face; and silently we quitted the
+palace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVI
+Of Those Scamps The Plujii
+
+
+The beach gained, we embarked.
+
+In good time our party recovered from the seriousness into which we
+had been thrown; and a rather long passage being now before us, we
+whiled away the hours as best we might.
+
+Among many entertaining, narrations, old Braid-Beard, crossing his
+calves, and peaking his beard, regaled us with some account of
+certain invisible spirits, ycleped the Plujii, arrant little knaves
+as ever gulped moonshine.
+
+They were spoken of as inhabiting the island of Quelquo, in a remote
+corner of the lagoon; the innocent people of which island were sadly
+fretted and put out by their diabolical proceedings. Not to be
+wondered at; since, dwelling as they did in the air, and completely
+inaccessible, these spirits were peculiarly provocative of ire.
+
+Detestable Plujii! With malice aforethought, they brought about high
+winds that destroyed the banana plantations, and tumbled over the
+heads of its occupants many a bamboo dwelling. They cracked the
+calabashes; soured the "poee;" induced the colic; begat the spleen;
+and almost rent people in twain with stitches in the side. In short,
+from whatever evil, the cause of which the Islanders could not
+directly impute to their gods, or in their own opinion was not
+referable to themselves,--of that very thing must the invisible
+Plujii be guilty. With horrible dreams, and blood-thirsty gnats, they
+invaded the most innocent slumbers.
+
+All things they bedeviled. A man with a wry neck ascribed it
+to the Plujii; he with a bad memory railed against the Plujii; and
+the boy, bruising his finger, also cursed those abominable spirits.
+
+Nor, to some minds, at least, was there wanting strong presumptive
+evidence, that at times, with invisible fingers, the above mentioned
+Plujii did leave direct and tangible traces of their presence;
+pinching and pounding the unfortunate Islanders; pulling their hair;
+plucking their ears, and tweaking their beards and their noses. And
+thus perpetually vexing, incensing, tormenting, and exasperating
+their helpless victims, the atrocious Plujii reveled in their
+malicious dominion over the souls and bodies of the people of Quelquo.
+
+What it was, that induced them to enact such a part, Oro only knew;
+and never but once, it seems, did old Mohi endeavor to find out.
+
+Once upon a time, visiting Quelquo, he chanced to encounter an old
+woman almost doubled together, both hands upon her abdomen; in that
+manner running about distracted.
+
+"My good woman," said he, "what under the firmament is the matter?"
+
+"The Plujii! the Plujii!" affectionately caressing the field of their
+operations.
+
+"But why do they torment you?" he soothingly inquired. "How should I
+know? and what good would it do me if I did?"
+
+And on she ran.
+
+At this part of his narration, Mohi was interrupted by Media; who,
+much to the surprise of all present, observed, that, unbeknown to him
+(Braid-Beard), he happened to have been on that very island, at that
+very time, and saw that identical old lady in the very midst of those
+abdominal tribulations.
+
+"That she was really in great distress," he went on to say, "was
+plainly to be seen; but that in that particular instance, your
+Plujii had any hand in tormenting her, I had some boisterous doubts.
+For, hearing that an hour or two previous she had been partaking of
+some twenty unripe bananas, I rather fancied that that circumstance
+might have had something to do with her sufferings. But however it
+was, all the herb-leeches on the island would not have altered her
+own opinions on the subject."
+
+"No," said Braid-Beard; "a post-mortem examination would not have
+satisfied her ghost."
+
+"Curious to relate," he continued, "the people of that island never
+abuse the Plujii, notwithstanding all they suffer at their hands,
+unless under direct provocation; and a settled matter of faith is it,
+that at such times all bitter words and hasty objurgations are
+entirely overlooked, nay, pardoned on the spot, by the unseen genii
+against whom they are directed."
+
+"Magnanimous Plujii!" cried Media. "But, Babbalanja, do you, who run
+a tilt at all things, suffer this silly conceit to be uttered with
+impunity in your presence? Why so silent?"
+
+"I have been thinking, my lord," said Babbalanja, "that though the
+people of that island may at times err, in imputing their calamities
+to the Plujii, that, nevertheless, upon the whole, they indulge in a
+reasonable belief. For, Plujii or no Plujii, it is undeniable, that
+in ten thousand ways, as if by a malicious agency, we mortals are
+woefully put out and tormented; and that, too, by things in
+themselves so exceedingly trivial, that it would seem almost impiety
+to ascribe them to the august gods. No; there must exist some greatly
+inferior spirits; so insignificant, comparatively, as to be
+overlooked by the supernal powers; and through them it must be, that
+we are thus grievously annoyed. At any rate; such a theory would
+supply a hiatus in my system of meta-physics."
+
+"Well, peace to the Plujii," said Media; "they trouble not me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVII
+Nora-Bamma
+
+
+Still onward gliding, the lagoon a calm.
+
+Hours pass; and full before us, round and green, a Moslem turban by
+us floats--Nora-Bamma, Isle of Nods.
+
+Noon-tide rolls its flood. Vibrates the air, and trembles. And by
+illusion optical, thin-draped in azure haze, drift here and there the
+brilliant lands: swans, peacock-plumaged, sailing through the sky.
+Down to earth hath heaven come; hard telling sun-clouds from the isles.
+
+And high in air nods Nora-Bamma. Nid-nods its tufted summit like
+three ostrich plumes; its beetling crags, bent poppies, shadows,
+willowy shores, all nod; its streams are murmuring down the hills;
+its wavelets hush the shore.
+
+Who dwells in Nora-Bamma? Dreamers, hypochondriacs, somnambulists;
+who, from the cark and care of outer Mardi fleeing, in the poppy's
+jaded odors, seek oblivion for the past, and ecstasies to come.
+
+Open-eyed, they sleep and dream; on their roof-trees, grapes unheeded
+drop. In Nora-Bamma, whispers are as shouts; and at a zephyr's breath,
+from the woodlands shake the leaves, as of humming-birds, a flight.
+
+All this spake Braid-Beard, of the isle. How that none ere touched
+its strand, without rendering instant tribute of a nap; how that
+those who thither voyaged, in golden quest of golden gourds, fast
+dropped asleep, ere one was plucked; waking not till night; how that
+you must needs rub hard your eyes, would you wander through the isle;
+and how that silent specters would be met, haunting twilight groves,
+and dreamy meads; hither gliding, thither fading, end or purpose none.
+
+True or false, so much for Mohi's Nora Bamma.
+
+But as we floated on, it looked the place described. We yawned, and
+yawned, as crews of vessels may; as in warm Indian seas, their
+winnowing sails all swoon, when by them glides some opium argosie.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII
+In A Calm, Hautia's Heralds Approach
+
+
+"How still!" cried Babbalanja. "This calm is like unto Oro's
+everlasting serenity, and like unto man's last despair."
+
+But now the silence was broken by a strange, distant, intermitted
+melody in the water.
+
+Gazing over the side, we saw naught but a far-darting ray in its
+depths.
+
+Then Yoomy, before buried in a reverie, burst forth with a verse,
+sudden as a jet from a Geyser.
+
+    Like the fish of the bright and twittering fin,
+      Bright fish! diving deep as high soars the lark,
+    So, far, far, far, doth the maiden swim,
+      Wild song, wild light, in still ocean's dark.
+
+"What maiden, minstrel?" cried Media.
+
+"None of these," answered Yoomy, pointing out a shallop gliding near.
+
+"The damsels three:--Taji, they pursue you yet." That still canoe
+drew nigh, the Iris in its prow.
+
+Gliding slowly by, one damsel flung a Venus-car, the leaves yet fresh.
+
+Said Yoomy--"Fly to love."
+
+The second maiden flung a pallid blossom, buried in hemlock leaves.
+
+Said Yoomy, starting--"I have wrought a death."
+
+Then came showering Venus-cars, and glorious moss-roses numberless,
+and odorous handfuls of Verbena.
+
+Said Yoomy--"Yet fly, oh fly to me: all rosy joys and sweets are mine."
+
+Then the damsels floated on.
+
+"Was ever queen more enigmatical?" cried Media--"Love,--death,--joy,
+--fly to me? But what says Taji?"
+
+"That I turn not back for Hautia; whoe'er she be, that wild witch I
+contemn."
+
+"Then spread our pinions wide! a breeze! up sails! ply paddles all!
+Come, Flora's flute, float forth a song."
+
+To pieces picking the thorny roses culled from Hautia's gifts, and
+holding up their blighted cores, thus plumed and turbaned Yoomy sang,
+leaning against the mast:--
+
+    Oh! royal is the rose,
+      But barbed with many a dart;
+    Beware, beware the rose,
+      'Tis cankered at the heart.
+
+      Sweet, sweet the sunny down,
+    Oh! lily, lily, lily down!
+      Sweet, sweet, Verbena's bloom!
+    Oh! pleasant, gentle, musky bloom!
+
+    Dread, dread the sunny down;
+      Lo! lily-hooded asp;
+    Blooms, blooms no more Verbena;
+      White-withered in your clasp.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIX
+Braid-Beard Rehearses The Origin Of The Isle Of Rogues
+
+
+Judge not things by their names. This, the maxim illustrated
+respecting the isle toward which we were sailing.
+
+Ohonoo was its designation, in other words the Land of Rogues. So
+what but a nest of villains and pirates could one fancy it to be: a
+downright Tortuga, swarming with "Brethren of the coast,"--such as
+Montbars, L'Ollonais, Bartolomeo, Peter of Dieppe, and desperadoes of
+that kidney. But not so. The men of Ohonoo were as honest as any in
+Mardi. They had a suspicious appellative for their island, true; but
+not thus seemed it to them. For, upon nothing did they so much plume
+themselves as upon this very name. Why? Its origin went back to old
+times; and being venerable they gloried therein; though they
+disclaimed its present applicability to any of their race; showing,
+that words are but algebraic signs, conveying no meaning except what
+you please. And to be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
+
+But how came the Ohonoose by their name?
+
+Listen, and Braid-Beard, our Herodotus, will tell.
+
+Long and long ago, there were banished to Ohonoo all the bucaniers,
+flibustiers, thieves, and malefactors of the neighboring islands;
+who, becoming at last quite a numerous community, resolved to make a
+stand for their dignity, and number one among the nations of Mardi.
+And even as before they had been weeded out of the surrounding
+countries; so now, they went to weeding out themselves; banishing all
+objectionable persons to still another island.
+
+These events happened at a period so remote, that at present it was
+uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second
+exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their
+comparative honesty. If the latter, then must the residue have been a
+precious enough set of scoundrels.
+
+However it was, the commonwealth of knaves now mustered together
+their gray-beards, and wise-pates, and knowing-ones, of which last
+there was a plenty, chose a king to rule over them, and went to
+political housekeeping for themselves.
+
+And in the fullness of time, this people became numerous and mighty.
