Unde iratos deos timent, qui sic propitios merentur?
SENECA.
“When I awoke, he was standing by my pallet. “Arise,” said he, “eat and
drink, that thy strength may return unto thee.” He pointed to a small
table as he spoke, which was covered with food of the plainest kind, and
dressed with the utmost simplicity. Yet he seemed to think an apology
was necessary for the indulgence of this temperate fare. “I myself,”
said he, “eat not the flesh of any animal, save on the new moons and the
feasts, yet the days of the years of my life have been one hundred and
seven; sixty of which have been passed in the chamber where thou sawest
me. Rarely do I ascend to the upper chamber of this house, save on
occasions like this, or peradventure to pray, with my window open
towards the east, for the turning away wrath from Jacob, and the turning
again the captivity of Zion. Well saith the ethnic leach,
“Aer exclusus confert ad longevitatem.”
“Such hath been my life, as I tell thee. The light of heaven hath been
hidden from mine eyes, and the voice of man is as the voice of a
stranger in mine ears, save those of some of mine own nation, who weep
for the affliction of Israel; yet the silver cord is not loosed, nor the
golden bowl broken; and though mine eye be waxing dim, my natural force
is not abated.” (As he spoke, my eyes hung in reverence on the hoary
majesty of his patriarchal figure, and I felt as if I beheld an embodied
representation of the old law in all its stern simplicity--the unbending
grandeur, and primeval antiquity.) “Hast thou eaten, and art full?
Arise, then, and follow me.”
“We descended to the vault, where I found the lamp was always burning.
And Adonijah, pointing to the parchments that lay on the table, said,
“This is the matter wherein I need thy help; the collection and
transcription whereof hath been the labour of more than half a life,
prolonged beyond the bounds allotted to mortality; but,” pointing to his
sunk and blood-shot eyes, “those that look out of the windows begin to
be darkened, and I feel that I need help from the quick hand and clear
eye of youth. Wherefore, it being certified unto me by our brother, that
thou wert a youth who couldst handle the pen of a scribe, and, moreover,
wast in need of a city of refuge, and a strong wall of defence, against
the laying-in-wait of thy brethren round about thee, I was willing that
thou shouldst come under my roof, and eat of such things as I set before
thee, and such as thy soul desireth, excepting only the abominable
things forbidden in the law of the prophet; and shouldst, moreover,
receive wages as an hired servant.”
“You will perhaps smile, Sir; but even in my wretched situation, I felt
a slight but painful flush tinge my cheek, at the thought of a
Christian, and a peer of Spain, becoming the amanuensis of a Jew for
hire. Adonijah continued, “Then, when my task is completed, then will I
be gathered to my fathers, trusting surely in the Hope of Israel, that
mine eyes shall “behold the King in his beauty,--they shall see the land
that is very far off.” And peradventure,” he added, in a voice that
grief rendered solemn, mellow, and tremulous, “peradventure there shall
I meet in bliss, those with whom I parted in woe--even thou, Zachariah,
the son of my loins, and thou, Leah, the wife of my bosom;”
apostrophizing two of the silent skeletons that stood near. “And in the
presence of the God of our fathers, the redeemed of Zion shall meet--and
meet as those who are to part no more for ever and ever.” At these
words, he closed his eyes, lifted up his hands, and appeared to be
absorbed in mental prayer. Grief had perhaps subdued my prejudices--it
had certainly softened my heart--and at this moment I half-believed that
a Jew might find entrance and adoption amid the family and fold of the
blessed. This sentiment operated on my human sympathies, and I inquired,
with unfeigned anxiety, after the fate of Solomon the Jew, whose
misfortune in harbouring me had exposed him to the visit of the
Inquisitors. “Be at peace,” said Adonijah, waving his bony and wrinkled
hand, as if dismissing a subject below his present feelings, “our
brother Solomon is in no peril of death; neither shall his goods be
taken for a spoil. If our adversaries are mighty in power, so are we
mighty also to deal with them by our wealth or our wisdom. Thy flight
they never can trace, thy existence on the face of the earth shall also
be unknown to them, so thou wilt hearken to me, and heed my words.”
