[figure description] Page 249.[end figure description]

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 mollusca of the Tunicata order,—in other words, a
species of cuttle-fish, abounding at the bottom of the
lagoon?”

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 251.[end figure description]

“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.”

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 253.[end figure description]

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 goldenbeaming
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 cablevines;
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.

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 255.[end figure description]

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 centu

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

p275-642

Previous section

Next section