+And the more numerous and mighty they waxed, by so much the more did
+they take pride and glory in their origin, frequently reverting to it
+with manifold boastings. The proud device of their monarch was a hand
+with the forefinger crooked, emblematic of the peculatory
+propensities of his ancestors.
+
+And all this, at greater length, said Mohi.
+
+"It would seem, then, my lord," said Babbalanja, reclining, "as if
+these men of Ohonoo had canonized the derelictions of their
+progenitors, though the same traits are deemed scandalous among
+themselves. But it is time that makes the difference. The knave of a
+thousand years ago seems a fine old fellow full of spirit and fun,
+little malice in his soul; whereas, the knave of to-day seems a sour-
+visaged wight, with nothing to redeem him. Many great scoundrels of
+our Chronicler's chronicles are heroes to us:--witness, Marjora the
+usurper. Ay, time truly works wonders. It sublimates wine; it
+sublimates fame; nay, is the creator thereof; it enriches and darkens
+our spears of the Palm; enriches and enlightens the mind; it ripens
+cherries and young lips; festoons old ruins, and ivies old heads;
+imparts a relish to old yams, and a pungency to the Ponderings of old
+Bardianna; of fables distills truths; and finally, smooths, levels,
+glosses, softens, melts, and meliorates all things. Why, my
+lord, round Mardi itself is all the better for its antiquity, and the
+more to be revered; to the cozy-minded, more comfortable to dwell in.
+Ah! if ever it lay in embryo like a green seed in the pod, what a
+damp, shapeless thing it must have been, and how unpleasant from the
+traces of its recent creation. The first man, quoth old Bardianna,
+must have felt like one going into a new habitation, where the
+bamboos are green. Is there not a legend in Maramma, that his family
+were long troubled with influenzas and catarrhs?"
+
+"Oh Time, Time, Time!" cried Yoomy--"it is Time, old midsummer Time,
+that has made the old world what it is. Time hoared the old
+mountains, and balded their old summits, and spread the old prairies,
+and built the old forests, and molded the old vales. It is Time that
+has worn glorious old channels for the glorious old rivers, and
+rounded the old lakes, and deepened the old sea! It is Time--"
+
+"Ay, full time to cease," cried Media. "What have you to do with
+cogitations not in verse, minstrel? Leave prose to Babbalanja, who is
+prosy enough."
+
+"Even so," said Babbalanja, "Yoomy, you  have overstepped your
+province. My lord Media well knows, that your business is to make the
+metal in you jingle in tags, not ring in the ingot."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC
+Rare Sport At Ohonoo
+
+
+Approached from the northward, Ohonoo, midway cloven down to the sea,
+one half a level plain; the other, three mountain terraces--Ohonoo
+looks like the first steps of a gigantic way to the sun. And such, if
+Braid-Beard spoke truth, it had formerly been.
+
+"Ere Mardi was made," said that true old chronicler, "Vivo, one of
+the genii, built a ladder of mountains whereby to go up and go down.
+And of this ladder, the island of Ohonoo was the base. But wandering
+here and there, incognito in a vapor, so much wickedness did Vivo spy
+out, that in high dudgeon he hurried up his ladder, knocking the
+mountains from under him as he went. These here and there fell into
+the lagoon, forming many isles, now green and luxuriant; which, with
+those sprouting from seeds dropped by a bird from the moon, comprise
+all the groups in the reef."
+
+Surely, oh, surely, if I live till Mardi be forgotten by Mardi, I
+shall not forget the sight that greeted us, as we drew nigh the
+shores of this same island of Ohonoo; for was not all Ohonoo bathing
+in the surf of the sea?
+
+But let the picture be painted.
+
+Where eastward the ocean rolls surging against the outer reef of
+Mardi, there, facing a flood-gate in the barrier, stands cloven
+Ohonoo; her plains sloping outward to the sea, her mountains a
+bulwark behind. As at Juam, where the wild billows from seaward roll
+in upon its cliffs; much more at Ohonoo, in billowy battalions charge
+they hotly into the lagoon, and fall on the isle like an army
+from the deep. But charge they never so boldly, and charge they
+forever, old Ohonoo gallantly throws them back till all before her is
+one scud and rack. So charged the bright billows of cuirassiers at
+Waterloo: so hurled them off the long line of living walls, whose
+base was as the sea-beach, wreck-strown, in a gale.
+
+Without the break in the reef wide banks of coral shelve off,
+creating the bar, where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in
+water-bolts, that shake the whole reef, till its very spray trembles.
+And then is it, that the swimmers of Ohonoo most delight to gambol in
+the surf.
+
+For this sport, a surf-board is indispensable: some five feet in
+length; the width of a man's body; convex on both sides; highly
+polished; and rounded at the ends. It is held in high estimation;
+invariably oiled after use; and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling
+of the owner.
+
+Ranged on the beach, the bathers, by hundreds dash in; and diving
+under the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till
+the comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here,
+throwing themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a
+billow that suits. Snatching them up, it hurries them landward,
+volume and speed both increasing, till it races along a watery wall,
+like the smooth, awful verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll,
+looking down from it as from a precipice, the bathers halloo; every
+limb in motion to preserve their place on the very crest of the wave.
+Should they fall behind, the squadrons that follow would whelm them;
+dismounted, and thrown forward, as certainly would they be run over
+by the steed they ride. 'Tis like charging at the head of cavalry:
+you must on.
+
+An expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank; now half striding
+it; and anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in
+the scud, coming on like a man in the air.
+
+At last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts
+like a bomb. Adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out;
+and like seals at the Orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore.
+
+Landing in smooth water, some distance from the scene, we strolled
+forward; and meeting a group resting, inquired for Uhia, their king.
+He was pointed out in the foam. But presently drawing nigh, he
+embraced Media, bidding all welcome.
+
+The bathing over, and evening at hand, Uhia and his subjects repaired
+to their canoes; and we to ours.
+
+Landing at another quarter of the island, we journeyed up a valley
+called Monlova, and were soon housed in a very pleasant retreat of
+our host.
+
+Soon supper was spread. But though the viands were rare, and the red
+wine went round and round like a foaming bay horse in the ring; yet
+we marked, that despite the stimulus of his day's good sport, and the
+stimulus of his brave good cheer, Uhia our host was moody and still.
+
+Said Babbalanja "My lord, he fills wine cups for others to quaff."
+
+But whispered King Media, "Though Uhia be sad, be we merry, merry men."
+
+And merry some were, and merrily went to their mats.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI
+Of King Uhia And His Subjects
+
+
+As beseemed him, Uhia was royally lodged. Ample his roof. Beneath it
+a hundred attendants nightly laying their heads. But long since, he
+had disbanded his damsels.
+
+Springing from syren embrace--"They shall sap and mine me no more" he
+cried "my destiny commands me. I will don my manhood. By Keevi! no
+more will I clasp a waist."
+
+"From that time forth," said Braid-Beard, "young Uhia spread like the
+tufted top of the Palm; his thigh grew brawny as the limb of the
+Banian; his arm waxed strong as the back bone of the shark; yea, his
+voice grew sonorous as a conch."
+
+"And now he bent his whole soul to the accomplishment of the destiny
+believed to be his. Nothing less than bodily to remove Ohonoo to the
+center of the lagoon, in fulfillment of an old prophecy running thus--
+When a certain island shall stir from its foundations and stand in
+the middle of the still water, then shall the ruler of that island be
+ruler of all Mardi."
+
+The task was hard, but how glorious the reward! So at it he went, and
+all Ohonoo helped him. Not by hands, but by calling in the magicians.
+Thus far, nevertheless, in vain. But Uhia had hopes.
+
+Now, informed of all this, said Babbalanja to Media, "My lord, if the
+continual looking-forward to something greater, be better than an
+acquiescence in things present; then, wild as it is, this belief of
+Uhia's he should hug to his heart, as erewhile his wives. But
+my lord, this faith it is, that robs his days of peace; his nights of
+sweet unconsciousness. For holding himself foreordained to the
+dominion of the entire Archipelago, he upbraids the gods for
+laggards, and curses himself as deprived of his rights; nay, as
+having had wrested from him, what he never possessed. Discontent
+dwarfs his horizon till he spans it with his hand. 'Most miserable of
+demi-gods,' he cries, 'here am I cooped up in this insignificant
+islet, only one hundred leagues by fifty, when scores of broad
+empires own me not for their lord.' Yet Uhia himself is envied. 'Ah!'
+cries Karrolono, one of his chieftains, master of a snug little glen,
+'Here am I cabined in this paltry cell among the mountains, when that
+great King Uhia is lord of the whole island, and every cubic mile of
+matter therein.' But this same Karrolono is envied. 'Hard, oh
+beggarly lot is mine,' cries Donno, one of his retainers. 'Here am I
+fixed and screwed down to this paltry plantation, when my lord
+Karrolono owns the whole glen, ten long parasangs from cliff to sea.'
+But Donno too is envied. 'Alas, cursed fate!' cries his servitor
+Flavona. 'Here am I made to trudge, sweat, and labor all day, when
+Donno my master does nothing but command.' But others envy Flavona;
+and those who envy him are envied in turn; even down to poor bed-
+ridden Manta, who dying of want, groans forth, 'Abandoned wretch that
+I am! here I miserably perish, while so many beggars gad about and
+live!' But surely; none envy Manta! Yes; great Uhia himself. 'Ah!'
+cries the king. 'Here am I vexed and tormented by ambition; no peace
+night nor day; my temples chafed sore by this cursed crown that I
+wear; while that ignoble wight Manta, gives up the ghost with none to
+molest him.'"
+
+In vain we wandered up and down in this isle, and peered into its
+innermost recesses: no Yillah was there.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCII
+The God Keevi And The Precipice Op Mondo
+
+
+One object of interest in Ohonoo was the original image of Keevi
+the god of Thieves; hence, from time immemorial, the tutelar deity
+of the isle.
+
+His shrine was a natural niche in a cliff, walling in the valley
+of Monlova And here stood Keevi, with his five eyes, ten hands, and
+three pair of legs, equipped at all points for the vocation over
+which he presided. Of mighty girth, his arms terminated in hands,
+every finger a limb, spreading in multiplied digits: palms twice
+five, and fifty fingers.
+
+According to the legend, Keevi fell from a golden cloud, burying
+himself to the thighs in the earth, tearing up the soil all round.
+Three meditative mortals, strolling by at the time, had a narrow
+escape.
+
+A wonderful recital; but none of us voyagers durst flout it. Did they
+not show us the identical spot where the idol fell? We descended into
+the hollow, now verdant. Questionless, Keevi himself would have
+vouched for the truth of the miracle, had he not been unfortunately
+dumb. But by far the most cogent, and pointed argument advanced in
+support of this story, is a spear which the priests of Keevi brought
+forth, for Babbalanja to view.