“I could not speak, but my expression of mute and imploring anxiety
spoke for me. “Thou didst use words,” said Adonijah, “last night,
whereof, though I remember not all the purport, the sound yet maketh
mine ears to tingle; even mine, which have not vibrated to such sounds
for four times the space of thy youthful years. Thou saidst thou wert
beset by a power that tempted thee to renounce the Most High, whom Jew
and Christian alike profess to worship; and that thou didst declare,
that were the fires kindled around thee, thou wouldst spit at the
tempter, and trample on the offer, though thy foot pressed the coal
which the sons of Dominick were lighting beneath its naked sole.”--“I
did,” I cried, “I did--and I would--So help me God in mine extremity.”
“Adonijah paused for a moment, as if considering whether this were a
burst of passion, or a proof of mental energy. He seemed at last
inclined to believe it the latter, though all men of far-advanced age
are apt to distrust any marks of emotion as a demonstration rather of
weakness than of sincerity. “Then,” said he, after a long and solemn
pause, “then thou shalt know the secret that hath been a burthen to the
soul of Adonijah, even as his hopeless solitude is a burthen to the soul
of him who traverseth the desert, none accompanying him with step, or
cheering him with voice. From my youth upward, even until now, have I
laboured, and behold the time of my deliverance is at hand; yea, and
shall be accomplished speedily.
“In the days of my childhood, a rumour reached mine ears, even mine, of
a being sent abroad on the earth to tempt Jew and Nazarene, and even the
disciples of Mohammed, whose name is accursed in the mouth of our
nation, with offers of deliverance at their utmost need and extremity,
so they would do that which my lips dare not utter, even though there be
no ear to receive it but thine. Thou shudderest--well, then, thou art
sincere, at least, in thy faith of errors. I listened to the tale, and
mine ears received it, even as the soul of the thirsty drinketh in
rivers of water, for my mind was full of the vain fantasies of the
Gentile fables, and I longed, in the perverseness of my spirit, to see,
yea, and to consort with, yea, and to deal with, the evil one in his
strength. Like our fathers in the wilderness, I despised angel’s food,
and lusted after forbidden meats, even the meats of the Egyptian
sorcerers. And my presumption was rebuked as thou seest:--childless,
wifeless, friendless, at the last period of an existence prolonged
beyond the bounds of nature, am I now left, and, save thee alone,
without one to record its events. I will not trouble thee now with the
tale of my eventful life, farther than to tell thee, that the skeletons
thou tremblest to behold, were once clothed in flesh far fairer than
thine. They are those of my wife and child, whose history thou must not
now hear--but those of the two others thou must both hear and relate.”
And he pointed to the two other skeletons opposite, in their upright
cases. “On my return to my country, even Spain, if a Jew can be said to
have a country, I set myself down on this seat, and, lighted by this
lamp, I took in my hand the pen of a scribe, and vowed by a vow, that
this lamp should not expire, nor this seat be forsaken, nor this vault
untenanted, until that the record is written in a book, and sealed as
with the king’s signet. But, behold, I was traced by those who are keen
of scent, and quick of pursuit, even the sons of Dominick. And they
seized me, and laid my feet fast in the bonds; but my writings they
could not read, because they were traced in a character unknown to this
idolatrous people. And behold, after a space they set me free, finding
no cause of offence in me; and they bade me depart, and trouble them no
more. Then vowed I a vow unto the God of Israel, who had delivered me
from their thraldom, that none but he who could read these characters
should ever transcribe them. Moreover, I prayed, and said, O Lord God of
Israel! who knowest that we are the sheep of thy fold, and our enemies
as wolves round about us, and as lions who roar for their evening prey,
grant, that a Nazarene escaped from their hands, and fleeing unto us,
even as a bird chased from her nest, may put to shame the weapons of the
mighty, and laugh them to scorn. Grant also, Lord God of Jacob, that he
may be exposed to the snare of the enemy, even as those of whom I have
written, and that he may spit at it with his mouth, and spurn at it with
his feet, and trample on the ensnarer, even as they have trampled; and
then shall my soul, even mine, have peace at the last. Thus I
prayed--and my prayer was heard, for behold, _thou_ art here.”
