“Thus, also, did Franko, fifty twelve-moons ago. Thus may she do again.

And though not yet, have you, sovereign-kings! in any large degree done

likewise, it is because you overflow your redundancies within your own

mighty borders; having a wild western waste, which many shepherds with

their flocks could not overrun in a day. Yet overrun at last it will

be; and then, the recoil must come.

“And, may it please you, that thus far your chronicles had narrated a

very different story, had your population been pressed and packed, like

that of your old sire-land Dominora. Then, your great experiment might

have proved an explosion; like the chemist’s who, stirring his mixture,

was blown by it into the air.

“For though crossed, and recrossed by many brave quarterings, and

boasting the great Bull in your pedigree; yet, sovereign-kings! you are

not meditative philosophers like the people of a small republic of old;

nor enduring stoics, like their neighbors. Pent up, like them, may it

please you, your thirteen original tribes had proved more turbulent,

than so many mutinous legions. Free horses need wide prairies; and

fortunate for you, sovereign-kings! that you have room enough, wherein

to be free.

“And, may it please you, you are free, partly, because you are young.

Your nation is like a fine, florid youth, full of fiery impulses, and

hard to restrain; his strong hand nobly championing his heart. On all

sides, freely he gives, and still seeks to acquire. The breath of his

nostrils is like smoke in spring air; every tendon is electric with

generous resolves. The oppressor he defies to his beard; the high walls

of old opinions he scales with a bound. In the future he sees all the

domes of the East.

“But years elapse, and this bold boy is transformed. His eyes open not

as of yore; his heart is shut up as a vice. He yields not a groat; and

seeking no more acquisitions, is only bent on preserving his hoard. The

maxims once trampled under foot, are now printed on his front; and he

who hated oppressors, is become an oppressor himself.

“Thus, often, with men; thus, often, with nations. Then marvel not,

sovereign-kings! that old states are different from yours; and think

not, your own must forever remain liberal as now.

“Each age thinks its own is eternal. But though for five hundred

twelve-moons, all Romara, by courtesy of history, was republican; yet,

at last, her terrible king-tigers came, and spotted themselves with

gore.

“And time was, when Dominora was republican, down to her sturdy back-

bone. The son of an absolute monarch became the man Karolus; and his

crown and head, both rolled in the dust. And Dominora had her patriots

by thousands; and lusty Defenses, and glorious Areopagiticas were

written, not since surpassed; and no turban was doffed save in homage

of Oro.

“Yet, may it please you, to the sound of pipe and tabor, the second

King Karolus returned in good time; and was hailed gracious majesty by

high and low.

“Throughout all eternity, the parts of the past are but parts of the

future reversed. In the old foot-prints, up and down, you mortals go,

eternally traveling your Sierras. And not more infallible the

ponderings of the Calculating Machine than the deductions from the

decimals of history.

“In nations, sovereign-kings! there is a transmigration of souls; in

you, is a marvelous destiny. The eagle of Romara revives in your own

mountain bird, and once more is plumed for her flight. Her screams are

answered by the vauntful cries of a hawk; his red comb yet reeking with

slaughter. And one East, one West, those bold birds may fly, till they

lock pinions in the midmost beyond.

“But, soaring in the sky over the nations that shall gather their

broods under their wings, that bloody hawk may hereafter be taken for

the eagle.

“And though crimson republics may rise in constellations, like fiery

Aldebarans, speeding to their culminations; yet, down must they sink at

last, and leave the old sultan-sun in the sky; in time, again to be

deposed.

“For little longer, may it please you, can republics subsist now, than

in days gone by. For, assuming that Mardi is wiser than of old;

nevertheless, though all men approached sages in intelligence, some

would yet be more wise than others; and so, the old degrees be

preserved. And no exemption would an equality of knowledge furnish,

from the inbred servility of mortal to mortal; from all the organic

causes, which inevitably divide mankind into brigades and battalions,

with captains at their head.

“Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was

born among the wild eyries in the mountains; and barbarous tribes have

sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain

have nestled under different pinions.

“Though, thus far, for you, sovereign-kings! your republic has been

fruitful of blessings; yet, in themselves, monarchies are not utterly

evil. For many nations, they are better than republics; for many, they

will ever so remain. And better, on all hands, that peace should rule

with a scepter, than than the tribunes of the people should brandish

their broadswords. Better be the subject of a king, upright and just;

than a freeman in Franko, with the executioner’s ax at every corner.

“It is not the prime end, and chief blessing, to be politically free.

And freedom is only good as a means; is no end in itself Nor, did man

fight it out against his masters to the haft, not then, would he

uncollar his neck from the yoke. A born thrall to the last, yelping out

his liberty, he still remains a slave unto Oro; and well is it for the

universe, that Oro’s scepter is absolute.

“World-old the saying, that it is easier to govern others, than

oneself. And that all men should govern themselves as nations, needs

that all men be better, and wiser, than the wisest of one-man rulers.

But in no stable democracy do all men govern themselves. Though an army

be all volunteers, martial law must prevail. Delegate your power, you

leagued mortals must. The hazard you must stand. And though unlike King

Bello of Dominora, your great chieftain, sovereign-kings! may not

declare war of himself; nevertheless, has he done a still more imperial

thing:—gone to war without declaring intentions. You yourselves were

precipitated upon a neighboring nation, ere you knew your spears were

in your hands.

“But, as in stars you have written it on the welkin, sovereign-kings!

you are a great and glorious people. And verily, yours is the best and

happiest land under the sun. But not wholly, because you, in your

wisdom, decreed it: your origin and geography necessitated it. Nor, in

their germ, are all your blessings to be ascribed to the noble sires,

who of yore fought in your behalf, sovereign-kings! Your nation enjoyed

no little independence before your Declaration declared it. Your

ancient pilgrims fathered your liberty; and your wild woods harbored

the nursling. For the state that to-day is made up of slaves, can not

to-morrow transmute her bond into free; though lawlessness may

transform them into brutes. Freedom is the name for a thing that is

_not_ freedom; this, a lesson never learned in an hour or an age. By

some tribes it will never be learned.

“Yet, if it please you, there may be such a thing as being free under

Caesar. Ages ago, there were as many vital freemen, as breathe vital

air to-day.

“Names make not distinctions; some despots rule without swaying

scepters. Though King Bello’s palace was not put together by yoked men;

your federal temple of freedom, sovereign-kings! was the handiwork of

slaves.

“It is not gildings, and gold maces, and crown jewels alone, that make

a people servile. There is much bowing and cringing among you

yourselves, sovereign-kings! Poverty is abased before riches, all Mardi

over; any where, it is hard to be a debtor; any where, the wise will

lord it over fools; every where, suffering is found.

“Thus, freedom is more social than political. And its real felicity is

not to be shared. _That_ is of a man’s own individual getting and

holding. It is not, who rules the state, but who rules me. Better be

secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of

monarchs, though oneself be of the number.

“But superstitious notions you harbor, sovereign kings! Did you visit

Dominora, you would not be marched straight into a dungeon. And though

you would behold sundry sights displeasing, you would start to inhale

such liberal breezes; and hear crowds boasting of their privileges; as

you, of yours. Nor has the wine of Dominora, a monarchical flavor.

“Now, though far and wide, to keep equal pace with the times, great

reforms, of a verity, be needed; nowhere are bloody revolutions

required. Though it be the most certain of remedies, no prudent invalid

opens his veins, to let out his disease with his life. And though all

evils may be assuaged; all evils can not be done away. For evil is the

chronic malady of the universe; and checked in one place, breaks forth

in another.

“Of late, on this head, some wild dreams have departed.

“There are many, who erewhile believed that the age of pikes and

javelins was passed; that after a heady and blustering youth, old Mardi

was at last settling down into a serene old age; and that the Indian

summer, first discovered in your land, sovereign kings! was the hazy

vapor emitted from its tranquil pipe. But it has not so proved. Mardi’s

peaces are but truces. Long absent, at last the red comets have

returned. And return they must, though their periods be ages. And

should Mardi endure till mountain melt into mountain, and all the isles

form one table-land; yet, would it but expand the old battle-plain.

“Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old; but in

the shambles, men are being murdered to-day. Could time be reversed,

and the future change places with the past, the past would cry out

against us, and our future, full as loudly, as we against the ages

foregone. All the Ages are his children, calling each other names.

“Hark ye, sovereign-kings! cheer not on the yelping pack too furiously:

Hunters have been torn by their hounds. Be advised; wash your hands.

Hold aloof. Oro has poured out an ocean for an everlasting barrier

between you and the worst folly which other republics have perpetrated.

That barrier hold sacred. And swear never to cross over to Porpheero,

by manifesto or army, unless you traverse dry land.

“And be not too grasping, nearer home. It is not freedom to filch.

Expand not your area too widely, now. Seek you proselytes? Neighboring

nations may be free, without coming under your banner. And if you can

not lay your ambition, know this: that it is best served, by waiting

events.

“Time, but Time only, may enable you to cross the equator; and give you

the Arctic Circles for your boundaries.”

So read the anonymous scroll; which straightway, was torn into shreds.

“Old tory, and monarchist!” they shouted, “Preaching over his benighted

sermons in these enlightened times! Fool! does he not know that all the

Past and its graves are being dug over?”

They were furious; so wildly rolling their eyes after victims, that

well was it for King Media, he wore not his crown; and in silence, we

moved unnoted from out the crowd.

“My lord, I am amazed at the indiscretion of a demigod,” said

Babbalanja, as we passed on our way; “I recognized your sultanic style

the very first sentence. This, then, is the result of your hours of

seclusion.”

“Philosopher! I am astounded at your effrontery. I detected your

philosophy the very first maxim. Who posted that parchment for you?”

So, each charged the other with its authorship: and there was no

finding out, whether, indeed, either knew aught of its origin.

Now, could it have been Babbalanja? Hardly. For, philosophic as the

document was, it seemed too dogmatic and conservative for him. King

Media? But though imperially absolute in his political sentiments,

Media delivered not himself so boldly, when actually beholding the

eruption in Franko.

Indeed, the settlement of this question must be left to the

commentators on Mardi, some four or five hundred centuries hence.

CHAPTER LVIII.

They Visit The Extreme South Of Vivenza

We penetrated further and further into the valleys around; but, though,

as elsewhere, at times we heard whisperings that promised an end to our

wanderings;—we still wandered on; and once again, even Yoomy abated his

sanguine hopes.

And now, we prepared to embark for the extreme south of the land.

But we were warned by the people, that in that portion of Vivenza,

whither we were going, much would be seen repulsive to strangers. Such

things, however, indulgent visitors overlooked. For themselves, they

were well aware of those evils. Northern Vivenza had done all it could

to assuage them; but in vain; the inhabitants of those southern valleys

were a fiery, and intractable race; heeding neither expostulations, nor

entreaties. They were wedded to their ways. Nay, they swore, that if

the northern tribes persisted in intermeddlings, they would dissolve

the common alliance, and establish a distinct confederacy among

themselves.

Our coasting voyage at an end, our keels grated the beach among many

prostrate palms, decaying, and washed by the billows. Though part and

parcel of the shore we had left, this region seemed another land. Fewer

thriving thingswere seen; fewer cheerful sounds were heard.

“Here labor has lost his laugh!” cried Yoomy.

It was a great plain where we landed; and there, under a burning sun,

hundreds of collared men were toiling in trenches, filled with the taro

plant; a root most flourishing in that soil. Standing grimly over

these, were men unlike them; armed with long thongs, which descended

upon the toilers, and made wounds. Blood and sweat mixed; and in great

drops, fell.

“Who eat these plants thus nourished?” cried Yoomy. “Are these men?”

asked Babbalanja.

“Which mean you?” said Mohi.

Heeding him not, Babbalanja advanced toward the fore-most of those with

the thongs,—one Nulli: a cadaverous, ghost-like man; with a low ridge

of forehead; hair, steel-gray; and wondrous eyes;—bright, nimble, as

the twin Corposant balls, playing about the ends of ships’ royal-yards

in gales.

The sun passed under a cloud; and Nulli, darting at Babbalanja those

wondrous eyes, there fell upon him a baleful glare.

“Have they souls?” he asked, pointing to the serfs.

“No,” said Nulli, “their ancestors may have had; but their souls have

been bred out of their descendants; as the instinct of scent is killed

in pointers.”

Approaching one of the serfs, Media took him by the hand, and felt of

it long; and looked into his eyes; and placed his ear to his side; and

exclaimed, “Surely this being has flesh that is warm; he has Oro in his

eye; and a heart in him that beats. I swear he is a man.”

“Is this our lord the king?” cried Mohi, starting.

“What art thou,” said Babbalanja to the serf. “Dost ever feel in thee a

sense of right and wrong? Art ever glad or sad?—They tell us thou art

not a man:—speak, then, for thyself; say, whether thou beliest thy

Maker.”

“Speak not of my Maker to me. Under the lash, I believe my masters, and

account myself a brute; but in my dreams, bethink myself an angel. But

I am bond; and my little ones;—their mother’s milk is gall.”

“Just Oro!” cried Yoomy, “do no thunders roll,—no lightnings flash in

this accursed land!”

“Asylum for all Mardi’s thralls!” cried Media.

“Incendiaries!” cried he with the wondrous eyes, “come ye, firebrands,

to light the flame of revolt? Know ye not, that here are many serfs,

who, incited to obtain their liberty, might wreak some dreadful

vengeance? Avaunt, thou king! _thou_ horrified at this? Go back to Odo,

and right her wrongs! These serfs are happier than thine; though thine,

no collars wear; more happy as they are, than if free. Are they not

fed, clothed, and cared for? Thy serfs pine for food: never yet did

these; who have no thoughts, no cares.”

“Thoughts and cares are life, and liberty, and immortality!” cried

Babbalanja; “and are their souls, then, blown out as candles?”