+
+"Let me look at it closer," said Babbalanja.
+
+And turning it over and over and curiously inspecting it, "Wonderful
+spear," he cried. "Doubtless, my reverends, this self-same spear must
+have persuaded many recusants!"
+
+"Nay, the most stubborn," they answered.
+
+"And all afterward quoted as additional authority for the truth of
+the legend?"
+
+"Assuredly."
+
+From the sea to the shrine of this god, the fine valley of Monlova
+ascends with a gentle gradation, hardly perceptible; but upon turning
+round toward the water, one is surprised to find himself high
+elevated above its surface. Pass on, and the same silent ascent
+deceives you; and the valley contracts; and on both sides the cliffs
+advance; till at last you come to a narrow space, shouldered by
+buttresses of rock. Beyond, through this cleft, all is blue sky. If
+the Trades blow high, and you came unawares upon the spot, you would
+think Keevi himself pushing you forward with all his hands; so
+powerful is the current of air rushing through this elevated defile.
+But expostulate not with the tornado that blows you along; sail on;
+but soft; look down; the land breaks off in one sheer descent of a
+thousand feet, right down to the wide plain below. So sudden and
+profound this precipice, that you seem to look off from one world to
+another. In a dreamy, sunny day, the spangled plain beneath assumes
+an uncertain fleeting aspect. Had you a deep-sea-lead you would
+almost be tempted to sound the ocean-haze at your feet.
+
+This, mortal! is the precipice of Mondo.
+
+From this brink, spear in hand, sprang fifty rebel warriors, driven
+back into the vale by a superior force. Finding no spot to stand at
+bay, with a fierce shout they took the fatal leap.
+
+Said Mohi, "Their souls ascended, ere their bodies touched."
+
+This tragical event took place many generations gone by, and now a
+dizzy, devious way conducts one, firm of foot, from the verge to the
+plain. But none ever ascended. So perilous, indeed, is the descent
+itself, that the islanders venture not the feat, without invoking
+supernatural aid. Flanking the precipice beneath beetling rocks,
+stand the guardian deities of Mondo; and on altars before
+them, are placed the propitiatory offerings of the traveler.
+
+To the right of the brink of the precipice, and far over it, projects
+a narrow ledge. The test of legitimacy in the Ohonoo monarchs is to
+stand hereon, arms folded, and javelins darting by.
+
+And there in his youth Uhia stood.
+
+"How felt you, cousin?" asked Media.
+
+"Like the King of Ohonoo," he replied. "As I _shall_ again feel; when
+King of all Mardi."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII
+Babbalanja Steps In Between Mohi And Yoomy; And Yoomy Relates A
+Legend
+
+
+Embarking from Ohonoo, we at length found ourselves gliding by the
+pleasant shores of Tupia, an islet which according to Braid-Beard had
+for ages remained uninhabited by man. Much curiosity being expressed
+to know more of the isle, Mohi was about to turn over his chronicles,
+when, with modesty, the minstrel Yoomy interposed; saying, that if my
+Lord Media permitted, he himself would relate the legend. From its
+nature, deeming the same pertaining to his province as poet; though,
+as yet, it had not been versified. But he added, that true pearl
+shells rang musically, though not strung upon a cord.
+
+Upon this presumptuous interference, Mohi looked highly offended; and
+nervously twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about
+frippery young poetasters being too full of silly imaginings to tell
+a plain tale.
+
+Said Yoomy, in reply, adjusting his turban,  "Old Mohi, let us not
+clash. I honor your calling; but, with submission, your chronicles
+are more wild than my cantos. I deal in pure conceits of my own;
+which have a shapeliness and a unity, however unsubstantial; but you,
+Braid-Beard, deal in mangled realities. In all your chapters, you
+yourself grope in the dark. Much truth is not in thee, historian.
+Besides, Mohi: my songs perpetuate many things which you sage scribes
+entirely overlook. Have you not oftentimes come to me, and my ever
+dewy ballads for information, in which you and your musty old
+chronicles were deficient?"
+
+"In much that is precious, Mohi, we poets are the true historians; we
+embalm; you corrode."
+
+To this Mohi, with some ire, was about to make answer, when, flinging
+over his shoulder a new fold of his mantle, Babbalanja spoke thus:
+"Peace, rivals. As Bardianna has it, like all who dispute upon
+pretensions of their own, you are each nearest the right, when you
+speak of the other; and furthest therefrom, when you speak of
+yourselves."
+
+Said Mohi and Yoomy in a breath, "Who sought your opinion,
+philosopher? you filcher from old Bardianna, and monger of maxims!"
+
+"You, who have so long marked the vices of Mardi, that you flatter
+yourself you have none of your own," added Braid-Beard.
+
+"You, who only seem wise, because of the contrasting follies of
+others, and not of any great wisdom in yourself," continued the
+minstrel, with unwonted asperity."
+
+"Now here," said Babballanja, "am I charged upon by a bearded old
+ram, and a lamb. One butting with his carious and brittle old
+frontlet; the other pushing with its silly head before its horns are
+sprouted. But this comes of being impartial. Had I espoused the cause
+of Yoomy versus Mohi, or that of Mohi versus Yoomy, I had been sure
+to have had at least one voice in my favor. The impartialist
+insulteth all sides, saith old Bardianna; but smite with but one
+hand, and the other shall be kissed.--Oh incomparable Bardianna!"
+
+"Will no one lay that troubled old ghost," exclaimed Media, devoutly.
+"Proceed with thy legend, Yoomy; and see to it, that it be brief; for
+I mistrust me, these legends do but test the patience of the hearers.
+But draw a long breath, and begin."
+
+"A long bow," muttered Mohi.
+
+And Yoomy began.
+
+"It is now about ten hundred thousand moons--"
+
+"Great Oro! How long since, say you?" cried Mohi, making Gothic
+arches of his brows.
+
+Looking at him disdainfully, but vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy began
+over again.
+
+"It is now above ten hundred thousand moons, since there died the last
+of a marvelous race, once inhabiting the very shores by which we are
+sailing. They were a very diminutive people, only a few inches high--"
+
+"Stop, minstrel," cried Mohi; "how many pennyweights did they weigh?"
+
+Continued Yoomy, unheedingly, "They were covered all over with a
+soft, silky down, like that on the rind of the Avee; and there grew
+upon their heads a green, lance-leaved vine, of a most delicate
+texture. For convenience, the manikins reduced their tendrils,
+sporting, nothing but coronals. Whereas, priding themselves upon the
+redundancy of their tresses, the little maidens assiduously watered
+them with the early dew of the morning; so that all wreathed and
+festooned with verdure, they moved about in arbors, trailing after
+them trains."
+
+"I can hear no more," exclaimed Mohi, stopping his ears.
+
+Continued Yoomy, "The damsels lured to their bowers, certain red-
+plumaged insect-birds, and taught them to nestle therein, and warble;
+which, with the pleasant vibrating of the leaves, when the little
+maidens moved, produced a strange blending of sweet, singing sounds.
+The little maidens embraced not with their arms, but with their viny
+locks; whose tendrils instinctively twined about their lovers, till
+both were lost in the bower."
+
+"And what then?" asked Mohi, who, notwithstanding the fingers in his
+ears, somehow contrived to listen; "What then?"
+
+Vouchsafing no reply, Yoomy went on.
+
+"At a certain age, but while yet the maidens were very young, their
+vines bore blossoms. Ah! fatal symptoms. For soon as they burst, the
+maidens died in their arbors; and were buried in the valleys;
+and their vines spread forth; and the flowers bloomed; but the
+maidens themselves were no more. And now disdaining the earth, the
+vines shot upward: climbing to the topmost boughs of the trees; and
+flowering in the sunshine forever and aye."
+
+Yoomy here paused for a space; but presently continued:
+
+"The little eyes of the people of Tupia were very strange to behold:
+full of stars, that shone from within, like the Pleiades, deep-
+bosomed in blue. And like the stars, they were intolerant of
+sunlight; and slumbering through the day, the people of Tupia only
+went abroad by night. But it was chiefly when the moon was at full,
+that they were mostly in spirits.
+
+"Then the little manikins would dive down into the sea, and rove
+about in the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. Or, racing
+round, make a mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:--plucking
+the reverend mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their
+cells; worrying the sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the
+touchy torpedos. Sometimes they went prying about with the starfish,
+that have an eye at the end of each ray; and often with coral files
+in their hands stole upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their
+weapons. In short, these stout little manikins were passionately fond
+of the sea, and swore by wave and billow, that sooner or later they
+would embark thereon in nautilus shells, and spend the rest of their
+roving days thousands of inches from Tupia. Too true, they were
+shameless little rakes. Oft would they return to their sweethearts,
+sporting musky girdles of sea-kelp, tasseled with green little
+pouches of grass, brimful of seed-pearls; and jingling their coin in
+the ears of the damsels, throw out inuendoes about the beautiful and
+bountiful mermaids: how wealthy and amorous they were, and how they
+delighted in the company of the brave gallants of Tupia. Ah! at such
+heartless bravadoes, how mourned the poor little nymphs. Deep into
+their arbors they went; and their little hearts burst like
+rose-buds, and filled the whole air with an odorous grief. But when
+their lovers were gentle and true, no happier maidens haunted the
+lilies than they. By some mystical process they wrought minute balls
+of light: touchy, mercurial globules, very hard to handle; and with
+these, at pitch and toss, they played in the groves. Or mischievously
+inclined, they toiled all night long at braiding the moon-beams
+together, and entangling the plaited end to a bough; so that at
+night, the poor planet had much ado to set."
+
+Here Yoomy once more was mute.
+
+"Pause you to invent as you go on?" said old Mohi, elevating his
+chin, till his beard was horizontal.
+
+Yoomy resumed.
+
+"Little or nothing more, my masters, is extant of the legend; only it
+must be mentioned, that these little people were very tasteful in
+their personal adornings; the manikins wearing girdles of fragrant
+leaves, and necklaces of aromatic seeds; and the little damsels, not
+content with their vines, and their verdure, sporting pearls in their
+ears; bracelets of wee little porpoise teeth; and oftentimes dancing
+with their mates in the moonlit glades, coquettishly fanned
+themselves with the transparent wings of the flying fish."
+
+"Now, I appeal to you, royal Media; to you, noble Taji; to you,
+Babbalanja;" said the chronicler, with an impressive gesture,
+"whether this seems a credible history: Yoomy has invented."
+
+"But perhaps he has entertained, old Mohi," said Babbalanja.
+
+"He has not spoken the truth," persisted the chronicler.
+
+"Mohi," said Babbalanja, "truth is in things, and not in words: truth
+is voiceless; so at least saith old Bardianna. And I, Babbalanja,
+assert, that what are vulgarly called fictions are as much realities
+as the gross mattock of Dididi, the digger of trenches; for things
+visible are but conceits of the eye: things imaginative, conceits of
+the fancy. If duped by one, we are equally duped by the other."