“As I heard these words, a horrid foreboding, like a night-mare of the
heart, hung heavily on me. I looked alternately at the withering
speaker, and the hopeless task. To bear about that horrible secret
inurned in my heart, was not that enough? but to be compelled to scatter
its ashes abroad, and to rake into the dust of others for the same
purpose of unhallowed exposure, revolted me beyond feeling and
utterance. As my eye fell listlessly on the manuscripts, I saw they
contained only _the Spanish language_ written in _the Greek
characters_--a mode of writing that, I easily conceived, must have been
as unintelligible to the officers of the Inquisition, as the
Hieroglyphics of the Egyptian priests. Their ignorance, sheltered by
their pride, and that still more strongly fortified by the impenetrable
secresy attached to their most minute proceedings, made them hesitate to
entrust to any one the circumstance of their being in possession of
manuscript which they could not decypher. So they returned the papers to
Adonijah, and, in his own language, “Behold, he abode in safety.” But to
me this was a task of horror unspeakable. I felt myself as an added link
to the chain, the end of which, held by an invisible hand, was drawing
me to perdition; and I was now to become the recorder of my own
condemnation.
“As I turned over the leaves with a trembling hand, the towering form of
Adonijah seemed dilated with preternatural emotion. “And what dost thou
tremble at, child of the dust?” he exclaimed, “if thou hast been
tempted, so have they--if thou hast resisted, so have they--if they are
at rest, so shalt thou be. There is not a pang of soul or body thou hast
undergone, or canst undergo, that they have not suffered before thy
birth was dreamt of. Boy, thy hand trembles over pages it is unworthy to
touch, yet still I must employ thee, for I need thee. Miserable link of
necessity, that binds together minds so uncongenial! I would that the
ocean were my ink, and the rock my page, and mine arm, even mine, the
pen that should write thereon letters that should last like those on the
written mountains for ever and ever--even the mount of Sinai, and those
that still bear the record, “Israel hath passed the flood(6).” As he
spoke, I again turned over the manuscripts. “Does thy hand tremble
still?” said Adonijah; “and dost thou still hesitate to record the story
of those whose destiny a link, wondrous, invisible, and indissoluble,
has bound to thine. Behold, there are those near thee, who, though they
have no longer a tongue, speak to thee with that eloquence which is
stronger than all the eloquence of living tongues. Behold, there are
those around thee, whose mute and motionless arms of bone plead to thee
as no arms of flesh ever pleaded. Behold, there are those who, being
speechless, yet speak--who, being dead, are yet alive--who, though in
the abyss of eternity, are yet around thee, and call on thee, as with a
mortal voice. Hear them!--take the pen in thine hand, and write.” I took
the pen in my hand, but could not write a line. Adonijah, in a transport
of ecstasy, snatching a skeleton from its receptacle, placed it before
me. “Tell him thy story thyself, peradventure he will believe thee, and
record it.” And supporting the skeleton with one hand, he pointed with
the other, as bleached and bony as that of the dead, to the manuscript
that lay before me.
(6) Written mountains, _i. e._ rocks inscribed with characters
recordative of some remarkable event, are well known to every oriental
traveller. I think it is in the notes of Dr Coke, on the book of
Exodus, that I have met with the circumstance alluded to above. A rock
near the Red Sea is said once to have borne the inscription, “Israel
hath passed the flood.”
“It was a night of storms in the world above us; and, far below the
surface of the earth as we were, the murmur of the winds, sighing
through the passages, came on my ear like the voices of the
departed,--like the pleadings of the dead. Involuntarily I fixed my eye
on the manuscript I was to copy, and never withdrew till I had finished
its extraordinary contents.
Tale of the Indians.