“Ranter! they are content,” cried Nulli. “They shed no tears.”

“Frost never weeps,” said Babbalanja; “and tears are frozen in those

frigid eyes.”

“Oh fettered sons of fettered mothers, conceived and born in manacles,”

cried Yoomy; “dragging them through life; and falling with them,

clanking in the grave:—oh, beings as ourselves, how my stiff arm

shivers to avenge you! ’Twere absolution for the matricide, to strike

one rivet from your chains. My heart outswells its home!”

“Oro! Art thou?” cried Babbalanja; “and doth this thing exist? It

shakes my little faith.” Then, turning upon Nulli, “How can ye abide to

sway this curs’d dominion?”

“Peace, fanatic! Who else may till unwholesome fields, but these? And

as these beings are, so shall they remain; ’tis right and righteous!

Maramma champions it!—I swear it! The first blow struck for them,

dissolves the union of Vivenza’s vales. The northern tribes well know

it; and know me.”

Said Media, “Yet if—”

“No more! another word, and, king as thou art, thou shalt be

dungeoned:—here, there is such a law; thou art not among the northern

tribes.”

“And this is freedom!” murmured Media; “when heaven’s own voice is

throttled. And were these serfs to rise, and fight for it; like dogs,

they would be hunted down by her pretended sons!”

“Pray, heaven!” cried Yoomy, “they may yet find a way to loose their

bonds without one drop of blood. But hear me, Oro! were there no other

way, and should their masters not relent, all honest hearts must cheer

this tribe of Hamo on; though they cut their chains with blades thrice

edged, and gory to the haft! ’Tis right to fight for freedom, whoever

be the thrall.”

“These South savannahs may yet prove battle-fields,” said Mohi;

gloomily, as we retraced our steps.

“Be it,” said Yoomy. “Oro will van the right.”

“Not always has it proved so,” said Babbalanja. “Oft-times, the right

fights single-handed against the world; and Oro champions none. In all

things, man’s own battles, man himself must fight. Yoomy: so far as

feeling goes, your sympathies are not more hot than mine; but for these

serfs you would cross spears; yet, I would not. Better present woes for

some, than future woes for all.”

“No need to fight,” cried Yoomy, “to liberate that tribe of Hamo

instantly; a way may be found, and no irretrievable evil ensue.”

“Point it out, and be blessed, Yoomy.”

“That is for Vivenza; but the head is dull, where the heart is cold.”

“My lord,” said Babbalanja, “you have startled us by your kingly

sympathy for suffering; say thou, then, in what wise manner it shall be

relieved.”

“That is for Vivenza,” said Media.

“Mohi, you are old: speak thou.”

“Let Vivenza speak,” said Mohi.

“Thus then we all agree; and weeping all but echo hard-hearted Nulli.

Tears are not swords and wrongs seem almost natural as rights. For the

righteous to suppress an evil, is sometimes harder than for others to

uphold it. Humanity cries out against this vast enormity:— not one man

knows a prudent remedy. Blame not, then, the North; and wisely judge

the South. Ere, as a nation, they became responsible, this thing was

planted in their midst. Such roots strike deep. Place to-day those

serfs in Dominora; and with them, all Vivenza’s Past;— and serfs, for

many years, in Dominora, they would be. Easy is it to stand afar and

rail. All men are censors who have lungs. We can say, the stars are

wrongly marshaled. Blind men say the sun is blind. A thousand muscles

wag our tongues; though our tongues were housed, that they might have a

home. Whose is free from crime, let him cross himself—but hold his

cross upon his lips. That he is not bad, is not of him. Potters’ clay

and wax are all, molded by hands invisible. The soil decides the man.

And, ere birth, man wills not to be born here or there. These southern

tribes have grown up with this thing; bond-women were their nurses, and

bondmen serve them still. Nor are all their serfs such wretches as

those we saw. Some seem happy: yet not as men. Unmanned, they know not

what they are. And though, of all the south, Nulli must stand almost

alone in his insensate creed; yet, to all wrong-doers, custom backs the

sense of wrong. And if to every Mardian, conscience be the awarder of

its own doom; then, of these tribes, many shall be found exempted from

the least penalty of this sin. But sin it is, no less;—a blot, foul as

the crater-pool of hell; it puts out the sun at noon; it parches all

fertility; and, conscience or no conscience—ere he die—let every master

who wrenches bond-babe from mother, that the nipple tear; unwreathes

the arms of sisters; or cuts the holy unity in twain; till apart fall

man and wife, like one bleeding body cleft:—let that master thrice

shrive his soul; take every sacrament; on his bended knees give up the

ghost;—yet shall he die despairing; and live again, to die forever

damned. The future is all hieroglyphics. Who may read? But, methinks

the great laggard Time must now march up apace, and somehow befriend

these thralls. It can not be, that misery is perpetually entailed;

though, in a land proscribing primogeniture, the first-born and last of

Hamo’s tribe must still succeed to all their sires’ wrongs. Yes.

Time—all-healing Time—Time, great Philanthropist!—Time must befriend

these thralls!”

“Oro grant it!” cried Yoomy “and let Mardi say, amen!”

“Amen! amen! amen!” cried echoes echoing echoes.

We traversed many of these southern vales; but as in Dominora,—so,

throughout Vivenza, North and South,—Yillah harbored not.

CHAPTER LIX.

They Converse Of The Mollusca, Kings, Toad-Stools And Other Matters

Once more embarking, we gained Vivenza’s southwestern side and there,

beheld vast swarms of laborers discharging from canoes, great loads of

earth; which they tossed upon the beach.

“It is true, then,” said Media “that these freemen are engaged in

digging down other lands, and adding them to their own, piece-meal. And

this, they call extending their dominions agriculturally, and

peaceably.”

“My lord, they pay a price for every canoe-load,” said Mohi.

“Ay, old man, holding the spear in one hand, and striking the bargain

with the other.”

“Yet charge it not upon all Vivenza,” said Babbalanja. “Some of her

tribes are hostile to these things: and when their countryman fight for

land, are only warlike in opposing war.”

“And therein, Babbalanja, is involved one of those anomalies in the

condition of Vivenza,” said Media, “which I can hardly comprehend. How

comes it, that with so Many things to divide them, the valley-tribes

still keep their mystic league intact?”

“All plain, it is because the model, whence they derive their union, is

one of nature’s planning. My lord, have you ever observed the

mysterious federation subsisting among the molluscs of the Tunicata

order,—in other words, a species of cuttle-fish, abounding at the

bottom of the lagoon?”

“Yes: in clear weather about the reefs, I have beheld them time and

again: but never with an eye to their political condition.”

“Ah! my lord king, we should not cut off the nervous communication

between our eyes, and our cerebellums.”

“What were you about to say concerning the Tunicata order of mollusca,

sir philosopher?”

“My very honorable lord, I hurry to conclude. They live in a compound

structure; but though connected by membranous canals, freely

communicating throughout the league—each member has a heart and stomach

of its own; provides and digests its own dinners; and grins and bears

its own gripes, without imparting the same to its neighbors. But if a

prowling shark touches one member, it ruffles all. Precisely thus now

with Vivenza. In that confederacy, there are as many consciences as

tribes; hence, if one member on its own behalf, assumes aught

afterwards repudiated, the sin rests on itself alone; is not

participated.”

“A very subtle explanation, Babbalanja. You must allude, then, to those

recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime

moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello’s, do but present a hopeless

example of bad debts. And these, the tribes that boast of boundless

wealth.”

“Most true, my lord. But Bello errs, when for this thing, he

stigmatizes all Vivenza, as a unity.”

“Babbalanja, you yourself are made up of members:—then, if you be sick

of a lumbago,—’tis not _you_ that are unwell; but your spine.”

“As you will, my lord. I have said. But to speak no more on that head

—what sort of a sensation, think you, life is to such creatures as

those mollusca?”

“Answer your own question, Babbalanja.”

“I will; but first tell me what sort of a sensation life is to you,

yourself, my lord.”

“Pray answer that along with the other, Azzageddi.”

“Directly; but tell me, if you will, my lord, what sort of a sensation

life is to a toad-stool.”

“Pray, Babbalanja put all three questions together; and then, do what

you have often done before, pronounce yourself a lunatic.”

“My lord, I beseech you, remind me not of that fact so often. It is

true, but annoying. Nor will any wise man call another a fool.”

“Do you take me for a mere man, then, Babbalanja, that you talk to me

thus?”

“My demi-divine lord and master, I was deeply concerned at your

indisposition last night:—may a loving subject inquire, whether his

prince is completely recovered from the effect of those guavas?”

“Have a care, Azzageddi; you are far too courteous, to be civil. But

proceed.”

“I obey. In kings, mollusca, and toad-stools, life is one thing and the

same. The Philosopher Dumdi pronounces it a certain febral vibration of

organic parts, operating upon the vis inertia of unorganized matter.

But Bardianna says nay. Hear him. ‘Who put together this marvelous

mechanism of mine; and wound it up, to go for three score years and

ten; when it runs out, and strikes Time’s hours no more? And what is

it, that daily and hourly renews, and by a miracle, creates in me my

flesh and my blood? What keeps up the perpetual telegraphic

communication between my outpost toes and digits, and that domed

grandee up aloft, my brain?—It is not I; nor you; nor he; nor it. No;

when I place my hand to that king muscle my heart, I am appalled. I

feel the great God himself at work in me. Oro is life.’”

“And what is death?” demanded Media.

“Death, my lord!—it is the deadest of all things.”

CHAPTER LX.

Wherein, That Gallant Gentleman And Demi-God, King Media, Scepter In

Hand, Throws Himself Into The Breach

Sailing south from Vivenza, not far from its coast, we passed a cluster

of islets, green as new fledged grass; and like the mouths of floating

cornucopias, their margins brimmed over upon the brine with flowers. On

some, grew stately roses; on others stood twin-pillars; across others,

tri-hued rainbows rested.

Cried Babbalanja, pointing to the last, “Franko’s pledge of peace! with

that, she loudly vaunts she’ll span the reef!—Strike out all hues but

red,—and the token’s nearer truth.”

All these isles were prolific gardens; where King Bello, and the

Princes of Porpheero grew their most delicious fruits,—nectarines and

grapes.

But, though hard by, Vivenza owned no garden here; yet longed and

lusted; and her hottest tribes oft roundly swore, to root up all roses

the half-reef over; pull down all pillars; and dissolve all rainbows.

“Mardi’s half is ours;” said they. Stand back invaders! Full of vanity;

and mirroring themselves in the future; they deemed all reflected

there, their own.

’Twas now high noon.

“Methinks the sun grows hot,” said Media, retreating deeper under the

canopy. “Ho! Vee-Vee; have you no cooling beverage? none of that golden

wine distilled from torrid grapes, and then sent northward to be

cellared in an iceberg? That wine was placed among our stores. Search,

search the crypt, little Vee-Vee! Ha, I see it!—that yellow

gourd!—Come: drag it forth, my boy. Let’s have the amber cups: so: pass

them round;—fill all! Taji! my demi-god, up heart! Old Mohi, my babe,

may you live ten thousand centuries! Ah! this way you mortals have of

dying out at three score years and ten, is but a craven habit. So,

Babbalanja! may you never die. Yoomy! my sweet poet, may you live to

sing to me in Paradise. Ha, ha! would that we floated in this glorious

stuff, instead of this pestilent brine.—Hark ye! were I to make a Mardi

now, I’d have every continent a huge haunch of venison; every ocean a

wine-vat! I’d stock every cavern with choice old spirits, and make

three surplus suns to ripen the grapes all the year round. Let’s drink

to that!—Brimmers! So: may the next Mardi that’s made, be one entire

grape; and mine the squeezing!”

“Look, look! my lord,” cried Yoomy, “what a glorious shore we pass.”

Sallying out into the high golden noon, with golden-beaming goblets

suspended, we gazed.

“This must be Kolumbo of the south,” said Mohi.

It was a long, hazy reach of land; piled up in terraces, traced here

and there with rushing streams, that worked up gold dust alluvian, and

seemed to flash over pebbled diamonds. Heliotropes, sun-flowers,

marigolds gemmed, or starred the violet meads, and vassal-like, still

sunward bowed their heads. The rocks were pierced with grottoes,

blazing with crystals, many-tinted.

It was a land of mints and mines; its east a ruby; west a topaz.

Inland, the woodlands stretched an ocean, bottomless with foliage; its

green surges bursting through cable-vines; like Xerxes’ brittle chains

which vainly sought to bind the Hellespont. Hence flowed a tide of

forest sounds; of parrots, paroquets, macaws; blent with the howl of

jaguars, hissing of anacondas, chattering of apes, and herons

screaming.

Out from those depths up rose a stream.

The land lay basking in the world’s round torrid brisket, hot with

solar fire.

“No need here to land,” cried Yoomy, “Yillah lurks not here.”

“Heat breeds life, and sloth, and rage,” said Babbalanja. “Here live

bastard tribes and mongrel nations; wrangling and murdering to prove

their freedom.—Refill, my lord.”

“Methinks, Babbalanja, you savor of the mysterious parchment, in

Vivenza read:—Ha? Yes, philosopher, these are the men, who toppled

castles to make way for hovels; these, they who fought for freedom, but

find it despotism to rule themselves. These, Babbalanja, are of the

race, to whom a tyrant would prove a blessing.” So saying he drained

his cup.

“My lord, that last sentiment decides the authorship of the scroll.

But, with deference, tyrants seldom can prove blessings; inasmuch as

evil seldom eventuates in good. Yet will these people soon have a

tyrant over them, if long they cleave to war. Of many javelins, one

must prove a scepter; of many helmets, one a crown. It is but in the

wearing.—Refill, my lord.”