+
+"Clear as this water," said Yoomy.
+
+"Opaque as this paddle," said Mohi, "But, come now, thou oracle, if
+all things are deceptive, tell us what is truth?"
+
+"The old interrogatory; did they not ask it when the world began? But
+ask it no more. As old Bardianna hath it, that question is more final
+than any answer."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIV
+Of That Jolly Old Lord, Borabolla; And That Jolly Island Of His,
+Mondoldo; And Of The Fish-Ponds, And The Hereafters Of Fish
+
+
+Drawing near Mondoldo, our next place of destination, we were greeted
+by six fine canoes, gayly tricked out with streamers, and all alive
+with the gestures of their occupants. King Borabolla and court were
+hastening to welcome our approach; Media, unbeknown to all, having
+notified him at the Banquet of the Five-and-Twenty Kings, of our
+intention to visit his dominions.
+
+Soon, side by side, these canoes floated with ours; each barge of Odo
+courteously flanked by those of Mondoldo.
+
+Not long were we in identifying Borabolla: the portly, pleasant old
+monarch, seated cross-legged upon a dais, projecting over the bow of
+the largest canoe of the six, close-grappling to the side of the Sea
+Elephant.
+
+Was he not a goodly round sight to behold? Round all over; round of
+eye and of head; and like the jolly round Earth, roundest and biggest
+about the Equator. A girdle of red was his Equinoctial Line, giving a
+compactness to his plumpness.
+
+This old Borabolla permitted naught to come between his head and the
+sun; not even gray hairs. Bald as a gourd, right down on his brazen
+skull, the rays of the luminary converged.
+
+He was all hilarity; full of allusions to the feast at Willamilla,
+where he had done royal execution. Rare old Borabolla! thou wert made
+for dining out; thy ample mouth an inlet for good cheer, and a
+sally-port for good humor.
+
+Bustling about on his dais, he now gave orders for the occupants of
+our canoes to be summarily emptied into his own; saying, that in that
+manner only did he allow guests to touch the beach of Mondoldo.
+
+So, with no little trouble--for the waves were grown somewhat
+riotous--we proceeded to comply; bethinking ourselves all the while,
+how annoying is sometimes an over-strained act of hospitality.
+
+We were now but little less than a mile from the shore. But what of
+that? There was plenty of time, thought Borabolla, for a hasty lunch,
+and the getting of a subsequent appetite ere we effected a landing.
+So viands were produced; to which the guests were invited to pay
+heedful attention; or take the consequences, and famish till the long
+voyage in prospect was ended.
+
+Soon the water shoaled (approaching land is like nearing truth in
+metaphysics), and ere we yet touched the beach, Borabolla declared,
+that we were already landed. Which paradoxical assertion implied,
+that the hospitality of Mondoldo was such, that in all directions it
+radiated far out upon the lagoon, embracing a great circle; so that
+no canoe could sail by the island, without its occupants being so
+long its guests.
+
+In most hospitable vicinity to the water, was a fine large structure,
+inclosed by a stockade; both rather dilapidated; as if the cost of
+entertaining its guests, prevented outlays for repairing the place.
+But it was one of Borabolla's maxims, that generally your tumble-down
+old homesteads yield the most entertainment; their very dilapidation
+betokening their having seen good service in hospitality; whereas,
+spruce-looking, finical portals, have a phiz full of meaning; for
+niggards are oftentimes neat.
+
+Now, after what has been said, who so silly as to fancy, that because
+Borabolla's mansion was inclosed by a stockade, that the same
+was intended as a defense against guests? By no means. In the
+palisade was a mighty breach, not an entrance-way, wide enough to
+admit six Daniel Lamberts abreast.
+
+"Look," cried Borabolla, as landing we stepped toward the place.
+"Look Media! look all. These gates, you here see, lashed back with
+osiers, have been so lashed during my life-time; and just where they
+stand, shall they rot; ay, they shall perish wide open."
+
+"But why have them at all?" inquired Media.
+
+"Ah! there you have old Borabolla," cried the other.
+
+"No," said Babbalanja, "a fence whose gate is ever kept open, seems
+unnecessary, I grant; nevertheless, it gives a notable hint,
+otherwise not so aptly conveyed; for is not the open gate the sign of
+the open heart?"
+
+"Right, right," cried Borabolla; "so enter both, cousin Media;" and
+with one hand smiting his chest, with the other he waved us on.
+
+But if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure within seemed
+only a roof; for nothing but a slender pillar here and there,
+supported it.
+
+"This is my mode of building," said Borabolla; "I will have no
+outside to my palaces. Walls are superfluous. And to a high-minded
+guest, the entering a narrow doorway is like passing under a yoke;
+every time he goes in, or comes out, it reminds him, that he is being
+entertained at the cost of another. So storm in all round."
+
+Within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we looked up to
+endless rows of brown calabashes, and trenchers suspended along the
+rafters; promissory of ample cheer as regiments of old hams in a
+baronial refectory.
+
+They were replenished with both meat and drink; the trenchers readily
+accessible by means of cords; but the gourds containing arrack,
+suspended neck downward, were within easy reach where they swung.
+
+Seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a
+cautious young bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making, Taji
+stood on his guard. And when Borabolla urged him to empty a gourd or
+two, by way of making room in him for the incidental repast about to
+be served, Taji civilly declined; not wishing to cumber the floor,
+before the cloth was laid.
+
+Jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of the unities
+of time and place, went freely about, from gourd to gourd, concocting
+in him a punch. At which, Samoa expressed much surprise, that he
+should be so unobservant as not to know, that in Mardi, guests might
+be pressed to demean themselves, without its being expected that so
+they would do. A true toss-pot himself, he bode his time.
+
+The second lunch over, Borabolla placed both hands to the ground, and
+giving the sigh of the fat man, after three vigorous efforts,
+succeeded in gaining his pins; which pins of his, were but small for
+his body; insomuch that they hugely staggered about, under the fine
+old load they carried.
+
+The specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture, was
+to put himself in motion, and conduct us to his fish-ponds, famous
+throughout the Archipelago as the hobby of the king of Mondoldo.
+Furthermore, as the great repast of the day, yet to take place, was
+to be a grand piscatory one, our host was all anxiety, that we should
+have a glimpse of our fish, while yet alive and hearty.
+
+We were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors were preparing
+to accompany us with trenchers of edibles. It begat the notion, that
+our trip to the fish-ponds was to prove a long journey. But they were
+not three hundred yards distant; though Borabolla being a veteran
+traveler, never stirred from his abode without his battalion of butlers.
+
+The ponds were four in number, close bordering the water, embracing
+about an acre each, and situated in a low fen, draining several
+valleys. The excavated soil was thrown up in dykes, made tight by
+being beaten all over, while in a soft state, with the heavy, flat
+ends of Palm stalks. Lving side by side, by three connecting
+trenches, these ponds could be made to communicate at pleasure; while
+two additional canals afforded means of letting in upon them the salt
+waters of the lagoon on one hand, or those of an inland stream on the
+other. And by a third canal with four branches, together or
+separately, they could be partially drained. Thus, the waters could
+be mixed to suit any gills; and the young fish taken from the sea,
+passed through a stated process of freshening; so that by the time
+they graduated, the salt was well out of them, like the brains out of
+some diplomaed collegians.
+
+Fresh-water fish are only to be obtained in Mondoldo by the
+artificial process above mentioned; as the streams and brooks abound
+not in trout or other Waltonian prey.
+
+Taken all floundering from the sea, Borabolla's fish, passing through
+their regular training for the table, and daily tended by their
+keepers, in course of time became quite tame and communicative. To
+prove which, calling his Head Ranger, the king bade him administer
+the customary supply of edibles.
+
+Accordingly, mouthfuls were thrown into the ponds.  Whereupon, the
+fish darted in a shoal toward the margin; some leaping out of the
+water in their eagerness. Crouching on the bank, the Ranger now
+called several by name, patted their scales, carrying on some
+heathenish nursery-talk, like St. Anthony, in ancient Coptic,
+instilling virtuous principles into his finny flock on the sea shore.
+
+But alas, for the hair-shirted old dominie's backsliding disciples.
+For, of all nature's animated kingdoms, fish are the most
+unchristian, inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures.
+At least, so seem they to strangers; though at bottom, somehow, they
+must be all right. And truly it is not to be wondered at, that the
+very reverend Anthony strove after the conversion of fish. For, whoso
+shall Christianize, and by so doing, humanize the sharks, will do a
+greater good, by the saving of human life in all time to come,
+than though he made catechumens of the head-hunting Dyaks of Borneo,
+or the blood-bibbing Battas of Sumatra. And are these Dyaks and
+Battas one whit better than tiger-sharks? Nay, are they so good? Were
+a Batta your intimate friend, you would often mistake an orang-outang
+for him; and have orang-outangs immortal souls? True, the Battas
+believe in a hereafter; but of what sort? Full of Blue-Beards and
+bloody bones. So, also, the sharks; who hold that Paradise is one
+vast Pacific, ploughed by navies of mortals, whom an endless gale
+forever drops into their maws.
+
+Not wholly a surmise. For, does it not appear a little unreasonable
+to imagine, that there is any creature, fish, flesh, or fowl, so
+little in love with life, as not to cherish hopes of a future state?
+Why does man believe in it? One reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he
+desires it. Who shall say, then, that the leviathan this day
+harpooned on the coast of Japan, goes not straight to his ancestor,
+who rolled all Jonah, as a sweet morsel, under his tongue?
+
+Though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best hold
+themselves in a state of philosophical suspense. Say they--"That
+catastrophe took place in the Mediterranean; and the only whales
+frequenting the Mediterranean, are of a sort having not a swallow
+large enough to pass a man entire; for those Mediterranean whales
+feed upon small things, as horses upon oats." But hence, the sailors
+draw a rash inference. Are not the Straits of Gibralter wide enough
+to admit a sperm-whale, even though none have sailed through, since
+Nineveh and the gourd in its suburbs dried up?
+
+As for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature eighty feet
+long without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist before
+dinner, is not inconsiderately to be consigned to annihilation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCV
+That Jolly Old Lord Borabolla Laughs On Both Sides Of His Face
+
+
+"A very good palace, this, coz, for you and me," said waddling old
+Borabolla to Media, as, returned from our excursion, he slowly
+lowered himself down to his mat, sighing like a grampus.
+
+By this, he again made known the vastness of his hospitality, which
+led him for the nonce to parcel out his kingdom with his guests.
+
+But apart from these extravagant expressions of good feeling,
+Borabolla was the prince of good fellows. His great tun of a person
+was indispensable to the housing of his bullock-heart; under which,
+any lean wight would have sunk. But alas! unlike Media and Taji,
+Borabolla, though a crowned king, was accounted no demi-god; his
+obesity excluding him from that honor. Indeed, in some quarters of
+Mardi, certain pagans maintain, that no fat man can be even immortal.