“There is an island in the Indian sea, not many leagues from the mouth
of the Hoogly, which, from the peculiarity of its situation and internal
circumstances, long remained unknown to Europeans, and unvisited by the
natives of the contiguous islands, except on remarkable occasions. It is
surrounded by shallows that render the approach of any vessel of weight
impracticable, and fortified by rocks that threatened danger to the
slight canoes of the natives, but it was rendered still more formidable
by the terrors with which superstition had invested it. There was a
tradition that the first temple to the black goddess Seeva(7), had been
erected there; and her hideous idol, with its collar of human sculls,
forked tongues darting from its twenty serpent mouths, and seated on a
matted coil of adders, had there first received the bloody homage of the
mutilated limbs and immolated infants of her worshippers.
(7) Vide Maurice’s Indian Antiquities.
“The temple had been overthrown, and the island half depopulated, by an
earthquake, that agitated all the shores of India. It was rebuilt,
however, by the zeal of the worshippers, who again began to re-visit the
island, when a tufaun of fury unparalleled even in those fierce
latitudes, burst over the devoted spot. The pagoda was burnt to ashes by
the lightning; the inhabitants, their dwellings, and their plantations,
swept away as with the besom of destruction, and not a trace of
humanity, cultivation, or life, remained in the desolate isle. The
devotees consulted their imagination for the cause of these calamities;
and, while seated under the shade of their cocoa-trees they told their
long strings of coloured beads, they ascribed it to the wrath of the
goddess Seeva at the increasing popularity of the worship of Juggernaut.
They asserted that her image had been seen ascending amid the blaze of
lightning that consumed her shrine and blasted her worshippers as they
clung to it for protection, and firmly believed she had withdrawn to
some happier isle, where she might enjoy her feast of flesh, and draught
of blood, unmolested by the worship of a rival deity. So the island
remained desolate, and without inhabitant for years.
“The crews of European vessels, assured by the natives that there was
neither animal, or vegetable, or water, to be found on its surface,
forbore to visit; and the Indian of other isles, as he passed it in his
canoe, threw a glance of melancholy fear at its desolation, and flung
something overboard to propitiate the wrath of Seeva.
“The island, thus left to itself, became vigorously luxuriant, as some
neglected children improve in health and strength, while pampered
darlings die under excessive nurture. Flowers bloomed, and foliage
thickened, without a hand to pluck, a step to trace, or a lip to taste
them, when some fishermen, (who had been driven by a strong current
toward the isle, and worked with oar and sail in vain to avoid its
dreaded shore), after making a thousand prayers to propitiate Seeva,
were compelled to approach within an oar’s length of it; and, on their
return in unexpected safety, reported they had heard sounds so
exquisite, that some other goddess, milder than Seeva, must have fixed
on that spot for her residence. The younger fishermen added to this
account, that they had beheld a female figure of supernatural
loveliness, glide and disappear amid the foliage which now luxuriantly
overshadowed the rocks; and, in the spirit of Indian devotees, they
hesitated not to call this delicious vision an incarnated emanation of
Vishnu, in a lovelier form than ever he had appeared before,--at least
far beyond that which he assumed, when he made one of his avatars in the
figure of a tiger.
“The inhabitants of the islands, as superstitious as they were
imaginative, deified the vision of the isles after their manner. The old
devotees, while invoking her, stuck close to the bloody rites of Seeva
and Haree, and muttered many a horrid vow over their beads, which they
took care to render effectual by striking sharp reeds into their arms,
and tinging every bead with blood as they spoke. The young women rowed
their light canoes as near as they dared to the haunted isle, making
vows to Camdeo(8), and sending their paper vessels, lit with wax, and
filled with flowers, towards its coast, where they hoped their darling
deity was about to fix his residence. The young men also, at least those
who were in love and fond of music, rowed close to the island to solicit
the god Krishnoo(9) to sanctify it by his presence; and not knowing what
to offer to the deity, they sung their wild airs standing high on the
prow of the canoe, and at last threw a figure of wax, with a kind of
lyre in its hand, towards the shore of the desolate isle.
(8) The Cupid of the Indian mythology.
(9) The Indian Apollo.