“Fools, fools!” cried Media, “these tribes hate us kings; yet know not,

that Peace is War against all kings. We seldom are undone by spears,

which are our ministers.—This wine is strong.”

“Ha, now’s the time! In his cups learn king-craft from a king. Ay, ay,

my lord, your royal order will endure, so long as men will fight. Break

the spears, and free the nations. Kings reap the harvests that wave on

battle-fields. And oft you kings do snatch the aloe-flower, whose slow

blossoming mankind watches for a hundred years.—Say on, my lord.”

“All this I know; and, therefore, rest content. My children’s children

will be kings; though, haply, called by other titles. Mardi grows

fastidious in names: we royalties will humor it. The steers would burst

their yokes, but have not hands. The whole herd rears and plunges, but

soon will bow again: the old, old way!”

“Yet, in Porpheero, strong scepters have been wrested from anointed

hands. Mankind seems in arms.”

“Let them arm on. They hate us:—good;—they always have; yet still we’ve

reigned, son after sire. Sometimes they slay us, Babbalanja; pour out

our marrow, as I this wine; but they spill no kinless blood. ’Twas

justly held of old, that but to touch a monarch, was to strike at

Oro.—Truth. The palest vengeance is a royal ghost; and regicides but

father slaves. Thrones, not scepters, have been broken. Mohi, what of

the past? Has it not ever proved so?”

“Pardon, my lord; the times seem changed. ’Tis held, that demi-gods no

more rule by right divine. In Vivenza’s land, they swear the last kings

now reign in Mardi.”

“Is the last day at hand, old man? Mohi, your beard is gray; but,

Yoomy, listen. When you die, look around; mark then if any mighty

change be seen. Old kingdoms may be on the wane; but new dynasties

advance. Though revolutions rise to high spring-tide, monarchs will

still drown hard;—monarchs survived the flood!”

“Are all our dreams, then, vain?” sighed Yoomy. “Is this no dawn of day

that streaks the crimson East! Naught but the false and flickering

lights which sometimes mock Aurora in the north! Ah, man, my brother!

have all martyrs for thee bled in vain; in vain we poets sang, and

prophets spoken? Nay, nay; great Mardi, helmed and mailed, strikes at

Oppression’s shield, and challenges to battle! Oro will defend the

right, and royal crests must roll.”

“Thus, Yoomy, ages since, you mortal poets sang; but the world may not

be moved from out the orbit in which first it rolled. On the map that

charts the spheres, Mardi is marked ‘the world of kings.’ Round

centuries on centuries have wheeled by:—has all this been its nonage?

Now, when the rocks grow gray, does man first sprout his beard? Or, is

your golden time, your equinoctial year, at hand, that your race fast

presses toward perfection; and every hand grasps at a scepter, that

kings may be no more?”

“But free Vivenza! Is she not the star, that must, ere long, lead up

the constellations, though now unrisen? No kings are in Vivenza; yet,

spite her thralls, in that land seems more of good than elsewhere. Our

hopes are not wild dreams: Vivenza cheers our hearts. She is a rainbow

to the isles!”

“Ay, truth it is, that in Vivenza they have prospered. But thence it

comes not, that all men may be as they. Are all men of one heart and

brain; one bone and sinew? Are all nations sprung of Dominora’s loins?

Or, has Vivenza yet proved her creed? Yoomy! the years that prove a

man, prove not a nation. But two kings’-reigns have passed since

Vivenza was a monarch’s. Her climacteric is not come; hers is not yet a

nation’s manhood even; though now in childhood, she anticipates her

youth, and lusts for empire like any czar. Yoomy! judge not yet. Time

hath tales to tell. Many books, and many long, long chapters, are

wanting to Vivenza’s history; and whet history but is full of blood?”

“There stop, my lord,” said Babbalanja, “nor aught predict. Fate laughs

at prophets; and of all birds, the raven is a liar!”

CHAPTER LXI.

They Round The Stormy Cape Of Capes

Long leagues, for weary days, we voyaged along that coast, till we came

to regions where we multiplied our mantles.

The sky grew overcast. Each a night, black storm-clouds swept the

wintry sea; and like Sahara caravans, which leave their sandy wakes—

so, thick and fleet, slanted the scud behind. Through all this rack and

mist, ten thousand foam-flaked dromedary-humps uprose.

Deep among those panting, moaning fugitives, the three canoes raced on.

And now, the air grew nipping cold. The clouds shed off their fleeces;

a snow-hillock, each canoe; our beards, white-frosted.

And so, as seated in our shrouds, we sailed in among great mountain

passes of ice-isles; from icy ledges scaring shivering seals, and white

bears, musical with icicles, jingling from their shaggy ermine.

Far and near, in towering ridges, stretched the glassy Andes; with

their own frost, shuddering through all their domes and pinnacles.

Ice-splinters rattled down the cliffs, and seethed into the sea.

Broad away, in amphitheaters undermined by currents, whole cities of

ice-towers, in crashes, toward one center, fell.—In their earthquakes,

Lisbon and Lima never saw the like. Churned and broken in the boiling

tide, they swept off amain;—over and over rolling; like porpoises to

vessels tranced in calms, bringing down the gale.

At last, rounding an antlered headland, that seemed a moose at bay—ere

long, we launched upon blue lake-like waters, serene as Windermere, or

Horicon. Thus, from the boisterous storms of youth, we glide upon

senility.

But as we northward voyaged, another aspect wore the sea.

In far-off, endless vistas, colonnades of water-spouts were seen: all

heaven’s dome upholding on their shafts: and bright forms gliding up

and down within. So at Luz, in his strange vision, Jacob saw the

angels.

A boundless cave of stalactites, it seemed; the cloud-born vapors

downward spiraling, till they met the whirlpool-column from the sea;

then, uniting, over the waters stalked, like ghosts of gods. Or midway

sundered—down, sullen, sunk the watery half; and far up into heaven,

was drawn the vapory. As, at death, we mortals part in twain; our

earthy half still here abiding; but our spirits flying whence they

came.

In good time, we gained the thither side of great Kolumbo of the South;

and sailing on, long waited for the day; and wondered at the darkness.

“What steadfast clouds!” cried Yoomy, “yonder! far aloft: that ridge,

with many points; it fades below, but shows a faint white crest.”

“Not clouds, but mountains,” said Babbalanja, “the vast spine, that

traverses Kolumbo; spurring off in ribs, that nestle loamy valleys,

veined with silver streams, and silver ores.”

It was a long, embattled line of pinnacles. And high posted in the

East, those thousand bucklered peaks stood forth, and breasted back the

Dawn. Before their purple bastions bold, Aurora long arrayed her

spears, and clashed her golden shells. The summons dies away. But now,

her lancers charge the steep, and gain its crest a-glow;—their

glittering spears and blazoned shields triumphant in the morn.

But ere that sight, we glided on for hours in twilight; when, on those

mountains’ farther side, the hunters must have been abroad, morning-

glories all astir.

CHAPTER LXII.

They Encounter Gold-Hunters

Now, northward coasting along Kolumbo’s Western shore, whence came the

same wild forest-sounds, as from the Eastern; and where we landed not,

to seek among those wrangling tribes;—after many, many days, we spied

prow after prow, before the wind all northward bound: sails

wide-spread, and paddles plying: scaring the fish from before them.

Their inmates answered not our earnest hail.

But as they sped, with frantic glee, in one long chorus thus they

sang:—

We rovers bold,

To the land of Gold,

Over bowling billows are gliding:

Eager to toil,

For the golden spoil,

And every hardship biding.

See! See!

Before our prows’ resistless dashes,

The gold-fish fly in golden flashes!

’Neath a sun of gold,

We rovers bold,

On the golden land are gaining;

And every night,

We steer aright,

By golden stars unwaning!

All fires burn a golden glare:

No locks so bright as golden hair!

All orange groves have golden gushings:

All mornings dawn with golden flushings!

In a shower of gold, say fables old,

A maiden was won by the god of gold!

In golden goblets wine is beaming:

On golden couches kings are dreaming!

The Golden Rule dries many tears!

The Golden Number rules the spheres!

Gold, gold it is, that sways the nations:

Gold! gold! the center of all rotations!

On golden axles worlds are turning:

With phosphorescence seas are burning!

All fire-flies flame with golden gleamings:

Gold-hunters’ hearts with golden dreamings!

With golden arrows kings are slain:

With gold we’ll buy a freeman’s name!

In toilsome trades, for scanty earnings,

At home we’ve slaved, with stifled yearnings:

No light! no hope! Oh, heavy woe!

When nights fled fast, and days dragged slow.

But joyful now, with eager eye,

Fast to the Promised Land we fly:

Where in deep mines,

The treasure shines;

Or down in beds of golden streams,

The gold-flakes glance in golden gleams!

How we long to sift,

That yellow drift!

Rivers! Rivers! cease your going!

Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide!

’Till we’ve gained the golden flowing;

And in the golden haven ride!

“Quick, quick, my lord,” cried Yoomy, “let us follow them; and from the

golden waters where she lies, our Yillah may emerge.”

“No, no,” said Babbalanja,—“no Yillah there!—from yonder promised-land,

fewer seekers will return, than go. Under a gilded guise, happiness is

still their instinctive aim. But vain, Yoomy, to snatch at Happiness.

Of that we may not pluck and eat. It is the fruit of our own toilsome

planting; slow it grows, nourished by many teats, and all our earnest

tendings. Yet ere it ripen, frosts may nip;—and then, we plant again;

and yet again. Deep, Yoomy, deep, true treasure lies; deeper than all

Mardi’s gold, rooted to Mardi’s axis. But unlike gold, it lurks in

every soil,—all Mardi over. With golden pills and potions is sickness

warded off?—the shrunken veins of age, dilated with new wine of youth?

Will gold the heart-ache cure? turn toward us hearts estranged? will

gold, on solid centers empires fix? ’Tis toil world-wasted to toil in

mines. Were all the isles gold globes, set in a quicksilver sea, all

Mardi were then a desert. Gold is the only poverty; of all glittering

ills the direst. And that man might not impoverish himself thereby, Oro

hath hidden it, with all other banes,—saltpeter and explosives, deep in

mountain bowels, and river-beds. But man still will mine for it; and

mining, dig his doom.— Yoomy, Yoomy!—she we seek, lurks not in the

Golden Hills!”

“Lo, a vision!” cried Yoomy, his hands wildly passed across his eyes.

“A vast and silent bay, belted by silent villages:—gaunt dogs howling

over grassy thresholds at stark corpses of old age and infancy; gray

hairs mingling with sweet flaxen curls; fields, with turned furrows,

choked with briers; arbor-floors strown over with hatchet-helves,

rotting in the iron; a thousand paths, marked with foot-prints, all

inland leading, none villageward; and strown with traces, as of a

flying host. On: over forest—hill, and dale—and lo! the golden region!

After the glittering spoil, by strange river-margins, and beneath

impending cliffs, thousands delve in quicksands; and, sudden, sink in

graves of their own making: with gold dust mingling their own ashes.

Still deeper, in more solid ground, other thousands slave; and pile

their earth so high, they gasp for air, and die; their comrades

mounting on them, and delving still, and dying—grave pile on grave!

Here, one haggard hunter murders another in his pit; and murdering,

himself is murdered by a third. Shrieks and groans! cries and curses!

It seems a golden Hell! With many camels, a sleek stranger comes—

pauses before the shining heaps, and shows _his_ treasures: yams and

bread-fruit. ‘Give, give,’ the famished hunters cry—, ‘a thousand

shekels for a yam!—a prince’s ransom for a meal!—Oh, stranger! on our

knees we worship thee:—take, take our gold; but let us live!’ Yams are

thrown them and they fight. Then he who toiled not, dug not, slaved

not, straight loads his caravans with gold; regains the beach, and

swift embarks for home. ‘Home! home!’ the hunters cry, with bursting

eyes. ‘With this bright gold, could we but join our waiting wives, who

wring their hands on distant shores, all then were well. But we can not

fly; our prows lie rotting on the beach. Ah! home! thou only

happiness!—better thy silver earnings than all these golden findings.

Oh, bitter end to all our hopes—we die in golden graves.”

CHAPTER LXIII.

They Seek Through The Isles Of Palms; And Pass The Isles Of Myrrh

Now, our prows we turned due west, across the blue lagoon.

Soon, no land appeared. Far as the eye could sweep, one azure plain;

all over flaked with foamy fleeces:—a boundless flock upon a boundless

mead!

Again, all changed. Like stars in multitude, bright islets multiplied

around. Emerald-green, they dotted shapes fantastic: circles, arcs, and

crescents;—atolls all, or coral carcanets, begemmed and flashing in the

sun.

By these we glided, group after group; and through the foliage, spied

sweet forms of maidens, like Eves in Edens ere the Fall, or Proserpines

in Ennas. Artless airs came from the shore; and from the

censer-swinging roses, a bloom, as if from Hebe’s cheek.

“Here, at last, we find sweet Yillah!” murmured Yoomy. “Here must she

lurk in innocence! Quick! Let us land and search.”

“If here,” said Babbalanja, “Yillah will not stay our coming, but fly

before us through the groves. Wherever a canoe is beached, see you not

the palm-trees pine? Not so, where never keel yet smote the strand. In

mercy, let us fly from hence. I know not why, but our breath here, must

prove a blight.”

These regions passed, we came to savage islands, where the glittering

coral seemed bones imbedded, bleaching in the sun. Savage men stood

naked on the strand, and brandished uncouth clubs, and gnashed their

teeth like boars.

The full red moon was rising; and, in long review there passed before

it, phantom shapes of victims, led bound to altars through the groves.

Death-rattles filled the air. But a cloud descended, and all was gloom.

Again blank water spread before us; and after many days, there came a

gentle breeze, fraught with all spicy breathings; cinnamon aromas; and

in the rose-flushed evening air, like glow worms, glowed the islets,

where this incense burned.