+A dogma! truly, which should be thrown to the dogs. For fat men are
+the salt and savor of the earth; full of good humor, high spirits,
+fun, and all manner of jollity. Their breath clears the atmosphere:
+their exhalations air the world. Of men, they are the good measures;
+brimmed, heaped, pressed down, piled up, and running over. They are
+as ships from Teneriffe; swimming deep, full of old wine, and twenty
+steps down into their holds. Soft and susceptible, all round they are
+easy of entreaty. Wherefore, for all their rotundity, they are too
+often circumnavigated by hatchet-faced knaves. Ah! a fat uncle, with
+a fat paunch, and a fat purse, is a joy and a delight to all
+nephews; to philosophers, a subject of endless speculation, as to how
+many droves of oxen and Lake Eries of wine might have run through his
+great mill during the full term of his mortal career. Fat men not
+immortal! This very instant, old Lambert is rubbing his jolly abdomen
+in Paradise.
+
+Now, to the fact of his not being rated a demi-god, was perhaps
+ascribable the circumstance, that Borabolla comported himself with
+less dignity, than was the wont of their Mardian majesties. And truth
+to say, to have seen him regaling himself with one of his favorite
+cuttle-fish, its long snaky arms and feelers instinctively twining
+round his head as he ate; few intelligent observers would have opined
+that the individual before them was the sovereign lord of Mondoldo.
+
+But what of the banquet of fish? Shall we tell how the old king
+ungirdled himself thereto; how as the feast waxed toward its close,
+with one sad exception, he still remained sunny-sided all round; his
+disc of a face joyous as the South Side of Madeira in the hilarious
+season of grapes? Shall we tell how we all grew glad and frank; and
+how the din of the dinner was heard far into night?
+
+We will.
+
+When Media ate slowly, Borabolla took him to task, bidding him
+dispatch his viands more speedily.
+
+Whereupon said Media "But Borabolla, my round fellow, that would
+abridge the pleasure."
+
+"Not at all, my dear demi-god; do like me: eat fast and eat long."
+
+In the middle of the feast, a huge skin of wine was brought in. The
+portly peltry of a goat; its horns embattling its effigy head; its
+mouth the nozzle; and its long beard flowed to its jet-black hoofs.
+With many ceremonial salams, the attendants bore it along, placing it
+at one end of the convivial mats, full in front of Borabolla; where
+seated upon its haunches it made one of the party.
+
+Brimming a ram's horn, the mellowest of bugles, Borabolla bowed to
+his silent guest, and thus spoke--"In this wine, which yet smells of
+the grape, I pledge you my reverend old toper, my lord Capricornus;
+you alone have enough; and here's full skins to the rest!"
+
+"How jolly he is," whispered Media to Babbalanja.
+
+"Ay, his lungs laugh loud; but is laughing, rejoicing?"
+
+"Help! help!" cried Borabolla "lay me down! lay me down! good gods,
+what a twinge!"
+
+The goblet fell from his hand; the purple flew from his wine to his
+face; and Borabolla fell back into the arms of his servitors. "That
+gout! that gout!" he groaned. "Lord! lord! no more cursed wine will I
+drink!"
+
+Then at ten paces distant, a clumsy attendant let fall a trencher--
+"Take it off my foot, you knave!"
+
+Afar off another entered gallanting a calabash--"Look out for my toe,
+you hound!"
+
+During all this, the attendants tenderly nursed him. And in good
+time, with its thousand fangs, the gout-fiend departed for a while.
+
+Reprieved, the old king brightened up; by degrees becoming jolly
+as ever.
+
+"Come! let us be merry again," he cried, "what shall we eat? and what
+shall we drink? that infernal gout is gone; come, what will your
+worships have?"
+
+So at it once more we went.
+
+But of our feast, little more remains to be related than this;--that
+out of it, grew a wondrous kindness between Borabolla and Jarl.
+Strange to tell, from the first our fat host had regarded my Viking
+with a most friendly eye. Still stranger to add, this feeling was
+returned. But though they thus fancied each other, they were very
+unlike; Borabolla and Jarl. Nevertheless, thus is it ever. And as the
+convex fits not into the convex, but into the concave; so do men fit
+into their opposites; and so fitted Borabolla's arched paunch into
+Jarl's, hollowed out to receive it.
+
+But how now? Borabolla was jolly and loud: Jarl demure and silent;
+Borabolla a king: Jarl only a Viking;--how came they together? Very
+plain, to repeat:--because they were heterogeneous; and hence the
+affinity. But as the affinity between those chemical opposites
+chlorine and hydrogen, is promoted by caloric; so the affinity
+between Borabolla and Jarl was promoted by the warmth of the wine
+that they drank at this feast. For of all blessed fluids, the juice
+of the grape is the greatest foe to cohesion. True, it tightens the
+girdle; but then it loosens the tongue, and opens the heart.
+
+In sum, Borabolla loved Jarl; and Jarl, pleased with this sociable
+monarch, for all his garrulity, esteemed him the most sensible old
+gentleman and king he had as yet seen in Mardi. For this reason,
+perhaps; that his talkativeness favored that silence in listeners,
+which was my Viking's delight in himself.
+
+Repeatedly during the banquet, our host besought Taji to allow his
+henchman to remain on the island, after the rest of our party should
+depart; and he faithfully promised to surrender Jarl, whenever we
+should return to claim him.
+
+But though I harbored no distrust of Borabolla's friendly intentions,
+I could not so readily consent to his request; for with Jarl for my
+one only companion, had I not both famished and feasted? was he not
+my only link to things past?
+
+Things past!--Ah Yillah! for all its mirth, and though we hunted
+wide, we found thee not in Mondoldo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVI
+Samoa A Surgeon
+
+
+The second day of our stay in Mondoldo was signalized by a noteworthy
+exhibition of the surgical skill of Samoa; who had often boasted,
+that though well versed in the science of breaking men's heads, he
+was equally an adept in mending their crockery.
+
+Overnight, Borabolla had directed his corps of sea-divers to repair
+early on the morrow, to a noted section of the great Mardian reef,
+for the purpose of procuring for our regalement some of the fine
+Hawk's-bill turtle, whose secret retreats were among the cells and
+galleries of that submerged wall of coral, from whose foamy coping no
+plummet dropped ever yet touched bottom.
+
+These turtles were only to be obtained by diving far down under the
+surface; and then swimming along horizontally, and peering into the
+coral honeycomb; snatching at a flipper when seen, as at a pinion in
+a range of billing dove-cotes.
+
+As the king's divers were thus employed, one of them, Karhownoo by
+name, perceived a Devil-shark, so called, swimming wistfully toward
+him from out his summer grotto in the reef. No way petrified by the
+sight, and pursuing the usual method adopted by these divers in such
+emergencies, Karhownoo, splashing the water, instantly swam toward
+the stranger. But the shark, undaunted, advanced: a thing so unusual,
+and fearful, that, in an agony of fright, the diver shot up for the
+surface. Heedless, he looked not up as he went; and when within a few
+inches of the open air, dashed his head against a projection of the
+reef. He would have sank into the live tomb beneath, were it
+not that three of his companions, standing on the brink, perceived
+his peril, and dragged him into safety.
+
+Seeing the poor fellow was insensible, they endeavored,
+ineffectually, to revive him; and at last, placing him in their
+canoe, made all haste for the shore. Here a crowd soon gathered, and
+the diver was borne to a habitation, close adjoining Borabolla's;
+whence, hearing of the disaster, we sallied out to render assistance.
+
+Upon entering the hut, the benevolent old king commanded it to be
+cleared; and then proceeded to examine the sufferer.
+
+The skull proved to be very badly fractured; in one place, splintered.
+
+"Let me mend it," said Samoa, with ardor.
+
+And being told of his experience in such matters, Borabolla
+surrendered the patient.
+
+With a gourd of water, and a tappa cloth, the one-armed Upoluan
+carefully washed the wound; and then calling for a sharp splinter of
+bamboo, and a thin, semi-transparent cup of cocoa-nut shell, he went
+about the operation: nothing less than the "Tomoti" (head-mending),
+in other words the trepan.
+
+The patient still continuing insensible, the fragments were
+disengaged by help of a bamboo scalpel; when a piece of the drinking
+cup--previously dipped in the milk of a cocoanut--was nicely fitted
+into the vacancy, the skin as nicely adjusted over it, and the
+operation was complete.
+
+And now, while all present were crying out in admiration of Samoa's
+artistic skill, and Samoa himself stood complacently regarding his
+workmanship, Babbalanja suggested, that it might be well to ascertain
+whether the patient survived. When, upon sounding his heart, the
+diver was found to be dead.
+
+The bystanders loudly lamented; but declared the surgeon a man of
+marvelous science.
+
+Returning to Borabolla's, much conversation ensued, concerning the
+sad scene we had witnessed, which presently branched into a learned
+discussion upon matters of surgery at large.
+
+At length, Samoa regaled the company with a story; for the truth of
+which no one but him can vouch, for no one but him was by, at the
+time; though there is testimony to show that it involves nothing at
+variance with the customs of certain barbarous tribes.
+
+Read on.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVII
+Faith And Knowledge
+
+
+A thing incredible is about to be related; but a thing may be
+incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it
+is true. And many infidels but disbelieve the least incredible
+things; and many bigots reject the most obvious. But let us hold fast
+to all we have; and stop all leaks in our faith; lest an opening, but
+of a hand's breadth, should sink our seventy-fours. The wide Atlantic
+can rush in at one port-hole; and if we surrender a plank, we
+surrender the fleet. Panoplied in all the armor of St. Paul, morion,
+hauberk, and greaves, let us fight the Turks inch by inch, and yield
+them naught but our corpse.
+
+But let us not turn round upon friends, confounding them with foes.
+For dissenters only assent to more than we. Though Milton was a
+heretic to the creed of Athanasius, his faith exceeded that of
+Athanasius himself; and the faith of Athanasius that of Thomas, the
+disciple, who with his own eyes beheld the mark of the nails. Whence
+it comes that though we be all Christians now, the best of us had
+perhaps been otherwise in the days of Thomas.
+
+The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity:
+Gabriel rejects more than we, but out-believes us all. The greatest
+marvels are first truths; and first truths the last unto which we
+attain. Things nearest are furthest off. Though your ear be next-door
+to your brain, it is forever removed from your sight. Man has a more
+comprehensive view of the moon, than the man in the moon himself. We
+know the moon is round; he only infers it. It is because we
+ourselves are in ourselves, that we know ourselves not. And it is
+only of our easy faith, that we are not infidels throughout; and only
+of our lack of faith, that we believe what we do.