“For many a night these canoes might be seen glancing past each other
over the darkened sea, like _shooting stars of the deep_, with their
lighted paper lanthorns, and their offerings of flowers and fruits, left
by some trembling hand on the sands, or hung by a bolder one in baskets
of cane on the rocks; and still the simple islanders felt joy and
devotion united in this “voluntary humility.” It was observed, however,
that the worshippers departed with very different impressions of the
object of their adoration. The women all clung to their oars in
breathless admiration of the sweet sounds that issued from the isle; and
when that ceased they departed, murmuring over in their huts those
“notes angelical,” to which their own language furnished no appropriate
sounds. The men rested long on their oars, to catch a glimpse of the
form which, by the report of the fishermen, wandered there; and, when
disappointed, they rowed home sadly.
“Gradually the isle lost its bad character for terror; and in spite of
some old devotees, who told their blood-discoloured beads, and talked of
Seeva and Haree, and even held burning splinters of wood to their
scorched hands, and stuck sharp pieces of iron, which they had purchased
or stolen from the crews of European vessels, in the most fleshy and
sensitive parts of their bodies,--and, moreover, talked of suspending
themselves from trees with the head downwards, till they were consumed
by insects, or calcined by the sun, or rendered delirious by their
position,--in spite of all this, which must have been very affecting,
the young people went on their own way,--the girls offering their
wreaths to Camdeo, and the youths invoking Krishnoo, till the devotees,
in despair, vowed to visit this accursed island, which had set every
body mad, and find out how the unknown deity was to be recognised and
propitiated; and whether flowers, and fruits, and love-vows, and the
beatings of young hearts, were to be substituted for the orthodox and
legitimate offering of nails grown into the hands till they appeared
through their backs, and _setons_ of ropes inserted into the sides, on
which the religionist danced his dance of agony, till the ropes or his
patience failed. In a word, they were determined to find out what this
deity was, who demanded no suffering from her worshippers,--and they
fulfilled their resolution in a manner worthy of their purpose.
“One hundred and forty beings, crippled by the austerities of their
religion, unable to manage sail or oar, embarked in a canoe to reach
what they called the accursed isle. The natives, intoxicated with the
belief of their sanctity, stripped themselves naked, to push their boat
through the surf, and then, making their _salams_, implored them to use
oars at least. The devotees, all too intent on their beads, and too well
satisfied of their importance in the eyes of their favourite deities, to
admit a doubt of their safety, set off in triumph,--and the consequence
may be easily conjectured. The boat soon filled and sunk, and the crew
perished without a single sigh of lamentation, except that they had not
feasted the alligators in the sacred waters of the Ganges, or perished
at least under the shadow of the domes of the _holy city_ of Benares, in
either of which cases their salvation must have been unquestionable.
“This circumstance, apparently so untoward, operated favourably on the
popularity of the new worship. The old system lost ground every day.
Hands, instead of being scorched over the fire, were employed only in
gathering flowers. Nails (with which it was the custom of the devotees
to lard their persons) actually fell in price; and a man might sit at
his ease on his hams with as safe a conscience, and as fair a character,
as if fourscore of them occupied the interval between. On the other
hand, fruits were every day scattered on the shores of the favourite
isle; flowers, too, blushed on its rocks, in all the dazzling luxuriance
of colouring with which the Flora of the East delights to array herself.
There was that brilliant and superb lily, which, to this day,
illustrates the comparison between it and Solomon, who, in all his
glory, was not arrayed like one of them. There was the rose unfolding
its “paradise of leaves,” and the scarlet blossom of the bombex, which
an English traveller has voluptuously described as banqueting the eye
with “its mass of vegetable splendour” unparalleled. And the female
votarists at last began to imitate some of “those sounds and sweet airs”
that every breeze seemed to waft to their ears, with increasing strength
of melody, as they floated in their canoes round this isle of
enchantment.