“Sweet isles of myrh! oh crimson groves,” cried Yoomy. “Woe, woe’s your

fate! your brightness and your bloom, like musky fire-flies,

double-lure to death! On ye, the nations prey like bears that gorge

themselves with honey.”

Swan-like, our prows sailed in among these isles; and oft we landed;

but in vain; and leaving them, we still pursued the setting sun.

CHAPTER LXIV.

Concentric, Inward, With Mardi’s Reef, They Leave Their Wake Around The

World

West, West! West, West! Whitherward point Hope and prophet-fingers;

whitherward, at sun-set, kneel all worshipers of fire; whitherward in

mid-ocean, the great whales turn to die; whitherward face all the

Moslem dead in Persia; whitherward lie Heaven and Hell!—West, West!

Whitherward mankind and empires—flocks, caravans, armies, navies;

worlds, suns, and stars all wend!—West, West!—Oh boundless boundary!

Eternal goal! Whitherward rush, in thousand worlds, ten thousand

thousand keels! Beacon, by which the universe is steered!—Like the

north-star, attracting all needles! Unattainable forever; but forever

leading to great things this side thyself!—Hive of all sunsets!—

Gabriel’s pinions may not overtake thee!

Over balmy waves, still westward sailing! From dawn till eve, the

bright, bright days sped on, chased by the gloomy nights; and, in glory

dying, lent their luster to the starry skies. So, long the radiant

dolphins fly before the sable sharks but seized, and torn in

flames—die, burning:—their last splendor left, in sparkling scales that

float along the sea.

Cymbals, drums and psalteries! the air beats like a pulse with music!

—High land! high land! and moving lights, and painted lanterns!—What

grand shore is this?

“Reverence we render thee, Old Orienda!” cried Media, with bared brow,

“Original of all empires and emperors!—a crowned king salutes thee!”

“Mardi’s father-land!” cried Mohi, “grandsire of the nations,—hail!”

“All hail!” cried Yoomy. “Kings and sages hither coming, should come

like palmers,—scrip and staff! Oh Orienda! thou wert our East, where

first dawned song and science, with Mardi’s primal mornings! But now,

how changed! the dawn of light become a darkness, which we kindle with

the gleam of spears! On the world’s ancestral hearth, we spill our

brothers’ blood!”

“Herein,” said Babbalanja, “have many distant tribes proved parricidal.

In times gone by, Luzianna hither sent her prom; Franko, her scores of

captains; and the Dykemen, their peddler hosts, with yard-stick spears!

But thou, oh Bello! lord of the empire lineage! Noah of the moderns.

Sire of the long line of nations yet in germ!— thou, Bello, and thy

locust armies, are the present curse of Orienda. Down ancient streams,

from holy plains, in rafts thy murdered float! The pestilence that

thins thy armies here, is bred of corpses, made by thee. Maramma’s

priests, thy pious heralds, loud proclaim that of all pagans, Orienda’s

most resist the truth!—ay! vain all pious voices, that speak from

clouds of war! The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the

march of Mind; but not the march of Love.”

“Thou, Bello!” cried Yoomy, “would’st wrest the crook from Alma’s hand,

and place in it a spear. But vain to make a conqueror of him, who put

off the purple when he came to Mardi; and declining gilded miters,

entered the nations meekly on an ass.”

“Oh curse of commerce!” cried Babbalanja, “that it barters souls for

gold. Bello! with opium, thou wouldst drug this land, and murder it in

sleep!—And what boot thy conquests here? Seed sown by spears but seldom

springs; and harvests reaped thereby, are poisoned by the sickle’s

edge.”

Yet on, and on we coasted; counting not the days.

“Oh, folds and flocks of nations! dusky tribes innumerable!” cried

Yoomy, “camped on plains and steppes; on thousand mountains, worshiping

the stars; in thousand valleys, offering up first-fruits, till all the

forests seem in flames;—where, in fire, the widow’s spirit mounts to

meet her lord!—Oh, Orienda, in thee ’tis vain to seek our Yillah!”

“How dark as death the night!” said Mohi, shaking the dew from his

braids, “the Heavens blaze not here with stars, as over Dominora’s

land, and broad Vivenza.”

One only constellation was beheld; but every star was brilliant as the

one, that promises the morning. That constellation was the Crux-

Australis,—the badge, and type of Alma.

And now, southwest we steered, till another island vast, was reached;

—Hamora! far trending toward the Antarctic Pole.

Coasting on by barbarous beaches, where painted men, with spears,

charged on all attempts to land, at length we rounded a mighty bluff,

lit by a beacon; and heard a bugle call:—Bello’s! hurrying to their

quarters, the World-End’s garrison.

Here, the sea rolled high, in mountain surges: mid which, we toiled and

strained, as if ascending cliffs of Caucasus.

But not long thus. As when from howling Rhoetian heights, the traveler

spies green Lombardy below, and downward rushes toward that pleasant

plain; so, sloping from long rolling swells, at last we launched upon

the calm lagoon.

But as we northward sailed, once more the storm-trump blew, and

charger-like, the seas ran mustering to the call; and in battalions

crouched before a towering rock, far distant from the main. No moon,

eclipsed in Egypt’s skies, looked half so lone. But from out that

darkness, on the loftiest peak, Bello’s standard waved.

“Oh rifled tomb!” cried Babbalanja. “Wherein lay the Mars and Moloch of

our times, whose constellated crown, was gemmed with diadems. Thou god

of war! who didst seem the devouring Beast of the Apocalypse; casting

so vast a shadow over Mardi, that yet it lingers in old Franko’s vale;

where still they start at thy tremendous ghost; and, late, have hailed

a phantom, King! Almighty hero-spell! that after the lapse of half a

century, can so bewitch all hearts! But one drop of hero-blood will

deify a fool.

“Franko! thou wouldst be free; yet thy free homage is to the buried

ashes of a King; thy first choice, the exaltation of his race. In

furious fires, thou burn’st Ludwig’s throne; and over thy new-made

chieftain’s portal, in golden letters print’st—‘The Palace of our

Lord!’ In thy New Dispensation, thou cleavest to the exploded Law. And

on Freedom’s altar—ah, I fear—still, may slay thy hecatombs. But

Freedom turns away; she is sick with burnt blood of offerings. Other

rituals she loves; and like Oro, unseen herself, would be worshiped

only by invisibles. Of long drawn cavalcades, pompous processions,

frenzied banners, mystic music, marching nations, she will none. Oh,

may thy peaceful Future, Franko, sanctify thy bloody Past. Let not

history say; ‘To her old gods, she turned again.’”

This rocky islet passed, the sea went down; once more we neared

Hamora’s western shore. In the deep darkness, here and there, its

margin was lit up by foam-white, breaking billows rolled over from

Vivenza’s strand, and down from northward Dominora; marking places

where light was breaking in, upon the interior’s jungle-gloom.

In heavy sighs, the night-winds from shore came over us.

“Ah, vain to seek sweet Yillah here,” cried Yoomy.—“Poor land! curst of

man, not Oro! how thou faintest for thy children, torn from thy soil,

to till a stranger’s. Vivenza! did these winds not spend their plaints,

ere reaching thee, thy every vale would echo them. Oh, tribe of Hamo!

thy cup of woe so brims, that soon it must overflow upon the land which

holds ye thralls. No misery born of crime, but spreads and poisons

wide. Suffering hunteth sin, as the gaunt hound the hare, and tears it

in the greenest brakes.”

Still on we sailed: and after many tranquil days and nights, a storm

came down, and burst its thousand bombs. The lightnings forked and

flashed; the waters boiled; our three prows lifted themselves in

supplication; but the billows smote them as they reared.

Said Babbalanja, bowing to the blast: “Thus, oh Vivenza! retribution

works! Though long delayed, it comes at last—Judgment, with all her

bolts.”

Now, a current seized us, and like three darts, our keels sped

eastward, through a narrow strait, far in, upon a smooth expanse, an

inland ocean, without a throb.

On our left, Porpheero’s southwest point, a mighty rock, long tiers of

galleries within, deck on deck; and flag-staffs, like an admiral’s

masts: a line-of-battle-ship, all purple stone, and anchored in the

sea. Here Bello’s lion crouched; and, through a thousand port-holes,

eyed the world.

On our right, Hamora’s northern shore gleamed thick with crescents;

numerous as the crosses along the opposing strand.

“How vain to say, that progress is the test of truth, my lord,” said

Babbalanja, “when, after many centuries, those crescents yet unwaning

shine, and count a devotee for every worshiper of yonder crosses. Truth

and Merit have other symbols than success; and in this mortal race, all

competitors may enter; and the field is clear for all. Side by side,

Lies run with Truths, and fools with wise; but, like geometric lines,

though they pierce infinity, never may they join.”

Over that tideless sea we sailed; and landed right, and landed left;

but the maiden never found; till, at last, we gained the water’s limit;

and inland saw great pointed masses, crowned with halos.

“Granite continents,” cried Babbalanja, “that seem created like the

planets, not built with human hands. Lo, Landmarks! upon whose flanks

Time leaves its traces, like old tide-rips of diluvian seas.”

As, after wandering round and round some purple dell, deep in a

boundless prairie’s heart, the baffled hunter plunges in; then,

despairing, turns once more to gain the open plain; even so we seekers

now curved round our keels; and from that inland sea emerged. The

universe again before us; our quest, as wide.

CHAPTER LXV.

Sailing On

Morning dawned upon the same mild, blue Lagoon as erst; and all the

lands that we had passed, since leaving Piko’s shore of spears, were

faded from the sight.

Part and parcel of the Mardian isles, they formed a cluster by

themselves; like the Pleiades, that shine in Taurus, and are eclipsed

by the red splendor of his fiery eye, and the thick clusterings of the

constellations round.

And as in Orion, to some old king-astronomer,—say, King of Rigel, or

Betelguese,—this Earth’s four quarters show but four points afar; so,

seem they to terrestrial eyes, that broadly sweep the spheres.

And, as the sun, by influence divine, wheels through the Ecliptic;

threading Cancer, Leo, Pisces, and Aquarius; so, by some mystic impulse

am I moved, to this fleet progress, through the groups in white-reefed

Mardi’s zone.

Oh, reader, list! I’ve chartless voyaged. With compass and the lead, we

had not found these Mardian Isles. Those who boldly launch, cast off

all cables; and turning from the common breeze, that’s fair for all,

with their own breath, fill their own sails. Hug the shore, naught new

is seen; and “Land ho!” at last was sung, when a new world was sought.

That voyager steered his bark through seas, untracked before; ploughed

his own path mid jeers; though with a heart that oft was heavy with the

thought, that he might only be too bold, and grope where land was none.

So I.

And though essaying but a sportive sail, I was driven from my course,

by a blast resistless; and ill-provided, young, and bowed to the brunt

of things before my prime, still fly before the gale;—hard have I

striven to keep stout heart.

And if it harder be, than e’er before, to find new climes, when now our

seas have oft been circled by ten thousand prows,—much more the glory!

But this new world here sought, is stranger far than his, who stretched

his vans from Palos. It is the world of mind; wherein the wanderer may

gaze round, with more of wonder than Balboa’s band roving through the

golden Aztec glades.

But fiery yearnings their own phantom-future make, and deem it present.

So, if after all these fearful, fainting trances, the verdict be, the

golden haven was not gained;—yet, in bold quest thereof, better to sink

in boundless deeps, than float on vulgar shoals; and give me, ye gods,

an utter wreck, if wreck I do.

CHAPTER LXVI.

A Flight Of Nightingales From Yoomy’s Mouth

By noon, down came a calm.

“Oh Neeva! good Neeva! kind Neeva! thy sweet breath, dear Neeva!”

So from his shark’s-mouth prayed little Vee-Vee to the god of Fair

Breezes. And along they swept; till the three prows neighed to the

blast; and pranced on their path, like steeds of Crusaders.

Now, that this fine wind had sprung up; the sun riding joyously in the

heavens; and the Lagoon all tossed with white, flying manes; Media

called upon Yoomy to ransack his whole assortment of songs:—warlike,

amorous, and sentimental,—and regale us with something inspiring for

too long the company had been gloomy.

“Thy best,” he cried.

Then will I e’en sing you a song, my lord, which is a song-full of

songs. I composed it long, long since, when Yillah yet bowered in Odo.

Ere now, some fragments have been heard. Ah, Taji! in this my lay, live

over again your happy hours. Some joys have thousand lives; can never

die; for when they droop, sweet memories bind them up.—My lord, I deem

these verses good; they came bubbling out of me, like live waters from

a spring in a silver mine. And by your good leave, my lord, I have much

faith in inspiration. Whoso sings is a seer.”

“Tingling is the test,” said Babbalanja, “Yoomy, did you tingle, when

that song was composing?”

“All over, Babbalanja.”

“From sole to crown?”

“From finger to finger.”

“My life for it! true poetry, then, my lord! For this self-same

tingling, I say, is the test.”

“And infused into a song,” cried Yoomy, “it evermore causes it so to

sparkle, vivify, and irradiate, that no son of man can repeat it

without tingling himself. This very song of mine may prove what I say.”

“Modest youth!” sighed Media.

“Not more so, than sincere,” said Babbalanja. “He who is frank, will

often appear vain, my lord. Having no guile, he speaks as freely of

himself, as of another; and is just as ready to honor his own merits,

even if imaginary, as to lament over undeniable deficiencies. Besides,

such men are prone to moods, which to shallow-minded, unsympathizing

mortals, make their occasional distrust of themselves, appear but as a

phase of self-conceit. Whereas, the man who, in the presence of his

very friends, parades a barred and bolted front,—that man so highly

prizes his sweet self, that he cares not to profane the shrine he

worships, by throwing open its portals. He is locked up; and Ego is the

key. Reserve alone is vanity. But all mankind are egotists. The world

revolves upon an I; and we upon ourselves; for we are our own

worlds:—all other men as strangers, from outlandish, distant climes,

going clad in furs. Then, whate’er they be, let us show our worlds; and

not seek to hide from men, what Oro knows.”