+
+In some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers. Do you
+believe that you lived three thousand years ago? That you were at the
+taking of Tyre, were overwhelmed in Gomorrah? No. But for me, I was
+at the subsiding of the Deluge, and helped swab the ground, and build
+the first house. With the Israelites, I fainted in the wilderness;
+was in court, when Solomon outdid all the judges before him. I, it
+was, who suppressed the lost work of Manetho, on the Egyptian
+theology, as containing mysteries not to be revealed to posterity,
+and things at war with the canonical scriptures; I, who originated
+the conspiracy against that purple murderer, Domitian; I, who in the
+senate moved, that great and good Aurelian be emperor. I instigated
+the abdication of Diocletian, and Charles the Fifth; I touched
+Isabella's heart, that she hearkened to Columbus. I am he, that from
+the king's minions hid the Charter in the old oak at Hartford; I
+harbored Goffe and Whalley: I am the leader of the Mohawk masks, who
+in the Old Commonwealth's harbor, overboard threw the East India
+Company's Souchong; I am the Vailed Persian Prophet; I, the man in
+the iron mask; I, Junius.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVIII
+The Tale Of A Traveler
+
+
+It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a
+traveler. But stay-at-homes say travelers lie. Yet a voyage to
+Ethiopia would cure them of that; for few skeptics are travelers;
+fewer travelers liars, though the proverb respecting them lies. It is
+false, as some say, that Bruce was cousin-german to Baron Munchausen;
+but true, as Bruce said, that the Abysinnians cut live steaks from
+their cattle. It was, in good part, his villainous transcribers, who
+made monstrosities of Mandeville's travels. And though all liars go
+to Gehenna; yet, assuming that Mandeville died before Dante; still,
+though Dante took the census of Hell, we find not Sir John, under the
+likeness of a roasted neat's tongue, in that infernalest of infernos,
+The Inferno.
+
+But let not the truth be postponed. To the stand, Samoa, and through
+your interpreter, speak.
+
+Once upon a time, during his endless sea-rovings, the Upoluan was
+called upon to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a
+desperate fight of slings.
+
+Upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as
+the cranium itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being
+over, part of its live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan
+accomplished with cocoanut shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured.
+
+This man died not, but lived. But from being a warrior of great sense
+and spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing
+many of the characteristics of his swinish grafting. He survived the
+operation more than a year; at the end of that period, however, going
+mad, and dying in his delirium.
+
+Stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some
+present. But Babbalanja held out to the last.
+
+"Yet, if this story be true," said he, "and since it is well settled,
+that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why
+human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium
+the contents of a man's. I have long thought, that men, pigs, and
+plants, are but curious physiological experiments; and that science
+would at last enable philosophers to produce new species of beings,
+by somehow mixing, and concocting the essential ingredients of
+various creatures; and so forming new combinations. My friend
+Atahalpa, the astrologer and alchymist, has long had a jar, in which
+he has been endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being
+compounded according to a receipt of his own."
+
+But little they heeded Babbalanja. It was the traveler's tale that
+most arrested attention.
+
+Tough the thews, and tough the tales of Samoa.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIX
+"Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee"
+
+During the afternoon of the day of the diver's decease, preparations
+were making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying
+them by torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in Odo, so
+was the custom here.
+
+Meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally
+arrayed, beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying--"A man
+is dead; let no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh Oro!--Let no canoes
+put to sea till the burial. This night, oh Oro!--Let no food be cooked."
+
+And ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire;
+with castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang--
+
+    Be merry, oh men of Mondoldo,
+      A maiden this night is to wed:
+    Be merry, oh damsels of Mardi,--
+      Flowers, flowers for the bridal bed.
+
+Informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we
+repaired to the arbor, whither the body had been removed.
+
+Arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed,
+between its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough.
+
+The relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so
+that blood flowed, and spotted their vesture.
+
+Upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the
+wife of the diver, she exclaimed, "Yes; great is the pain, but
+greater my affliction."
+
+Another, the deaf sire of the dead, went staggering about, and
+groping; saying, that he was now quite blind; for some months
+previous he had lost one eye in the death of his eldest son and now
+the other was gone.
+
+"I am childless," he cried; "henceforth call me Roi Mori," that is,
+Twice-Blind.
+
+While the relatives were thus violently lamenting, the rest of the
+company occasionally scratched themselves with their shells; but very
+slightly, and mostly on the soles of their feet; from long exposure,
+quite callous. This was interrupted, however, when the real mourners
+averted their eyes; though at no time was there any deviation in the
+length of their faces.
+
+But on all sides, lamentations afresh broke forth, upon the
+appearance of a person who had been called in to assist in
+solemnizing the obsequies, and also to console the afflicted.
+
+In rotundity, he was another Borabolla. He puffed and panted.
+
+As he approached the corpse, a sobbing silence ensued; when holding
+the hand of the dead, between his, the stranger thus spoke:--
+
+"Mourn not, oh friends of Karhownoo, that this your brother lives
+not. His wounded head pains him no more; he would not feel it, did a
+javelin pierce him. Yea; Karhownoo is exempt from all the ills and
+evils of this miserable Mardi!"
+
+Hereupon, the Twice-Blind, who being deaf, heard not what was said,
+tore his gray hair, and cried, "Alas! alas! my boy; thou wert the
+merriest man in Mardi, and now thy pranks are over!"
+
+But the other proceeded--"Mourn not, I say, oh friends of Karhownoo;
+the dead whom ye deplore is happier than the living; is not his
+spirit in the aerial isles?"
+
+"True! true!" responded the raving wife, mingling her blood with her
+tears, "my own poor hapless Karhownoo is thrice happy in
+Paradise!" And anew she wailed, and lacerated her cheeks.
+
+"Rave not, I say."
+
+But she only raved the more.
+
+And now the good stranger departed; saying, he must hie to a wedding,
+waiting his presence in an arbor adjoining.
+
+Understanding that the removal of the body would not take place till
+midnight, we thought to behold the mode of marrying in Mondoldo.
+
+Drawing near the place, we were greeted by merry voices, and much
+singing, which greatly increased when the good stranger was
+perceived.
+
+Gayly arrayed in fine robes, with plumes on their heads, the bride
+and groom stood in the middle of a joyous throng, in readiness for
+the nuptial bond to be tied.
+
+Standing before them, the stranger was given a cord, so bedecked with
+flowers, as to disguise its stout fibers; and taking: the bride's
+hands, he bound them together to a ritual chant; about her neck, in
+festoons, disposing the flowery ends of the cord. Then turning to the
+groom, he was given another, also beflowered; but attached thereto
+was a great stone, very much carved, and stained; indeed, so every
+way disguised, that a person not knowing what it was, and lifting it,
+would be greatly amazed at its weight. This cord being attached to
+the waist of the groom, he leaned over toward the bride, by reason of
+the burden of the drop.
+
+All present now united in a chant, and danced about the happy pair,
+who meanwhile looked ill at ease; the one being so bound by the
+hands, and the other solely weighed down by his stone.
+
+A pause ensuing, the good stranger, turning them back to back, thus
+spoke:--
+
+"By thy flowery gyves, oh bride, I make thee a wife; and by thy
+burdensome stone, oh groom, I make thee a husband. Live and be happy,
+both; for the wise and good Oro hath placed us in Mardi to be glad.
+Doth not all nature rejoice in her green groves and her
+flowers? and woo and wed not the fowls of the air, trilling their
+bliss in their bowers? Live then, and be happy, oh bride and groom;
+for Oro is offended with the unhappy, since he meant them to be gay."
+
+And the ceremony ended with a joyful feast.
+
+But not all nuptials in Mardi were like these. Others were wedded
+with different rites; without the stone and flowery gyves. These were
+they who plighted their troth with tears not smiles, and made
+responses in the heart.
+
+Returning from the house of the merry to the house of the mournful,
+we lingered till midnight to witness the issuing forth of the body.
+
+By torch light, numerous canoes, with paddlers standing by, were
+drawn up on the beach, to accommodate those who purposed following
+the poor diver to his home.
+
+The remains embarked, some confusion ensued concerning the occupancy
+of the rest of the shallops. At last the procession glided off, our
+party included. Two by two, forming a long line of torches trailing
+round the isle, the canoes all headed toward the opening in the reef.
+
+For a time, a decorous silence was preserved; but presently, some
+whispering was heard; perhaps melancholy discoursing touching the
+close of the diver's career. But we were shocked to discover, that
+poor Karhownoo was not much in their thoughts; they were conversing
+about the next bread-fruit harvest, and the recent arrival of King
+Media and party at Mondoldo. From far in advance, however, were heard
+the lamentations of the true mourners, the relatives of the diver.
+
+Passing the reef, and sailing a little distance therefrom, the canoes
+were disposed in a circle; the one bearing the corpse in the center.
+Certain ceremonies over, the body was committed to the waves; the
+white foam lighting up the last, long plunge of the diver, to see
+sights more strange than ever he saw in the brooding cells of the
+Turtle Reef.
+
+And now, while in the still midnight, all present were gazing down
+into the ocean, watching the white wake of the corpse, ever and anon
+illuminated by sparkles, an unknown voice was heard, and all started
+and vacantly stared, as this wild song was sung:--
+
+    We drop our dead in the sea,
+      The bottomless, bottomless sea;
+    Each bubble a hollow sigh,
+      As it sinks forever and aye.
+
+    We drop our dead in the sea,--
+      The dead reek not of aught;
+    We drop our dead in the sea,--
+      The sea ne'er gives it a thought.
+
+    Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink,
+      Far down in the bottomless sea,
+    Where the unknown forms do prowl,
+      Down, down in the bottomless sea.
+
+    'Tis night above, and night all round,
+      And night will it be with thee;
+    As thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye,
+      Deeper down in the bottomless sea.
+
+The mysterious voice died away; no sign of the corpse was now seen;
+and mute with amaze, the company long listed to the low moan of the
+billows and the sad sough of the breeze.
+
+At last, without speaking, the obsequies were concluded by sliding
+into the ocean a carved tablet of Palmetto, to mark the place of the
+burial. But a wave-crest received it, and fast it floated away.
+
+Returning to the isle, long silence prevailed. But at length, as if
+the scene in which they had just taken part, afresh reminded them of
+the mournful event which had called them together, the company again
+recurred to it; some present, sadly and incidentally alluding to
+Borabolla's banquet of turtle, thereby postponed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER C
+The Pursuer Himself Is Pursued
+
+
+Next morning, when much to the chagrin of Borabolla we were preparing
+to quit his isle, came tidings to the palace, of a wonderful event,
+occurring in one of the "Motoos," or little islets of the great reef;
+which "Motoo" was included in the dominions of the king.
+
+The men who brought these tidings were highly excited; and no sooner
+did they make known what they knew, than all Mondoldo was in a tumult
+of marveling.