“At length one circumstance occurred that put its sanctity of character,
and that of its inmate, out of all doubt. A young Indian who had in vain
offered to his beloved the mystical bouquet, in which the arrangement of
the flowers is made to express love, rowed his canoe to the island, to
learn his fate from its supposed inhabitant; and as he rowed, composed a
song, which expressed that his mistress despised him, as if he were a
Paria, but that he would love her though he were descended from the head
of Brahma;--that her skin was more polished than the marble steps by
which you descend to the tank of a Rajah, and her eyes brighter than any
whose glances were watched by presumptuous strangers through the rents
of the embroidered purdah(10) of a Nawaub;--that she was loftier in his
eyes than the black pagoda of Juggernaut, and more brilliant than the
trident of the temple of Maha-deva, when it sparkled in the beams of the
moon. And as both these objects were visible to his eyes from the shore,
as he rowed on in the soft and glorious serenity of an Indian night, no
wonder they found a place in his verse. Finally, he promised, that if
she was propitious to his suit, he would build her a hut, raised four
feet above the ground to avoid the serpents;--that her dwelling should
be overshadowed by the boughs of the tamarind; and that while she slept,
he would drive the musquitoes from her with a fan, composed of the
leaves of the first flowers which she accepted as a testimony of his
passion.
(10) The curtain behind which women are concealed.
“It so happened, that the same night, the young female, whose reserve
had been the result of any thing but indifference, attended by two of
her companions, rowed her canoe to the same spot, with the view of
discovering whether the vows of her lover were sincere. They arrived
about the same time; and though it was now twilight, and the
superstition of these timid beings gave a darker tinge to the shadows
that surrounded them, they ventured to land; and, bearing their baskets
of flowers in trembling hands, advanced to hang them on the ruins of the
pagoda, amid which it was presumed the new goddess had fixed her abode.
They proceeded, not without difficulty, through thickets of flowers that
had sprung spontaneously in the uncultivated soil--not without fear that
a tiger might spring on them at every step, till they recollected that
those animals chose generally the large jungles for their retreat, and
seldom harboured amid flowers. Still less was the alligator to be
dreaded, amid the narrow streams that they could cross without tinging
their ancles with its pure water. The tamarind, the cocoa, and the
palm-tree, shed their blossoms, and exhaled their odours, and waved
their leaves, over the head of the trembling votarist as she approached
the ruin of the pagoda. It had been a massive square building, erected
amid rocks, that, by a caprice of nature not uncommon in the Indian
isles, occupied its centre, and appeared the consequence of some
volcanic explosion. The earthquake that had overthrown it, had mingled
the rocks and ruins together in a shapeless and deformed mass, which
seemed to bear alike the traces of the impotence of art and nature, when
prostrated by the power that has formed and can annihilate both. There
were pillars, wrought with singular characters, heaped amid stones that
bore no impress but that of some fearful and violent action of nature,
that seemed to say, Mortals, write your lines with the chisel, I write
my hieroglyphics in fire. There were the disjointed piles of stones
carved into the form of snakes, on which the hideous idol of Seeva had
once been seated; and close to them the rose was bursting through the
earth which occupied the fissures of the rock, as if nature preached a
milder theology, and deputed her darling flower as her missionary to her
children. The idol itself had fallen, and lay in fragments. The horrid
mouth was still visible, into which human hearts had been formerly
inserted. But now, the beautiful peacocks, with their rain-bow trains
and arched necks, were feeding their young amid the branches of the
tamarind that overhung the blackened fragments. The young Indians
advanced with diminished fear, for there was neither sight or sound to
inspire the fear that attends the approach to the presence of a
spiritual being--all was calm, still, and dark. Yet their feet trod with
involuntary lightness as they advanced to these ruins, which combined
the devastations of nature with those of the human passions, perhaps
more bloody and wild than the former. Near the ruins there had formerly
been a tank, as is usual, near the pagodas, both for the purposes of
refreshment and purification; but the steps were now broken, and the
water was stagnated. The young Indians, however, took up a few drops,
invoked the “goddess of the isle,” and approached the only remaining
arch. The exterior front of this building had been constructed of stone,
but its interior had been hollowed out of the rock; and its recesses
resembled, in some degree, those in the island of Elephanta. There were
monstrous figures carved in stone, some adhering to the rock, others
detached from it, all frowning in their shapeless and gigantic
hideousness, and giving to the eye of superstition the terrible
representation of “_gods of stone_.”