“Truth, my lord,” said Yoomy, “but all this applies to men in mass; not

specially, to my poor craft. Of all mortals, we poets are most subject

to contrary moods. Now, heaven over heaven in the skies; now layer

under layer in the dust. This, the penalty we pay for being what we

are. But Mardi only sees, or thinks it sees, the tokens of our

self-complacency: whereas, all our agonies operate unseen. Poets are

only seen when they soar.”

“The song! the song!” cried Media. “Never mind the metaphysics of

genius.”

And Yoomy, thus clamorously invoked, hemmed thrice, tuning his voice

for the air.

But here, be it said, that the minstrel was miraculously gifted with

three voices; and, upon occasions, like a mocking-bird, was a concert

of sweet sounds in himself. Had kind friends died, and bequeathed him

their voices? But hark! in a low, mild tenor, he begins:—

Half-railed above the hills, yet rosy bright,

Stands fresh, and fair, the meek and blushing morn!

So Yillah looks! her pensive eyes the stars,

That mildly beam from out her cheek’s young dawn!

But the still meek Dawn,

Is not aye the form

Of Yillah nor Morn!

Soon rises the sun,

Day’s race to run:

His rays abroad,

Flash each a sword,—

And merrily forth they flare!

Sun-music in the air!

So Yillah now rises and flashes!

Rays shooting from ont her long lashes,—

Sun-music in the air!

Her laugh! How it bounds!

Bright cascade of sounds!

Peal after peal, and ringing afar,—

Ringing of waters, that silvery jar,

From basin to basin fast falling!

Fast falling, and shining, and streaming:—

Yillah’s bosom, the soft, heaving lake,

Where her laughs at last dimple, and flake!

Oh beautiful Yillah! Thy step so free!—

Fast fly the sea-ripples,

Revealing their dimples,

When forth, thou hi’st to the frolicsome sea!

All the stars laugh,

When upward she looks:

All the trees chat

In their woody nooks:

All the brooks sing;

All the caves ring;

All the buds blossom;

All the boughs bound;

All the birds carol;

And leaves turn round,

Where Yillah looks!

Light wells from her soul’s deep sun

Causing many toward her to run!

Vines to climb, and flowers to spring;

And youths their love by hundreds bring!

“Proceed, gentle Yoomy,” said Babbalanja.

“The meaning,” said Mohi.

“The sequel,” said Media.

“My lord, I have ceased in the middle; the end is not yet.”

“Mysticism!” cried Babbalanja. “What, minstrel; must nothing ultimate

come of all that melody? no final and inexhaustible meaning? nothing

that strikes down into the soul’s depths; till, intent upon itself, it

pierces in upon its own essence, and is resolved into its pervading

original; becoming a thing constituent of the all embracing deific;

whereby we mortals become part and parcel of the gods; our souls to

them as thoughts; and we privy to all things occult, ineffable, and

sublime? Then, Yoomy, is thy song nothing worth. Alla Mollolla saith,

‘That is no true, vital breath, which leaves no moisture behind.’ I

mistrust thee, minstrel! that thou hast not yet been impregnated by the

arcane mysteries; that thou dost not sufficiently ponder on the Adyta,

the Monads, and the Hyparxes; the Dianoias, the Unical Hypostases, the

Gnostic powers of the Psychical Essence, and the Supermundane and

Pleromatic Triads; to say nothing of the Abstract Noumenons.”

“Oro forbid!” cried Yoomy; “the very sound of thy words affrights me.”

Then, whispering to Mohi—“Is he daft again?”

“My brain is battered,” said Media. “Azzageddi! you must diet, and be

bled.”

“Ah!” sighed Babbalanja, turning; “how little they ween of the

Rudimental Quincunxes, and the Hecatic Spherula!”

CHAPTER LXVII.

They Visit One Doxodox

Next morning, we came to a deep, green wood, slowly nodding over the

waves; its margin frothy-white with foam. A charming sight!

While delighted, all our paddlers gazed, Media, observing Babbalanja

plunged in reveries, called upon him to awake; asking what might so

absorb him.

“Ah, my lord! what seraphic sounds have ye driven from me!”

“Sounds! Sure, there’s naught heard but yonder murmuring surf; what

other sound heard you?”

“The thrilling of my soul’s monochord, my lord. But prick not your ears

to hear it; that divine harmony is overheard by the rapt spirit alone;

it comes not by the auditory nerves.”

“No more, Azzageddi! No more of that. Look yonder!”

“A most lovely wood, in truth. And methinks it is here the sage

Doxodox, surnamed the Wise One, dwells.”

“Hark, I hear the hootings of his owls,” said Mohi.

“My lord, you must have read of him. He is said to have penetrated from

the zoned, to the unzoned principles. Shall we seek him out, that we

may hearken to his wisdom? Doubtless he knows many things, after which

we pant.”

The lagoon was calm, as we landed; not a breath stirred the plumes of

the trees; and as we entered the voiceless shades, lifting his hand,

Babbalanja whispered:—“This silence is a fit introduction to the

portals of Telestic lore. Somewhere, beneath this moss, lurks the

mystic stone Mnizuris; whereby Doxodox hath attained unto a knowledge

of the ungenerated essences. Nightly, he bathes his soul in

archangelical circumlucencies. Oh, Doxodox! whip me the Strophalunian

top! Tell o’er thy Jynges!”

“Down, Azzageddi! down!” cried Media. “Behold: there sits the Wise One;

now, for true wisdom!”

From the voices of the party, the sage must have been aware of our

approach: but seated on a green bank, beneath the shade of a red

mulberry, upon the boughs of which, many an owl was perched, he seemed

intent upon describing divers figures in the air, with a jet-black

wand.

Advancing with much deference and humility, Babbalanja saluted him.

“Oh wise Doxodox! Drawn hither by thy illustrious name, we seek

admittance to thy innermost wisdom. Of all Mardian, thou alone

comprehendest those arcane combinations, whereby to drag to day the

most deftly hidden things, present and to come. Thou knowest what we

are, and what we shall be. We beseech thee, evoke thy Tselmns!”

“Tetrads; Pentads; Hexads; Heptads; Ogdoads:—meanest thou those?”

“New terms all!”

“Foiled at thy own weapons,” said Media.

“Then, if thou comprehendest not my nomenclature:—how my science? But

let me test thee in the portico.—Why is it, that as some things extend

more remotely than others; so, Quadammodotatives are larger than

Qualitatives; forasmuch, as Quadammodotatives extend to those things,

which include the Quadammodotatives themselves.”

“Azzageddi has found his match,” said Media.

“Still posed, Babbalanja?” asked Mohi.

“At a loss, most truly! But I beseech thee, wise Doxodox! instruct me

in thy dialectics, that I may embrace thy more recondite lore.”

“To begin then, my child:—all Dicibles reside in the mind.”

“But what are Dicibles?” said Media.

“Meanest thou, Perfect or Imperfect Dicibles?” Any kind you please;—

but what are they?”

“Perfect Dicibles are of various sorts: Interrogative; Percontative;

Adjurative; Optative; Imprecative; Execrative; Substitutive;

Compellative; Hypothetical; and lastly, Dubious.”

“Dubious enough! Azzageddi! forever, hereafter, hold thy peace.”

“Ah, my children! I must go back to my Axioms.”

“And what are they?” said old Mohi.

“Of various sorts; which, again, are diverse. Thus: my contrary axioms

are Disjunctive, and Subdisjunctive; and so, with the rest. So, too, in

degree, with my Syllogisms.”

“And what of them?”

“Did I not just hint what they were, my child? I repeat, they are of

various sorts: Connex, and Conjunct, for example.”

“And what of them?” persisted Mohi; while Babbalanja, arms folded,

stood serious and mute; a sneer on his lip.

“As with other branches of my dialectics: so, too, in their way, with

my Syllogisms. Thus: when I say,—If it be warm, it is not cold:— that’s

a simple Sumption. If I add, But it is warm:—that’s an _Ass_umption.”

“So called from the syllogist himself, doubtless;” said Mohi, stroking

his beard.

“Poor ignorant babe! no. Listen:—if finally, I say,—Therefore it is not

cold that’s the final inference.”

“And a most triumphant one it is!” cried Babbalanja. “Thrice profound,

and sapient Doxodox! Light of Mardi! and Beacon of the Universe! didst

ever hear of the Shark-Syllogism?”

“Though thy epithets be true, my child, I distrust thy sincerity. I

have not yet heard of the syllogism to which thou referrest.”

“It was thus. A shark seized a swimmer by the leg; addressing him:

‘Friend, I will liberate you, if you truly answer whether you think I

purpose harm.’ Well knowing that sharks seldom were magnanimous, he

replied: Kind sir, you mean me harm; now go your ways.’ ‘No, no; my

conscience forbids. Nor will I falsify the words of so veracious a

mortal. You were to answer truly; but you say I mean you harm:—so harm

it is:—here goes your leg.’”

“Profane jester! Would’st thou insult me with thy torn-foolery?

Begone—all of ye! tramp! pack! I say: away with ye!” and into the woods

Doxodox himself disappeared.

“Bravely done, Babbalanja!” cried Media. “You turned the corner to

admiration.”

“I have hopes of our Philosopher yet,” said Mohi.

“Outrageous impostor! fool, dotard, oaf! Did he think to bejuggle me

with his preposterous gibberish? And is this shallow phraseman the

renowned Doxodox whom I have been taught so highly to reverence? Alas,

alas—Odonphi there is none!”

“His fit again,” sighed Yoomy.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

King Media Dreams

That afternoon was melting down to eve; all but Media broad awake; yet

all motionless, as the slumberer upon the purple mat. Sailing on, with

open eyes, we slept the wakeful sleep of those, who to the body only

give repose, while the spirit still toils on, threading her mountain

passes.

King Media’s slumbers were like the helmed sentry’s in the saddle. From

them, he started like an antlered deer, bursting from out a copse. Some

said he never slept; that deep within himself he but intensified the

hour; or, leaving his crowned brow in marble quiet, unseen, departed to

far-off councils of the gods. Howbeit, his lids never closed; in the

noonday sun, those crystal eyes, like diamonds, sparkled with a fixed

light.

As motionless we thus reclined, Media turned and muttered:—“Brother

gods, and demi-gods, it is not well. These mortals should have less or

more. Among my subjects is a man, whose genius scorns the common

theories of things; but whose still mortal mind can not fathom the

ocean at his feet. His soul’s a hollow, wherein he raves.”

“List, list,” whispered Yoomy—“our lord is dreaming; and what a royal

dream.”

“A very royal and imperial dream,” said Babbalanja—“he is arraigning me

before high heaven;—ay, ay; in dreams, at least, he deems himself a

demi-god.”

“Hist,” said Mohi—“he speaks again.”

“Gods and demi-gods! With one gesture all abysses we may disclose; and

before this Mardi’s eyes, evoke the shrouded time to come. Were this

well? Like lost children groping in the woods, they falter through

their tangled paths; and at a thousand angles, baffled, start upon each

other. And even when they make an onward move, ’tis but an endless

vestibule, that leads to naught. In my own isle of Odo—Odo! Odo! How

rules my viceroy there?—Down, down, ye madding mobs! Ho, spearmen,

charge! By the firmament, but my halberdiers fly!”

“His dream has changed,” said Babbalanja. “He is in Odo, whither his

anxieties impel him.”

“Hist, hist,” said Yoomy.

“I leap upon the soil! Render thy account, Almanni! Where’s my throne?

Mohi, am I not a king? Do not thy chronicles record me? Yoomy, am I not

the soul of some one glorious song? Babbalanja, speak.—Mohi! Yoomy!”

“What is it, my lord? thou dost but dream.”

Staring wildly; then calmly gazing round, Media smiled. “Ha! how we

royalties ramble in our dreams! I’ve told no secrets?”

“While he seemed to sleep, my lord spoke much,” said Mohi.

“I knew it not, old man; nor would now; but that ye tell me.”

“We dream not ourselves,” said Babbalanja, “but the thing within us.”

“Ay?—good-morrow Azzageddi!—But come; no more dreams: Vee-Vee! wine.”

And straight through that livelong night, immortal Media plied the can.

CHAPTER LXIX.

After A Long Interval, By Night They Are Becalmed

Now suns rose, and set; moons grew, and waned; till, at last, the star

that erewhile heralded the dawn, presaged the eve; to us, sad token!—

while deep within the deepest heart of Mardi’s circle, we sailed from

sea to sea; and isle to isle; and group to group;—vast empires

explored, and inland valleys, to their utmost heads; and for every ray

in heaven, beheld a king.

Needless to recount all that then befell; what tribes and caravans we

saw; what vast horizons; boundless plains: and sierras, in their every

intervale, a nation nestling.

Enough that still we roamed.

It was evening; and as the red sun, magnified, launched into the wave,

once more, from a wild strand, we launched our three canoes.

Soon, from her clouds, hooded Night, like a nun from a convent, drew

nigh. Rustled her train, yet no spangles were there. But high on her

brow, still shone her pale crescent; haloed by bandelets—violet, red,

and yellow. So looked the lone watcher through her rainbow-iris; so

sad, the night without stars.

The winds were laid; the lagoon, still, as a prairie of an August noon.

“Let us dream out the calm,” said Media. “One of ye paddlers, watch: Ho

companions! who’s for Cathay?”

Sleep reigned throughout the canoes, sleeping upon the waters. But

nearer and nearer, low-creeping along, came mists and vapors, a

thousand; spotted with twinklings of Will-o-Wisps from neighboring

shores. Dusky leopards, stealing on by crouches, those vapors seemed.