+
+Their story was this.
+
+Going at day break to the Motoo to fish, they perceived a strange
+proa beached on its seaward shore; and presently were hailed by
+voices; and saw among the palm trees, three specter-like men, who
+were not of Mardi.
+
+The first amazement of the fishermen over, in reply to their eager
+questions, the strangers related, that they were the survivors of a
+company of men, natives of some unknown island to the northeast;
+whence they had embarked for another country, distant three days'
+sail to the southward of theirs. But falling in with a terrible
+adventure, in which their sire had been slain, they altered their
+course to pursue the fugitive who murdered him; one and all vowing,
+never more to see home, until their father's fate was avenged. The
+murderer's proa outsailing theirs, soon ran out of sight; yet after
+him they blindly steered by day and by night: steering by the blood-
+red star in Bootes. Soon, a violent gale overtook them; driving them
+to and fro; leaving them they knew not where. But still struggling
+against strange currents, at times counteracting their sailing, they
+drifted on their way; nigh to famishing for water; and no shore in
+sight. In long calms, in vain they held up their dry gourds to heaven,
+and cried "send us a breeze, sweet gods!" The calm still brooded; and
+ere it was gone, all but three gasped; and dead from thirst, were
+plunged into the sea. The breeze which followed the calm, soon brought
+them in sight of a low, uninhabited isle; where tarrying many days,
+they laid in good store of cocoanuts and water, and again embarked.
+
+The next land they saw was Mardi; and they landed on the Motoo, still
+intent on revenge.
+
+This recital filled Taji with horror.
+
+Who could these avengers be, but the sons of him I had slain. I had
+thought them far hence, and myself forgotten; and now, like adders,
+they started up in my path, as I hunted for Yillah.
+
+But I dissembled my thoughts.
+
+Without waiting to hear more, Borabolla, all curiosity to behold the
+strangers, instantly dispatched to the Motoo one of his fleetest
+canoes, with orders to return with the voyagers.
+
+Ere long they came in sight; and perceiving that strange pros in tow
+of the king's, Samoa cried out: "Lo! Taji, the canoe that was going
+to Tedaidee!"
+
+Too true; the same double-keeled craft, now sorely broken, the fatal
+dais in wild disarray: the canoe, the canoe of Aleema! And with it
+came the spearmen three, who, when the Chamois was fleeing from their
+bow, had poised their javelins. But so wan their aspect now, their
+faces looked like skulls.
+
+Then came over me the wild dream of Yillah; and, for a space, like a
+madman, I raved. It seemed as if the mysterious damsel must still be
+there; the rescue yet to be achieved. In my delirium I rushed upon
+the skeletons, as they landed--"Hide not the maiden!" But
+interposing, Media led me aside; when my transports abated.
+
+Now, instantly, the strangers knew who I was; and, brandishing their
+javelins, they rushed upon me, as I had on them, with a yell. But
+deeming us all mad, the crowd held us apart; when, writhing in the
+arms that restrained them, the pale specters foamed out their curses
+again and again: "Oh murderer! white curses upon thee! Bleached be
+thy soul with our hate! Living, our brethren cursed thee; and dying,
+dry-lipped, they cursed thee again. They died not through famishing
+for water, but for revenge upon thee! Thy blood, their thirst would
+have slaked!"
+
+I lay fainting against the hard-throbbing heart of Samoa, while they
+showered their yells through the air. Once more, in my thoughts, the
+green corpse of the priest drifted by.
+
+Among the people of Mondoldo, a violent commotion now raged. They
+were amazed at Taji's recognition by the strangers, and at the deadly
+ferocity they betrayed.
+
+Rallying upon this, and perceiving that by divulging all they knew,
+these sons of Aleema might stir up the Islanders against me, I
+resolved to anticipate their story; and, turning to Borabolla, said--
+"In these strangers, oh, king! you behold the survivors of a band we
+encountered on our voyage. From them I rescued a maiden, called
+Yillah, whom they were carrying captive. Little more of their history
+do I know."
+
+"Their maledictions?" exclaimed Borabolla.
+
+"Are they not delirious with suffering?" I cried. "They know not what
+they say."
+
+So, moved by all this, he commanded them to be guarded, and conducted
+within his palisade; and having supplied them with cheer, entered
+into earnest discourse. Yet all the while, the pale strangers on me
+fixed their eyes; deep, dry, crater-like hollows, lurid with flames,
+reflected from the fear-frozen glacier, my soul.
+
+But though their hatred appalled, spite of that spell, again the
+sweet dream of Yillah stole over me, with all the mysterious
+things by her narrated, but left unexplained. And now, before me were
+those who might reveal the lost maiden's whole history, previous to
+the fatal affray.
+
+Thus impelled, I besought them to disclose what they knew.
+
+But, "Where now is your Yillah?" they cried. "Is the murderer wedded
+and merry? Bring forth the maiden!"
+
+Yet, though they tore out my heart's core, I told them not of my loss.
+
+Then, anxious, to learn the history of Yillah, all present commanded
+them to divulge it; and breathlessly I heard what follows.
+
+"Of Yillah, we know only this:--that many moons ago, a mighty canoe,
+full of beings, white, like this murderer Taji, touched at our island
+of Amma. Received with wonder, they were worshiped as gods; were
+feasted all over the land. Their chief was a tower to behold; and
+with him, was a being, whose cheeks were of the color of the red
+coral; her eye, tender as the blue of the sky. Every day our people
+brought her offerings of fruit and flowers; which last she would not
+retain for herself; but hung them round the neck of her child,
+Yillah; then only an infant in her mother's arms; a bud, nestling
+close to a flower, full-blown. All went well between our people and
+the gods, till at last they slew three of our countrymen, charged
+with stealing from their great canoe. Our warriors retired to the
+hills, brooding over revenge. Three days went by; when by night,
+descending to the plain, in silence they embarked; gained the great
+vessel, and slaughtered every soul but Yillah. The bud was torn from
+the flower; and, by our father Aleema, was carried to the Valley of
+Ardair; there set apart as a sacred offering for Apo, our deity. Many
+moons passed; and there arose a tumult, hostile to our sire's longer
+holding custody of Yillah; when, foreseeing that the holy glen would
+ere long be burst open, he embarked the maiden in yonder canoe, to
+accelerate her sacri flee at the great shrine of Apo, in
+Tedaidee.--The rest thou knowest, murderer!"
+
+"Yillah! Yillah!" now hunted again that sound through my soul. "Oh,
+Yillah! too late, too late have I learned what thou art!"
+
+Apprised of the disappearance of their former captive, the meager
+strangers exulted; declaring that Apo had taken her to himself. For
+me, ere long, my blood they would quaff from my skull.
+
+But though I shrunk from their horrible threats, I dissembled anew;
+and turning, again swore that they raved.
+
+"Ay!" they retorted, "we rave and raven for you; and your white heart
+will we have!"
+
+Perceiving the violence of their rage, and persuaded from what I
+said, that much suffering at sea must have maddened them; Borabolla
+thought fit to confine them for the present; so that they could not
+molest me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CI
+The Iris
+
+
+That evening, in the groves, came to me three gliding forms:--Hautia's
+heralds: the Iris mixed with nettles. Said Yoomy, "A cruel message!"
+
+With the right hand, the second syren presented glossy, green wax-
+myrtle berries, those that burn like tapers; the third, a lily of the
+valley, crushed in its own broad leaf.
+
+This done, they earnestly eyed Yoomy; who, after much pondering,
+said--"I speak for Hautia; who by these berries says, I will
+enlighten you."
+
+"Oh, give me then that light! say, where is Yillah?" and I rushed
+upon the heralds.
+
+But eluding me, they looked reproachfully at Yoomy; and seemed
+offended.
+
+"Then, I am wrong," said Yoomy. "It is thus:--Taji, you have been
+enlightened, but the lily you seek is crushed."
+
+Then fell my heart, and the phantoms nodded; flinging upon me
+bilberries, like rose pearls, which bruised against my skin,
+left stains.
+
+Waving oleanders, they retreated.
+
+"Harm! treachery! beware!" cried Yoomy.
+
+Then they glided through the wood: one showering dead leaves along
+the path I trod, the others gayly waving bunches of spring-crocuses,
+yellow, white, and purple; and thus they vanished.
+
+Said Yoomy, "Sad your path, but merry Hautia's."
+
+"Then merry may she be, whoe'er she is; and though woe be mine, I
+turn not from that to Hautia; nor ever will I woo her, though she woo
+me till I die;--though Yillah never bless my eyes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CII
+They Depart From Mondoldo
+
+
+Night passed; and next morning we made preparations for leaving
+Mondoldo that day.
+
+But fearing anew, lest after our departure, the men of Amma might
+stir up against me the people of the isle, I determined to yield to
+the earnest solicitations of Borabolla, and leave Jarl behind, for a
+remembrance of Taji; if necessary, to vindicate his name. Apprised
+hereof, my follower was loth to acquiesce. His guiltless spirit
+feared not the strangers: less selfish considerations prevailed. He
+was willing to remain on the island for a time, but not without me.
+Yet, setting forth my reasons; and assuring him, that our tour would
+not be long in completing, when we would not fail to return, previous
+to sailing for Odo, he at last, but reluctantly, assented.
+
+At Mondoldo, we also parted with Samoa. Whether it was, that he
+feared the avengers, whom he may have thought would follow on my
+track; or whether the islands of Mardi answered not in attractiveness
+to the picture his fancy had painted; or whether the restraint put
+upon him by the domineering presence of King Media, was too irksome
+withal; or whether, indeed, he relished not those disquisitions with
+which Babbalanja regaled us: however it may have been, certain it
+was, that Samoa was impatient of the voyage. He besought permission
+to return to Odo, there to await my return; and a canoe of Mondoldo
+being about to proceed in that direction, permission was granted; and
+departing for the other side of the island, from thence he embarked.
+
+Long after, dark tidings came, that at early dawn he had been found
+dead in the canoe: three arrows in his side.
+
+Yoomy was at a loss to account for the departure of Samoa; who, while
+ashore, had expressed much desire to roam.
+
+Media, however, declared that he must be returning to some inamorata.
+
+But Babbalanja averred, that the Upoluan was not the first man, who
+had turned back, after beginning a voyage like our own.
+
+To this, after musing, Yoomy assented. Indeed, I had noticed, that
+already the Warbler had abated those sanguine assurances of success,
+with which he had departed from Odo. The futility of our search thus
+far, seemed ominous to him, of the end.
+
+On the eve of embarking, we were accompanied to the beach by
+Borabolla; who, with his own hand, suspended from the shark's mouth
+of Media's canoe, three red-ripe bunches of plantains, a farewell
+gift to his guests.
+
+Though he spoke not a word, Jarl was long in taking leave. His eyes
+seemed to say, I will see you no more.