“Two of the young votarists, who were distinguished for their courage,
advanced and performed a kind of wild dance before the ruins of the
ancient gods, as they called them, and invoked (as they might) the new
resident of the isle to be propitious to the vows of their companion,
who advanced to hang her wreath of flowers round the broken remains of
an idol half-defaced and half-hidden among the fragments of stone, but
clustered over with that rich vegetation which seems, in oriental
countries, to announce the eternal triumph of nature amid the ruins of
art. Every year renews the rose, but what year shall see a pyramid
rebuilt? As the young Indian hung her wreath on the shapeless stone, a
voice murmured, “There is a _withered_ flower there.”--“Yes--yes--there
is,” answered the votarist, “and that withered flower is an emblem of my
heart. I have cherished many roses, but suffered one to wither that was
the sweetest to me of all the wreath. Wilt thou revive him for me,
unknown goddess, and my wreath shall no longer be a dishonour to thy
shrine?”--“Wilt _thou_ revive the rose by placing it in the warmth of
thy bosom,” said the young lover, appearing from behind the fragments of
rock and ruin that had sheltered him, and from which he had uttered his
oracular reply, and listened with delight to the emblematical but
intelligible language of his beloved. “Wilt thou revive the rose?” he
asked, in the triumph of love, as he clasped her to his bosom. The young
Indian, yielding at once to love and superstition, seemed half-melting
in his embrace, when, in a moment, she uttered a wild shriek, repelled
him with all her strength, and crouched in an uncouth posture of fear,
while she pointed with one quivering hand to a figure that appeared, at
that moment, in the perspective of that tumultuous and indefinite heap
of stone. The lover, unalarmed by the shriek of his mistress, was
advancing to catch her in his arms, when his eye fell on the object that
had struck hers, and he sunk on his face to the earth, in mute
adoration.
“The form was that of a female, but such as they had never before
beheld, for her skin was perfectly white, (at least in their eyes, who
had never seen any but the dark-red tint of the natives of the Bengalese
islands). Her drapery (as well as they could see) consisted only of
flowers, whose rich colours and fantastic grouping harmonized well with
the peacock’s feathers twined among them, and altogether composed a
feathery fan of wild drapery, which, in truth, beseemed an “island
goddess.” Her long hair, of a colour they had never beheld before, pale
auburn, flowed to her feet, and was fantastically entwined with the
flowers and the feathers that formed her dress. On her head was a
coronal of shells, of hue and lustre unknown except in the Indian
seas--the purple and the green vied with the amethyst, and the emerald.
On her white bare shoulder a loxia was perched, and round her neck was
hung a string of their pearl--like eggs, so pure and pellucid, that the
first sovereign in Europe might have exchanged her richest necklace of
pearls for them. Her arms and feet were perfectly bare, and her step had
a goddess-like rapidity and lightness, that affected the imagination of
the Indians as much as the extraordinary colour of her skin and hair.
The young lovers sunk in awe before this vision as it passed before
their eyes. While they prostrated themselves, a delicious sound trembled
on their ears. The beautiful vision spoke to them, but it was in a
language they did not understand; and this confirming their belief that
it was the language of the gods, they prostrated themselves to her
again. At that moment, the loxia, springing from her shoulder, came
fluttering towards them. “He is going to seek for fire-flies to light
his cell(11),” said the Indians to each other. But the bird, who, with
an intelligence peculiar to his species, understood and adopted the
predilection of the fair being he belonged to, for the fresh flowers in
which he saw her arrayed every day, darted at the withered rose-bud in
the wreath of the young Indian; and, striking his slender beak through
it, laid it at her feet. The omen was interpreted auspiciously by the
lovers, and, bending once more to the earth, they rowed back to their
island, but no longer in separate canoes. The lover steered that of his
mistress, while she sat beside him in silence; and the young people who
accompanied them chaunted verses in praise of the _white_ goddess, and
the island sacred to her and to lovers.
(11) From the fire-flies being so often found in the nest of the
loxia, the Indians imagine he illuminates his nest with them. It is
more likely they are the food of his young.