Hours silently passed. When startled by a cry, Taji sprang to his feet;

against which something rattled; then, a quick splash! and a dark form

bounded into the lagoon.

The dozing watcher had called aloud; and, about to stab, the assassin,

dropping his stiletto, plunged.

Peering hard through those treacherous mists, two figures in a shallop,

were espied; dragging another, dripping, from the brine.

“Foiled again, and foiled forever. No foe’s corpse was I.”

As we gazed, in the gloom quickly vanished the shallop; ere ours could

be reversed to pursue.

Then, from the opposite mists, glided a second canoe; and beneath the

Iris round the moon, shone now another:—Hautia’s flowery flag!

Vain to wave the sirens off; so still they came.

One waved a plant of sickly silver-green.

“The Midnight Tremmella!” cried Yoomy; “the falling-star of flowers!—

Still I come, when least foreseen; then flee.”

The second waved a hemlock top, the spike just tapering its final

point. The third, a convolvulus, half closed. “The end draws nigh, and

all thy hopes are waning.” Then they proffered grapes.

But once more waved off, silently they vanished.

Again the buried barb tore, at my soul; again Yillah was invoked, but

Hautia made reply.

Slowly wore out the night. But when uprose the sun, fled clouds, and

fled sadness.

CHAPTER LXX.

They Land At Hooloomooloo

“Keep all three prows, for yonder rock.” cried Media; “No sadness on

this merry morn! And now for the Isle of Cripples,—even Hooloomooloo.”

“The Isle of Cripples?”

“Ay; why not? Mohi, tell how they came to club.” In substance, this was

the narration.

Averse to the barbarous custom of destroying at birth all infants not

symmetrically formed; but equally desirous of removing from their sight

those unfortunate beings; the islanders of a neighboring group had long

ago established an asylum for cripples; where they lived, subject to

their own regulations; ruled by a king of their own election; in short,

forming a distinct class of beings by themselves.

One only restriction was placed upon them: on no account must they quit

the isle assigned them. And to the surrounding islanders, so unpleasant

the sight of a distorted mortal, that a stranger landing at

Hooloomooloo, was deemed a prodigy. Wherefore, respecting any knowledge

of aught beyond them, the cripples were well nigh as isolated, as if

Hooloomooloo was the only terra-firma extant.

Dwelling in a community of their own, these unfortunates, who otherwise

had remained few in number, increased and multiplied greatly. Nor did

successive generations improve in symmetry upon those preceding them.

Soon, we drew nigh to the isle.

Heaped up, and jagged with rocks; and, here and there, covered with

dwarfed, twisted thickets, it seemed a fit place for its denizens.

Landing, we were surrounded by a heterogeneous mob; and thus escorted,

took our way inland, toward the abode of their lord, King Yoky.

What a scene!

Here, helping himself along with two crotched roots, hobbled a dwarf

without legs; another stalked before, one arm fixed in the air, like a

lightning rod; a third, more active than any, seal-like, flirted a pair

of flippers, and went skipping along; a fourth hopped on a solitary

pin, at every bound, spinning round like a top, to gaze; while still

another, furnished with feelers or fins, rolled himself up in a ball,

bowling over the ground in advance.

With curious instinct, the blind stuck close to our side; with their

chattering finger, the deaf and the dumb described angles, obtuse and

acute in the air; and like stones rolling down rocky ravines, scores of

stammerers stuttered. Discord wedded deformity. All asses’ brays were

now harmonious memories; all Calibans, as angels.

Yet for every stare we gave them, three stares they gave us.

At last, we halted before a tenement of rude stones; crooked Banian

boughs its rafters, thatched with fantastic leaves. So rambling and

irregular its plan, it seemed thrown up by the eruption, according to

sage Mohi, the origin of the isle itself.

Entering, we saw King Yoky.

Ah! sadly lacking was he, in all the requisites of an efficient ruler.

Deaf and dumb he was; and save arms, minus every thing but an

indispensable trunk and head. So huge his all-comprehensive mouth, it

seemed to swallow up itself.

But shapeless, helpless as was Yoky,—as king of Hooloomooloo, he was

competent; the state being a limited monarchy, of which his Highness

was but the passive and ornamental head.

As his visitors advanced, he fell to gossiping with his fingers: a

servitor interpreting. Very curious to note the rapidity with which

motion was translated into sound; and the simultaneousness with which

meaning made its way through four successive channels to the mind—hand,

sight, voice, and tympanum.

Much amazement His Highness now expressed; horrified his glances.

“Why club such frights as ye? Herd ye, to keep in countenance; or are

afraid of your own hideousness, that ye dread to go alone? Monsters!

speak.”

“Great Oro!” cried Mohi, “are we then taken for cripples, by the very

King of the Cripples? My lord, are not our legs and arms all right?”

“Comelier ones were never turned by turners, Mohi. But royal Yoky! in

sooth we feel abashed before thee.”

Some further stares were then exchanged; when His Highness sought to

know, whether there were any Comparative Anatomists among his visitors.

“Comparative Anatomists! not one.”

“And why may King Yoky ask that question?” inquired Babbalanja.

Then was made the following statement.

During the latter part of his reign, when he seemed fallen into his

dotage, the venerable predecessor of King Yoky had been much attached

to an old gray-headed Chimpanzee, one day found meditating in the

woods. Rozoko was his name. He was very grave, and reverend of aspect;

much of a philosopher. To him, all gnarled and knotty subjects were

familiar; in his day he had cracked many a crabbed nut. And so in love

with his Timonean solitude was Rozoko, that it needed many bribes and

bland persuasions, to induce him to desert his mossy, hillside,

misanthropic cave, for the distracting tumult of a court.

But ere long, promoted to high offices, and made the royal favorite,

the woodland sage forgot his forests; and, love for love, returned the

aged king’s caresses. Ardent friends they straight became; dined and

drank together; with quivering lips, quaffed long-drawn, sober bumpers;

comparing all their past experiences; and canvassing those hidden

themes, on which octogenarians dilate.

For when the fires and broils of youth are passed, and Mardi wears its

truer aspect—then we love to think, not act; the present seems more

unsubstantial than the past; then, we seek out gray-beards like

ourselves; and hold discourse of palsies, hearses, shrouds, and tombs;

appoint our undertakers; our mantles gather round us, like to

winding-sheets; and every night lie down to die. Then, the world’s

great bubble bursts; then, Life’s clouds seem sweeping by, revealing

heaven to our straining eyes; then, we tell our beads, and murmur

pater-nosters; and in trembling accents cry—“Oro! be merciful.”

So, the monarch and Rozoko.

But not always were they thus. Of bright, cheerful mornings, they took

slow, tottering rambles in the woods; nodding over grotesque walking-

sticks, of the Chimpanzee’s handiwork. For sedate Rozoko was a

dilletante-arborist: an amateur in canes. Indeed, canes at last became

his hobby. For half daft with age, sometimes he straddled his good

staff and gently rode abroad, to take the salubrious evening air;

deeming it more befitting exercise, at times, than walking. Into this

menage, he soon initiated his friend, the king; and side by side they

often pranced; or, wearying of the saddle, dismounted; and paused to

ponder over prostrate palms, decaying across the path. Their mystic

rings they counted; and, for every ring, a year in their own calendars.

Now, so closely did the monarch cleave to the Chimpanzee, that, in good

time, summoning his subjects, earnestly he charged it on them, that at

death, he and his faithful friend should be buried in one tomb.

It came to pass, the monarch died; and Poor Rozoko, now reduced to

second childhood, wailed most dismally:—no one slept that night in

Hooloomooloo. Never did he leave the body; and at last, slowly going

round it thrice, he laid him down; close nestled; and noiselessly

expired.

The king’s injunctions were remembered; and one vault received them

both.

Moon followed moon; and wrought upon by jeers and taunts, the people of

the isle became greatly scandalized, that a base-born baboon should

share the shroud of their departed lord; though they themselves had

tucked in the aged AEneas fast by the side of his Achates.

They straight resolved, to build another vault; and over it, a lofty

cairn; and thither carry the remains they reverenced.

But at the disinterring, a sad perplexity arose. For lo surpassing Saul

and Jonathan, not even in decay were these fast friends divided. So

mingled every relic,—ilium and ulna, carpus and metacarpus;—and so

similar the corresponding parts, that like the literary remains of

Beaumont and of Fletcher, which was which, no spectacles could tell.

Therefore, they desisted; lest the towering monument they had reared,

might commemorate an ape, and not a king.

Such the narration; hearing which, my lord Media kept stately silence.

But in courtly phrase, as beseemed him, Babbalanja, turban in hand,

thus spoke:—

“My concern is extreme, King Yoky, at the embarrassment into which your

island is thrown. Nor less my grief, that I myself am not the man, to

put an end to it. I could weep that Comparative Anatomists are not so

numerous now, as hereafter they assuredly must become; when their

services shall be in greater request; when, at the last, last day of

all, millions of noble and ignoble spirits will loudly clamor for lost

skeletons; when contending claimants shall start up for one poor,

carious spine; and, dog-like, we shall quarrel over our own bones.”

Then entered dwarf-stewards, and major-domos; aloft bearing twisted

antlers; all hollowed out in goblets, grouped; announcing dinner.

Loving not, however, to dine with misshapen Mardians, King Media was

loth to move. But Babbalanja, quoting the old proverb—“Strike me in the

face, but refuse not my yams,” induced him to sacrifice his

fastidiousness.

So, under a flourish of ram-horn bugles, court and company proceeded to

the banquet.

Central was a long, dislocated trunk of a wild Banian; like a huge

centipede crawling on its hundred branches, sawn of even lengths for

legs. This table was set out with wry-necked gourds; deformities of

calabashes; and shapeless trenchers, dug out of knotty woods.

The first course was shrimp-soup, served in great clampshells; the

second, lobsters, cuttle-fish, crabs, cockles, cray-fish; the third,

hunchbacked roots of the Taro-plant—plantains, perversely curling at

the end, like the inveterate tails of pertinacious pigs; and for

dessert, ill-shaped melons, huge as idiots’ heads, plainly suffering

from water in the brain.

Now these viands were commended to the favorable notice of all guests;

not only for their delicacy of flavor, but for their symmetry.

And in the intervals of the courses, we were bored with hints to admire

numerous objects of vertu: bow-legged stools of mangrove wood; zig-zag

rapiers of bone; armlets of grampus-vertebrae; outlandish tureens of

the callipees of terrapin; and cannakins of the skulls of baboons.

The banquet over, with many congees, we withdrew.

Returning to the water-side, we passed a field, where dwarfs were

laboring in beds of yams, heaping the soil around the roots, by

scratching it backward; as a dog.

All things in readiness, Yoky’s valet, a tri-armed dwarf, treated us to

a glorious start, by giving each canoe a vigorous triple-push, crying,

“away with ye, monsters!”

Nor must it be omitted that just previous to embarking, Vee-Vee, spying

a curious looking stone, turned it over, and found a snake.

CHAPTER LXXI.

A Book From The “Ponderings Of Old Bardianna”

“Now,” said Babbalanja, lighting his trombone as we sailed from the

isle, “who are the monsters, we or the cripples?”

“You yourself are a monster, for asking the question,” said Mohi.

“And so, to the cripples I am; though not, old man, for the reason you

mention. But I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon

who is made judge. There is no supreme standard yet revealed, whereby

to judge of ourselves; ‘Our very instincts are prejudices,’ saith Alla

Mallolla; ‘Our very axioms, and postulates are far from infallible.’

‘In respect of the universe, mankind is but a sect,’ saith Diloro: ‘and

first principles but dogmas.’ What ethics prevail in the Pleiades? What

things have the synods in Sagittarius decreed?”

“Never mind your old authors,” said Media. “Stick to the cripples;

enlarge upon them.”

“But I have done with them now, my lord; the sermon is not the text.

Give ear to old Bardianna. I know him by heart. Thus saith the sage in

Book X. of the Ponderings, ‘Zermalmende,’ the title: ‘Je pense,’ the

motto:—‘My supremacy over creation, boasteth man, is declared in my

natural attitude:—I stand erect! But so do the palm-trees; and the

giraffes that graze off their tops. And the fowls of the air fly high

over our heads; and from the place where we fancy our heaven to be,

defile the tops of our temples. Belike, the eagles, from their eyries

look down upon us Mardians, in our hives, even as upon the beavers in

their dams, marveling at our incomprehensible ways. And cunning though

we be, some things, hidden from us, may not be mysteries to them.

Having five keys, hold we all that open to knowledge? Deaf, blind, and

deprived of the power of scent, the bat will steer its way

unerringly:—could we? Yet man is lord of the bat and the brute; lord

over the crows; with whom, he must needs share the grain he garners. We

sweat for the fowls, as well as ourselves. The curse of labor rests

only on us. Like slaves, we toil: at their good leisure they glean.

“‘Mardi is not wholly ours. We are the least populous part of creation.

To say nothing of other tribes, a census of the herring would find us

far in the minority. And what life is to us,—sour or sweet,—so is it to

them. Like us, they die, fighting death to the last; like us, they

spawn and depart. We inhabit but a crust, rough surfaces, odds and ends

of the isles; the abounding lagoon being its two-thirds, its grand

feature from afar; and forever unfathomable.

“‘What shaft has yet been sunk to the antipodes? What underlieth the

gold mines?

“‘But even here, above-ground, we grope with the sun at meridian.

Vainly, we seek our Northwest Passages,—old alleys, and thoroughfares

of the whales.