+
+At length we pushed from the strand; Borabolla waving his adieus with
+a green leaf of banana; our comrade ruefully eyeing the receding
+canoes; and the multitude loudly invoking for us a prosperous voyage.
+
+But to my horror, there suddenly dashed through the crowd, the three
+specter sons of Aleema, escaped from their prison. With clenched
+hands, they stood in the water, and cursed me anew. And with that
+curse in our sails, we swept off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CIII
+As They Sail
+
+
+As the canoes now glided across the lagoon, I gave myself up to
+reverie; and revolving over all that the men of Amma had rehearsed of
+the history of Yillah, I one by one unriddled the mysteries, before
+so baffling. Now, all was made plain: no secret remaining, but the
+subsequent event of her disappearance. Yes, Hautia! enlightened I had
+been but where was Yillah?
+
+Then I recalled that last interview with Hautia's messengers, so full
+of enigmas; and wondered, whether Yoomy had interpreted aright.
+Unseen, and unsolicited; still pursuing me with omens, with taunts,
+and with wooings, mysterious Hautia appalled me. Vaguely I began to
+fear her. And the thought, that perhaps again and again, her heralds
+would haunt me, filled me with a nameless dread, which I almost
+shrank from acknowledging. Inwardly I prayed, that never more they
+might appear.
+
+While full of these thoughts, Media interrupted them by saying, that
+the minstrel was about to begin one of his chants, a thing of his own
+composing; and therefore, as he himself said, all critics must be
+lenient; for Yoomy, at times, not always, was a timid youth,
+distrustful of his own sweet genius for poesy.
+
+The words were about a curious hereafter, believed in by some people
+in Mardi: a sort of nocturnal Paradise, where the sun and its heat
+are excluded: one long, lunar day, with twinkling stars to keep
+company.
+
+THE SONG
+    Far off in the sea is Marlena,
+    A land of shades and streams,
+    A land of many delights.
+    Dark and bold, thy shores,
+    Marlena; But green, and timorous, thy soft knolls,
+    Crouching behind the woodlands.
+    All shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs,
+    Like eyes in the earth looking at you.
+    How charming thy haunts Marlena!--
+    Oh, the waters that flow through Onimoo:
+    Oh, the leaves that rustle through Ponoo:
+    Oh, the roses that blossom in Tarma:
+    Come, and see the valley of Vina:
+    How sweet, how sweet, the Isles from Hind:
+    'Tis aye afternoon of the full, full moon,
+    And ever the season of fruit,
+    And ever the hour of flowers,
+    And never the time of rains and gales,
+    All in and about Marlena.
+    Soft sigh the boughs in the stilly air,
+    Soft lap the beach the billows there;
+    And in the woods or by the streams,
+    You needs must nod in the Land of Dreams.
+
+"Yoomy," said old Mohi with a yawn, "you composed that song, then,
+did you?"
+
+"I did," said Yoomy, placing his turban a little to one side.
+
+"Then, minstrel, you shall sing me to sleep every night, especially
+with that song of Marlena; it is soporific as the airs of Nora-Bamma."
+
+"Mean you, old man, that my lines, setting forth the luxurious repose
+to be enjoyed hereafter, are composed with such skill, that the
+description begets the reality; or would you ironically suggest, that
+the song is a sleepy thing itself?"
+
+"An important discrimination," said Media; "which mean you, Mohi?"
+
+"Now, are you not a silly boy," said Babbalanja, "when from the
+ambiguity of his speech, you could so easily have derived
+something flattering, thus to seek to extract unpleasantness from it?
+Be wise, Yoomy; and hereafter, whenever a remark like that seems
+equivocal, be sure to wrest commendation from it, though you torture
+it to the quick."
+
+"And most sure am I, that I would ever do so; but often I so incline
+to a distrust of my powers, that I am far more keenly alive to
+censure, than to praise; and always deem it the more sincere of the
+two; and no praise so much elates me, as censure depresses."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER CIV
+Wherein Babbalanja Broaches A Diabolical Theory, And, In His Own
+Person, Proves It
+
+
+"A truce!" cried Media, "here comes a gallant before the wind.--
+Look, Taji!"
+
+Turning, we descried a sharp-prowed canoe, dashing on, under the
+pressure of an immense triangular sail, whose outer edges were
+streaming with long, crimson pennons. Flying before it, were several
+small craft, belonging to the poorer sort of Islanders.
+
+"Out of his way there, ye laggards," cried Media, "or that mad
+prince, Tribonnora, will ride over ye with a rush!"
+
+"And who is Tribonnora," said Babbalanja, "that he thus bravely
+diverts himself, running down innocent paddlers?"
+
+"A harum-scarum young chief," replied Media, "heir to three islands;
+he likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at."
+
+"He must be possessed by a devil," said Mohi.
+
+Said Babbalanja, "Then he is only like all of us." "What say you?"
+cried Media.
+
+"I say, as old Bardianna in the Nine hundred and ninety ninth book of
+his immortal Ponderings saith, that all men--"
+
+"As I live, my lord, he has swamped three canoes," cried Mohi,
+pointing off the beam.
+
+But just then a fiery fin-back whale, having broken into the paddock
+of the lagoon, threw up a high fountain of foam, almost under
+Tribonnora's nose; who, quickly turning about his canoe, cur-like
+slunk off; his steering-paddle between his legs.
+
+Comments over; "Babbalanja, you were going to quote," said Media.
+"Proceed."
+
+"Thank you, my lord. Says old Bardianna, 'All men are possessed by
+devils; but as these devils are sent into men, and kept in them, for
+an additional punishment; not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in
+a bridewell; so, it may be more just to say, that the devils
+themselves are possessed by men, not men by them.'"
+
+"Faith!" cried Media, "though sometimes a bore, your old Bardianna is
+a trump."
+
+"I have long been of that mind, my lord. But let me go on. Says
+Bardianna, 'Devils are divers;--strong devils, and weak devils;
+knowing devils, and silly devils; mad devils, and mild devils;
+devils, merely devils; devils, themselves bedeviled; devils, doubly
+bedeviled."
+
+"And in the devil's name, what sort of a devil is yours?" cried Mohi.
+
+"Of him anon; interrupt me not, old man. Thus, then, my lord, as
+devils are divers, divers are the devils in men. Whence, the wide
+difference we see. But after all, the main difference is this:--that
+one man's devil is only more of a devil than another's; and be
+bedeviled as much as you will; yet, may you perform the most
+bedeviled of actions with impunity, so long as you only bedevil
+yourself. For it is only when your deviltry injures another, that the
+other devils conspire to confine yours for a mad one. That is to say,
+if you be easily handled. For there are many bedeviled Bedlamites in
+Mardi, doing an infinity of mischief, who are too brawny in the arms
+to be tied."
+
+"A very devilish doctrine that," cried Mohi. "I don't believe it."
+
+ "My lord," said Babbalanja, "here's collateral proof;--the sage
+lawgiver Yamjamma, who flourished long before Bardianna, roundly
+asserts, that all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good
+is happiness; happiness the object of living; and evil is not good."
+
+"If the sage Yamjamma said that," said old Mohi, "the sage Yamjamma
+might have bettered the saying; it's not quite so plain as it might be."
+
+"Yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended
+by mortals. Like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings. But old
+Bardianna was of another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to
+the point like a javelin; especially when he laid it down for a
+universal maxim, that minus exceptions, all men are bedeviled."
+
+"Of course, then," said Media, "you include yourself among the number."
+
+"Most assuredly; and so did old Bardianna; who somewhere says, that
+being thoroughly bedeviled himself, he was so much the better
+qualified to discourse upon the deviltries of his neighbors. But in
+another place he seems to contradict himself, by asserting, that he
+is not so sensible of his own deviltry as of other people's."
+
+"Hold!" cried Media, "who have we here?" and he pointed ahead of our
+prow to three men in the water, urging themselves along, each with a
+paddle.
+
+We made haste to overtake them.
+
+"Who are you?" said Media, "where from, and where bound?"
+
+"From Variora," they answered, "and bound to Mondoldo." "And did that
+devil Tribonnora swamp your canoe?" asked Media, offering to help
+them into ours.
+
+"We had no such useless incumbrance to lose," they replied, resting
+on their backs, and panting with their exertions. "If we had had a
+canoe, we would have had to paddle it along with us; whereas we have
+only our bodies to paddle."
+
+"You are a parcel of loons," exclaimed Media. "But go your ways, if
+you are satisfied with your locomotion, well and good."
+
+"Now, it is an extreme case, I grant," said Babbalanja, "but those
+poor devils there, help to establish old Bardianna's position.
+They belong to that species of our bedeviled race, called simpletons;
+but their devils harming none but themselves, are permitted to be at
+large with the fish. Whereas, Tribonnora's devil, who daily runs down
+canoes, drowning their occupants, belongs to the species of out and
+out devils; but being high in station, and strongly backed by kith
+and kin, Tribonnora can not be mastered, and put in a strait jacket.
+For myself, I think my devil is some where between these two
+extremes; at any rate, he belongs to that class of devils who harm
+not other devils."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," retorted Media. "Methinks this doctrine
+of yours, about all mankind being bedeviled, will work a deal of
+mischief; seeing that by implication it absolves you mortals from
+moral accountability. Further-more; as your doctrine is exceedingly
+evil, by Yamjamma's theory it follows, that you must be
+proportionably bedeviled; and since it harms others, your devil is of
+the number of those whom it is best to limbo; and since he is one of
+those that can be limboed, limboed he shall be in you."
+
+And so saying, he humorously commanded his attendants to lay hands
+upon the bedeviled philosopher, and place a bandage upon his mouth,
+that he might no more disseminate his devilish doctrine.
+
+Against this, Babbalanja demurred, protesting that he was no orang-
+outang, to be so rudely handled.
+
+"Better and better," said Media, "you but illustrate Bardianna's
+theory; that men are not sensible of their being bedeviled."
+
+Thus tantalized, Babbalanja displayed few signs of philosophy.
+
+Whereupon, said Media, "Assuredly his devil is foaming; behold his
+mouth!" And he commanded him to be bound hand and foot.
+
+At length, seeing all resistance ineffectual, Babbalanja submitted;
+but not without many objurgations.
+
+Presently, however, they released him; when Media inquired,
+how he relished the application of his theory; and whether he was
+still' of old Bardianna's mind?
+
+To which, haughtily adjusting his robe, Babbalanja replied, "The
+strong arm, my lord, is no argument, though it overcomes all logic."
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I
+(of 2), by Herman Melville
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER, ***
+
+***** This file should be named 13720.txt or 13720.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.net/1/3/7/2/13720/
+
+Produced by Geoff Palmer
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.net/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.net
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/old/20041014-13720.zip b/old/old/20041014-13720.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de12475
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/20041014-13720.zip