“‘Oh men! fellow men! we are only what we are; not what we would be;

nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches

further above us than below. We breathe but oxygen. Who in Arcturus

hath heard of us? They know us not in the Milky Way. We prate of

faculties divine: and know not how sprouteth a spear of grass; we go

about shrugging our shoulders: when the firmament-arch is over us; we

rant of etherealities: and long tarry over our banquets; we demand

Eternity for a lifetime: when our mortal half-hours too often prove

tedious. We know not of what we talk. The Bird of Paradise out-flies

our flutterings. What it is to be immortal, has not yet entered into

our thoughts. At will, we build our futurities; tier above tier, all

galleries full of laureates: resounding with everlasting oratorios!

Pater-nosters forever, or eternal Misereres! forgetting that in Mardi,

our breviaries oft fall from our hands. But divans there are, some say,

whereon we shall recline, basking in effulgent suns, knowing neither

Orient nor Occident. Is it so? Fellow men! our mortal lives have an

end; but that end is no goal: no place of repose. Whatever it may be,

it will prove but as the beginning of another race. We will hope, joy,

weep, as before; though our tears may be such as the spice-trees shed.

Supine we can only be, annihilated.

“‘The thick film is breaking; the ages have long been circling.

Fellow-men! if we live hereafter, it will not be in lyrics; nor shall

we yawn, and our shadows lengthen, while the eternal cycles are

revolving. To live at all, is a high vocation; to live forever, and run

parallel with Oro, may truly appall us. Toil we not here? and shall we

be forever slothful elsewhere? Other worlds differ not much from this,

but in degree. Doubtless, a pebble is a fair specimen of the universe.

“‘We point at random. Peradventure at this instant, there are beings

gazing up to this very world as their future heaven. But the universe

is all over a heaven: nothing but stars on stars, throughout infinities

of expansion. All we see are but a cluster. Could we get to Bootes, we

would be no nearer Oro, than now he hath no place; but is here.

Already, in its unimaginable roamings, our system may have dragged us

through and through the spaces, where we plant cities of beryl and

jasper. Even now, we may be inhaling the ether, which we fancy seraphic

wings are fanning. But look round. There is much to be seen here, and

now. Do the archangels survey aught more glorious than the

constellations we nightly behold? Continually we slight the wonders, we

deem in reserve. We await the present. With marvels we are glutted,

till we hold them no marvels at all. But had these eyes first opened

upon all the prodigies in the Revelation of the Dreamer, long

familiarity would have made them appear, even as these things we see.

Now, _now_, the page is out-spread: to the simple, easy as a primer; to

the wise, more puzzling than hieroglyphics. The eternity to come, is

but a prolongation of time present: and the beginning may be more

wonderful than the end.

“‘Then let us be wise. But much of the knowledge we seek, already we

have in our cores. Yet so simple it is, we despise it; so bold, we fear

it.

“‘In solitude, let us exhume our ingots. Let us hear our own thoughts.

The soul needs no mentor, but Oro; and Oro, without proxy. Wanting Him,

it is both the teacher and the taught. Undeniably, reason was the first

revelation; and so far as it tests all others, it has precedence over

them. It comes direct to us, without suppression or interpolation; and

with Oro’s indisputable imprimatur. But inspiration though it be, it is

not so arrogant as some think. Nay, far too humble, at times it submits

to the grossest indignities. Though in its best estate, not infallible;

so far as it goes, for us, it is reliable. When at fault, it stands

still. We speak not of visionaries. But if this our first revelation

stops short of the uttermost, so with all others. If, often, it only

perplexes: much more the rest. They leave much unexpounded; and

disclosing new mysteries, add to the enigma. Fellow-men; the ocean we

would sound is unfathomable; and however much we add to our line, when

it is out, we feel not the bottom. Let us be truly lowly, then; not

lifted up with a Pharisaic humility. We crawl not like worms; nor wear

we the liveries of angels.

“‘The firmament-arch has no key-stone; least of all, is man its prop.

He stands alone. We are every thing to ourselves, but how little to

others. What are others to us? Assure life everlasting to this

generation, and their immediate forefathers—and what tears would flow,

were there no resurrection for the countless generations from the first

man to five cycles since? And soon we ourselves shall have fallen in

with the rank and file of our sires. At a blow, annihilate some distant

tribe, now alive and jocund—and what would we reck? Curiosity apart, do

we really care whether the people in Bellatrix are immortal or no?

“‘Though they smite us, let us not turn away from these things, if they

be really thus.

“‘There was a time, when near Cassiopeia, a star of the first

magnitude, most lustrous in the North, grew lurid as a fire, then dim

as ashes, and went out. Now, its place is a blank. A vast world, with

all its continents, say the astronomers, blazing over the heads of our

fathers; while in Mardi were merry-makings, and maidens given in

marriage. Who now thinks of that burning sphere? How few are aware that

ever it was?

“‘These things are so.

“‘Fellow-men! we must go, and obtain a glimpse of what we are from the

Belts of Jupiter and the Moons of Saturn, ere we see ourselves aright.

The universe can wax old without us; though by Oro’s grace we may live

to behold a wrinkle in the sky. Eternity is not ours by right; and,

alone, unrequited sufferings here, form no title thereto, unless

resurrections are reserved for maltreated brutes. Suffering is

suffering; be the sufferer man, brute, or thing.

“‘How small;—how nothing, our deserts! Let us stifle all vain

speculations; we need not to be told what righteousness is; we were

born with the whole Law in our hearts. Let us do: let us act: let us

down on our knees. And if, after all, we should be no more forever;—

far better to perish meriting immortality, than to enjoy it

unmeritorious. While we fight over creeds, ten thousand fingers point

to where vital good may be done. All round us, Want crawls to her

lairs; and, shivering, dies unrelieved. Here, _here_, fellow-men, we

can better minister as angels, than in heaven, where want and misery

come not.

“‘We Mardians talk as though the future was all in all; but act as

though the present was every thing. Yet so far as, in our theories, we

dwarf our Mardi; we go not beyond an archangel’s apprehension of it,

who takes in all suns and systems at a glance. Like pebbles, were the

isles to sink in space, Sirius, the Dog-star, would still flame in the

sky. But as the atom to the animalculae, so Mardi to us. And lived

aright, these mortal lives are long; looked into, these souls,

fathomless as the nethermost depths.

“‘Fellow-men; we split upon hairs; but stripped, mere words and phrases

cast aside, the great bulk of us are orthodox. None who think, dissent

from the grand belief. The first man’s thoughts were as ours. The

paramount revelation prevails with us; and all that clashes therewith,

we do not so much believe, as believe that we can not disbelieve.

Common sense is a sturdy despot; that, for the most part, has its own

way. It inspects and ratifies much independent of it. But those who

think they do wholly reject it, are but held in a sly sort of bondage;

under a semblance of something else, wearing the old yoke.’”

“Cease, cease, Babbalanja,” said Media, “and permit me to insinuate a

word in your ear. You have long been in the habit, philosopher, of

regaling us with chapters from your old Bardianna; and with infinite

gusto, you have just recited the longest of all. But I do not observe,

oh, Sage! that for all these things, you yourself are practically the

better or wiser. You live not up to Bardianna’s main thought. Where he

stands, he stands immovable; but you are a Dog-vane. How is this?”

“Gogle-goggle, fugle-fi, fugle-fogle-orum!”

“Mad, mad again,” cried Yoomy.

CHAPTER LXXII.

Babbalanja Starts To His Feet

For twenty-four hours, seated stiff, and motionless, Babbalanja spoke

not a word; then, almost without moving a muscle, muttered thus:—“At

banquets surfeit not, but fill; partake, and retire; and eat not again

till you crave. Thereby you give nature time to work her magic

transformings; turning all solids to meat, and wine into blood. After a

banquet you incline to repose:—do so: digestion commands. All this

follow those, who feast at the tables of Wisdom; and all such are they,

who partake of the fare of old Bardianna.”

“Art resuscitated, then, Babbalanja?” said Media. “Ay, my lord, I am

just risen from the dead.”

“And did Azzageddi conduct you to their realms?”

“Fangs off! fangs off! depart, thou fiend!—unhand me! or by Oro, I will

die and spite thee!”

“Quick, quick, Mohi! let us change places,” cried Yoomy.

“How now, Babbalanja?” said Media.

“Oh my lord man—not _you_ my lord Media!—high and mighty Puissance!

great King of Creation!—thou art but the biggest of braggarts! In every

age, thou boastest of thy valorous advances:—flat fools, old dotards,

and numskulls, our sires! All the Past, wasted time! the Present knows

all! right lucky, fellow-beings, we live now! every man an author!

books plenty as men! strike a light in a minute! teeth sold by the

pound! all the elements fetching and carrying! lightning running on

errands! rivers made to order! the ocean a puddle!— But ages back they

boasted like us; and ages to come, forever and ever, they’ll boast.

Ages back they black-balled the past, thought the last day was come; so

wise they were grown. Mardi could not stand long; have to annex one of

the planets; invade the great sun; colonize the moon;—conquerors sighed

for new Mardis; and sages for heaven— having by heart all the primers

here below. Like us, ages back they groaned under their books; made

bonfires of libraries, leaving ashes behind, mid which we reverentially

grope for charred pages, forgetting we are so much wiser than they.—But

amazing times! astounding revelations; preternatural divulgings!—How

now?—more wonderful than all our discoveries is this: that they never

were discovered before. So simple, no doubt our ancestors overlooked

them; intent on deeper things—the deep things of the soul. All we

discover has been with us since the sun began to roll; and much we

discover, is not worth the discovering. We are children, climbing trees

after birds’ nests, and making a great shout, whether we find eggs in

them or no. But where are our wings, which our fore-fathers surely had

not? Tell us, ye sages! something worth an archangel’s learning;

discover, ye discoverers, something new. Fools, fools! Mardi’s not

changed: the sun yet rises in its old place in the East; all things go

on in the same old way; we cut our eye-teeth just as late as they did,

three thousand years ago.”

“Your pardon,” said Mohi, “for beshrew me, they are not yet all cut. At

threescore and ten, here have I a new tooth coming now.”

“Old man! it but clears the way for another. The teeth sown by the

alphabet-founder, were eye-teeth, not yet all sprung from the soil.

Like spring-wheat, blade by blade, they break ground late; like

spring-wheat, many seeds have perished in the hard winter glebe. Oh, my

lord! though we galvanize corpses into St. Vitus’ dances, we raise not

the dead from their graves! Though we have discovered the circulation

of the blood, men die as of yore; oxen graze, sheep bleat, babies bawl,

asses bray—loud and lusty as the day before the flood. Men fight and

make up; repent and go at it; feast and starve; laugh and weep; pray

and curse; cheat, chaffer, trick, truckle, cozen, defraud, fib, lie,

beg, borrow, steal, hang, drown—as in the laughing and weeping,

tricking and truckling, hanging and drowning times that have been.

Nothing changes, though much be new-fashioned: new fashions but

revivals of things previous. In the books of the past we learn naught

but of the present; in those of the present, the past. All Mardi’s

history—beginning middle, and finis—was written out in capitals in the

first page penned. The whole story is told in a title- page. An

exclamation point is entire Mardi’s autobiography.”

“Who speaks now?” said Media, “Bardianna, Azzageddi, or Babbalanja?”

“All three: is it not a pleasant concert?”

“Very fine: very fine.—Go on; and tell us something of the future.”

“I have never departed this life yet, my lord.”

“But just now you said you were risen from the dead.” “From the buried

dead within me; not from myself, my lord.”

“If you, then, know nothing of the future—did Bardianna?”

“If he did, naught did he reveal. I have ever observed, my lord, that

even in their deepest lucubrations, the profoundest, frankest,

ponderers always reserve a vast deal of precious thought for their own

private behoof. They think, perhaps, that ’tis too good, or too bad;

too wise, or too foolish, for the multitude. And this unpleasant

vibration is ever consequent upon striking a new vein of ideas in the

soul. As with buried treasures, the ground over them sounds strange and

hollow. At any rate, the profoundest ponderer seldom tells us all he

thinks; seldom reveals to us the ultimate, and the innermost; seldom

makes us open our eyes under water; seldom throws open the

totus-in-toto; and never carries us with him, to the unconsubsistent,

the ideaimmanens, the super-essential, and the One.”

Confusion! Remember the Quadammodatatives!”

“Ah!” said Braid-Beard, “that’s the crack in his calabash, which all

the Dicibles of Doxdox will not mend.”

“And from that crazy calabash he gives us to drink, old Mohi.”

“But never heed his leaky gourd nor its contents, my lord. Let these

philosophers muddle themselves as they will, we wise ones refuse to

partake.”

“And fools like me drink till they reel,” said Babbalanja. “But in

these matters one’s calabash must needs go round to keep afloat.

Fogle-orum!”

CHAPTER LXXIII.

At Last, The Last Mention Is Made Of Old Bardianna; And His Last Will

And Testament Is Recited At Length

The day was waning. And, as after many a tale of ghosts, around their

forest fire, Hungarian gipsies silent sit; watching the ruddy glow

kindling each other’s faces;—so, now we solemn sat; the crimson West

our fire; all our faces flushed.

“Testators!” then cried Media, when your last wills are all round

settled, speak, and make it known!”

“Mine, my lord, has long been fixed,” said Babbalanja.

“And how runs it?”

“Fugle-fogle—”

“Hark ye, intruding Azzageddi! rejoin thy merry mates below;—go there,

and wag thy saucy tail; or I will nail it to our bow, till ye roar for

liberation. Begone, I say.”

“Down, devil! deeper down!” rumbled Babbalanja.

“My lord, I think he’s gone. And now, by your good leave, I’ll repeat

old Bardianna’s Will. It’s worth all Mardi’s hearing; and I have so

studied it, by rote I know it.”

“Proceed then; but I mistrust that Azzageddi is not yet many thousand

fathoms down.”

“Attend my lord:—‘Anno Mardis 50,000,000, o.s. I, Bardianna, of the

island of Vamba, and village of the same name, having just risen from

my yams, in high health, high spirits, and sound mind, do hereby

cheerfully make and ordain this my last will and testament.

“‘Imprimis:

“‘All my kith and kin being well to do in Mardi, I wholly leave them

out of this my will.

“‘Item. Since, in divers ways, verbally and otherwise, my good friend

Pondo has evinced a strong love for me, Bardianna, as the owner and

proprietor of all that capital messuage with the appurtenances, in

Vamba aforesaid, called ‘The Lair,’ wherein I now dwell; also for all

my Bread-fruit orchards, Palm-groves, Banana-plantations, Taro-patches,

gardens, lawns, lanes, and hereditaments whatsoever, adjoining the

aforesaid messuage;—I do hereby give and bequeath the same to Bomblum

of the island of Adda; the aforesaid Bomblum having never expressed any

regard for me, as a holder of real estate.

“‘Item. My esteemed neighbor Lakreemo having since the last lunar

eclipse called daily to inquire after the state of my health: and

having nightly made tearful inquiries of my herb-doctor, concerning the

state of my viscera;—I do hereby give and bequeath to the aforesaid

Lakreemo all and sundry those vegetable pills, potions, powders,

aperients, purgatives, expellatives, evacuatives, tonics, emetics,

cathartics, clysters, injections, scarifiers, cataplasms, lenitives,

lotions, decoctions, washes, gargles, and phlegmagogues; together with

all the jars, calabashes, gourds, and galipots, thereunto pertaining;

situate, lying, and being, in the west-by-north corner of my

east-southeast crypt, in my aforesaid tenement known as ‘The Lair.’

“‘Item. The woman Pesti; a native of Vamba, having oftentimes hinted

that I, Bardianna, sorely needed a spouse, and having also intimated

that she bore me a conjugal affection; I do hereby give and bequeath to

the aforesaid Pesti:—my blessing; forasmuch, as by the time of the

opening of this my last will and testament, I shall have been forever

delivered from the aforesaid Pesti’s persecutions.

“‘Item. Having a high opinion of the probity of my worthy and excellent

friend Bidiri, I do hereby entirely, and wholly, give, will, grant,

bestow, devise, and utterly hand over unto the said Bidiri, all that

tenement where my servant Oram now dwelleth; with all the lawns,

meadows, uplands and lowlands, fields, groves, and gardens, thereunto

belonging:—IN TRUST NEVERTHELESS to have and to hold the same for the

sole use and benefit of Lanbranka Hohinna, spinster, now resident of

the aforesaid island of Vamba.

“‘Item. I give and bequeath my large carved drinking gourd to my good

comrade Topo.

“’Item. My fast friend Doldrum having at sundry times, and in sundry

places, uttered the prophecy, that upon my decease his sorrow would be

great; I do hereby give and bequeath to the aforesaid Doldrum, ten

yards of my best soft tappa, to be divided into handkerchiefs for his

sole benefit and behoof.

“’Item. My sensible friend Solo having informed me, that he intended to

remain a bachelor for life; I give and devise to the aforesaid Solo,

the mat for one person, whereon I nightly repose.

“’Item. Concerning my private Arbor and Palm-groves, adjoining, lying,

and being in the isle of Vamba, I give and devise the same, with all

appurtenances whatsoever, to my friend Minta the Cynic, to have and to

hold, in trust for the first through-and-through honest man, issue of

my neighbor Mondi; and in default of such issue, for the first

through-and-through honest man, issue of my neighbor Pendidda; and in

default of such issue, for the first through-and-through honest man,

issue of my neighbor Wynodo: and in default of such issue, to any

through-and-through honest man, issue of any body, to be found through

the length and breadth of Mardi.

“’Item. My friend Minta the Cynic to be sole judge of all claims to the

above-mentioned devise; and to hold the said premises for his own use,

until the aforesaid person be found.

“’Item. Knowing my devoted scribe Marko to be very sensitive touching

the receipt of a favor; I willingly spare him that pain; and hereby

bequeath unto the aforesaid scribe, three milk-teeth, not as a

pecuniary legacy, but as a very slight token of my profound regard.

“’Item. I give to the poor of Vamba the total contents of my

red-labeled bags of bicuspids and canines (which I account

three-fourths of my whole estate); to my body servant Fidi, my staff,

all my robes and togas, and three hundred molars in cash; to that

discerning and sagacious philosopher my disciple Krako, one complete

set of denticles, to buy him a vertebral bone ring; and to that pious

and promising youth Vangi, two fathoms of my best kaiar rope, with the

privilege of any bough in my groves.

“’All the rest of my goods, chattels and household stuff whatsoever;

and all my loose denticles, remaining after my debts and legacies are

paid, and my body is out of sight, I hereby direct to be distributed

among the poor of Vamba.

“’Ultimo. I give and bequeath to all Mardi this my last advice and

counsel:—videlicet: live as long as you can; close your own eyes when

you die.

“’I have no previous wills to revoke; and publish this to be my first

and last.

“’In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my right hand; and hereunto

have caused a true copy of the tattooing on my right temple to be

affixed, during the year first above written.

“’By me, BARDIANNA.’”

“Babbalanja, that’s an extraordinary document,” said Media.

“Bardianna was an extraordinary man, my lord.”

“Were there no codicils?”

“The will is all codicils; all after-thoughts; Ten thoughts for one

act, was Bardianna’s motto.”

“Left he nothing whatever to his kindred?”

“Not a stump.”

“Prom his will, he seems to have lived single.”

“Yes: Bardianna never sought to improve upon nature; a bachelor he was

born, and a bachelor he died.”

“According to the best accounts, how did he depart, Babbalanja?” asked

Mohi.

“With a firm lip, and his hand on his heart, old man.”

“His last words?”

“Calmer, and better!”

“Where think you, he is now?”

“In his Ponderings. And those, my lord, we all inherit; for like the

great chief of Romara, who made a whole empire his legatee; so, great

authors have all Mardi for an heir.”

CHAPTER LXXIV.

A Death-Cloud Sweeps By Them, As They Sail

Next day, a fearful sight!

As in Sooloo’s seas, one vast water-spout will, sudden, form: and

whirling, chase the flying Malay keels; so, before a swift-winged

cloud, a thousand prows sped by, leaving braided, foaming wakes; their

crowded inmates’ arms, in frenzied supplications wreathed; like tangled

forest-boughs.

“See, see,” cried Yoomy, “how the Death-cloud flies! Let us dive down

in the sea.”

“Nay,” said Babbalanja. “All things come of Oro; if we must drown, let

Oro drown us.”

“Down sails: drop paddles,” said Media: “here we float.”

Like a rushing bison, sweeping by, the Death-cloud grazed us with its

foam; and whirling in upon the thousand prows beyond, sudden burst in

deluges; and scooping out a maelstrom, dragged down every plank and

soul.

Long we rocked upon the circling billows, which expanding from that

center, dashed every isle, till, moons after-ward, faint, they laved

all Mardi’s reef.

“Thanks unto Oro,” murmured Mohi, “this heart still beats.”

That sun-flushed eve, we sailed by many tranquil harbors, whence fled

those thousand prows. Serene, the waves ran up their strands; and

chimed around the unharmed stakes of palm, to which the thousand prows

that morning had been fastened.

“Flying death, they ran to meet it,” said Babbalanja. “But tie not that

they fled, they died; for maelstroms, of these harbors, the Death-cloud

might have made. But they died, because they might not longer live.

Could we gain one glimpse of the great calendar of eternity, all our

names would there be found, glued against their dates of death. We die

by land, and die by sea; we die by earthquakes, famines, plagues, and

wars; by fevers, agues; woe, or mirth excessive. This mortal air is one

wide pestilence, that kills us all at last. Whom the Death-cloud

spares, sleeping, dies in silent watches of the night. He whom the

spears of many battles could not slay, dies of a grape-stone, beneath

the vine-clad bower he built, to shade declining years. We die, because

we live. But none the less does Babbalanja quake. And if he flies not,

’tis because he stands the center of a circle; its every point a

leveled dart; and every bow, bent back:—a twang, and Babbalanja dies.”

CHAPTER LXXV.

They Visit The Palmy King Abrazza

Night and morn departed; and in the afternoon, we drew nigh to an

island, overcast with shadows; a shower was falling; and pining,

plaintive notes forth issued from the groves: half-suppressed, and

sobbing whisperings of leaves. The shore sloped to the water; thither

our prows were pointed.

“Sheer off! no landing here,” cried Media, “let us gain the sunny side;

and like the care-free bachelor Abrazza, who here is king, turn our

back on the isle’s shadowy side, and revel in its morning-meads.”

“And lord Abrazza:—who is he?” asked Yoomy.

“The one hundred and twentieth in lineal descent from Phipora,” said

Mohi; “and connected on the maternal side to the lord seigniors of

Klivonia. His uttermost uncle was nephew to the niece of Queen

Zmiglandi; who flourished so long since, she wedded at the first

Transit of Venus. His pedigree is endless.”

“But who is lord Abrazza?”

“Has he not said?” answered Babbalanja. “Why so dull?—Uttermost nephew

to him, who was nephew to the niece of the peerless Queen Zmiglandi;

and the one hundred and twentieth in descent from the illustrious

Phipora.”

“Will none tell, who Abrazza is?”

“Can not a man then, be described by running off the catalogue of his

ancestors?” said Babbalanja. “Or must we e’en descend to himself. Then,

listen, dull Yoomy! and know that lord Abrazza is six feet two: plump

thighs; blue eyes; and brown hair; likes his bread-fruit baked, not

roasted; sometimes carries filberts in his crown: and has a way of

winking when he speaks. His teeth are good.”

“Are you publishing some decamped burglar,” said Media, “that you speak

thus of my royal friend, the lord Abrazza? Go on, sir! and say he

reigns sole king of Bonovona!”

“My lord, I had not ended. Abrazza, Yoomy, is a fine and florid king:

high-fed, and affluent of heart; of speech, mellifluent. And for a

royalty extremely amiable. He is a sceptered gentleman, who does much

good. Kind king! in person he gives orders for relieving those, who

daily dive for pearls, to grace his royal robe; and gasping hard, with

blood-shot eyes, come up from shark-infested depths, and fainting, lay

their treasure at his feet. Sweet lord Abrazza! how he pities those,

who in his furthest woodlands day-long toil to do his bidding. Yet

king-philosopher, he never weeps; but pities with a placid smile; and

that but seldom.”

“There seems much iron in your blood,” said Media. “But say your say.”

“Say I not truth, my lord? Abrazza, I admire. Save his royal pity all

else is jocund round him. He loves to live for life’s own sake. He vows

he’ll have no cares; and often says, in pleasant reveries,— ‘Sure, my

lord Abrazza, if any one should be care-free, ’tis thou; who strike

down none, but pity all the fallen!’ Yet none he lifteth up.”

At length we gained the sunny side, and shoreward tended. Vee-Vee’s

horn was sonorous; and issuing from his golden groves, my lord Abrazza,

like a host that greets you on the threshold, met us, as we keeled the

beach.

“Welcome! fellow demi-god, and king! Media, my pleasant guest!”

His servitors salamed; his chieftains bowed; his yeoman-guard, in

meadow-green, presented palm-stalks,—royal tokens; and hand in hand,

the nodding, jovial, regal friends, went up a lane of salutations;

dragging behind, a train of envyings.

Much we marked Abrazza’s jeweled crown; that shot no honest blaze of

ruddy rubies; nor looked stern-white like Media’s pearls; but cast a

green and yellow glare; rays from emeralds, crossing rays from many a

topaz. In those beams, so sinister, all present looked cadaverous:

Abrazza’s cheek alone beamed bright, but hectic.

Upon its fragrant mats a spacious hall received the kings; and

gathering courtiers blandly bowed; and gushing with soft flatteries,

breathed idol-incense round them.

The hall was terraced thrice; its elevated end was curtained; and

thence, at every chime of words, there burst a girl, gay scarfed, with

naked bosom, and poured forth wild and hollow laughter, as she raced

down all the terraces, and passed their merry kingships.

Wide round the hall, in avenues, waved almond-woods; their whiteness

frosted into bloom. But every vine-clad trunk was hollow-hearted;

hollow sounds came from the grottos: hollow broke the billows on the

shore: and hollow pauses filled the air, following the hollow laughter.

Guards, with spears, paced the groves, and in the inner shadows, oft

were seen to lift their weapons, and backward press some ugly phantom,

saying, “Subjects! haunt him not; Abrazza would be merry; Abrazza

feasts his guests.”

So, banished from our sight seemed all things uncongenial; and pleasant

times were ours, in these dominions. Not a face passed by, but smiled;

mocking-birds perched on the boughs; and singing, made us vow the woods

were warbling forth thanksgiving, with a thousand throats! The stalwart

yeomen grinned beneath their trenchers, heaped with citrons

pomegrantes, grapes; the pages tittered, pouring out the wine; and all

the lords loud laughed, smote their gilded spears, and swore the isle

was glad.

Such the isle, in which we tarried; but in our rambles, found no

Yillah.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

Some Pleasant, Shady Talk In The Groves, Between My Lords Abrazza And

Media, Babbalanja, Mohi, And Yoomy

Abrazza had a cool retreat—a grove of dates; where we were used to

lounge of noons, and mix our converse with the babble of the rills; and

mix our punches in goblets chased with grapes. And as ever, King

Abrazza was the prince of hosts.

“Your crown,” he said to Media; and with his own, he hung it on a

bough.

“Be not ceremonious:” and stretched his royal legs upon the turf.

“Wine!” and his pages poured it out.

So on the grass we lounged; and King Abrazza, who loved his antique

ancestors; and loved old times; and would not talk of moderns;—bade

Yoomy sing old songs; bade Mohi rehearse old histories; bade Babbalanja

tell of old ontologies; and commanded all, meanwhile, to drink his old,

old wine.