But, my lord Media, as your liege and loving subject I can not sufficiently deplore the deprivation of your royal tail. That stiff and vertebrated member, as we find it in those rustic kinsmen we have disowned, would have been useful as a supplement to your royal legs; and whereas my good lord is now fain to totter on two stanchions, were he only a kangaroo, like the monarchs of old, the majesty of Odo would be dignified, by standing firm on a tripod."
"A very witty conceit! But have a care, Azzageddi; your theory applies not to me."
"Babbalanja," said Mohi, "you must be the last of the kangaroos."
"I am, Mohi."
"But the old fashioned pouch or purse of your grandams?" hinted Media.
"My lord, I take it, that must have been transferred; nowadays our sex carries the purse."
"Ha, ha!"
"My lord, why this mirth? Let us be serious. Although man is no longer a kangaroo, he may be said to be an inferior species of plant. Plants proper are perhaps insensible of the circulation of their sap: we mortals are physically unconscious of the circulation of the blood; and for many ages were not even aware of the fact. Plants know nothing of their interiors:-three score years and ten we trundle about ours, and never get a peep at them; plants stand on their stalks:-we stalk on our legs; no plant flourishes over its dead root:-dead in the grave, man lives no longer above ground; plants die without food:-so we. And now for the difference. Plants elegantly inhale nourishment, without looking it up: like lords, they stand still and are served; and though green, never suffer from the colic:-whereas, we mortals must forage all round for our food: we cram our insides; and are loaded down with odious sacks and intestines. Plants make love and multiply; but excel us in all amorous enticements, wooing and winning by soft pollens and essences. Plants abide in one place, and live: we must travel or die. Plants flourish without us: we must perish without them."
"Enough Azzageddi!" cried Media. "Open not thy lips till to-morrow."'
CHAPTER LII
The Charming Yoomy Sings
The morrow came; and three abreast, with snorting prows, we raced along; our mat-sails panting to the breeze. All present partook of the life of the air; and unanimously Yoomy was called upon for a song. The canoes were passing a long, white reef, sparkling with shells, like a jeweler's case: and thus Yoomy sang in the same old strain as of yore; beginning aloud, where he had left off in his souclass="underline" - Her sweet, sweet mouth!
The peach-pearl shelclass="underline" - Red edged its lips, That softly swell, Just oped to speak, With blushing cheek, That fisherman With lonely spear On the reef ken, And lift to ear Its voice to hear, — Soft sighing South!
Like this, like this, — The rosy kiss! — That maiden's mouth.
A shell! a shell!
A vocal shell!
Song-dreaming,
In its inmost dell!
Her bosom! Two buds half blown, they tell;
A little valley between perfuming;
That roves away,
Deserting the day, — The day of her eyes illuming;- That roves away, o'er slope and fell, Till a soft, soft meadow becomes the dell.
Thus far, old Mohi had been wriggling about in his seat, twitching his beard, and at every couplet looking up expectantly, as if he desired the company to think, that he was counting upon that line as the last;
But now, starting to his feet, he exclaimed, "Hold, minstrel! thy muse's drapery is becoming disordered: no more!"
"Then no more it shall be," said Yoomy, "But you have lost a glorious sequel."
CHAPTER LIII
They Draw Nigh Unto Land
In good time, after many days sailing, we snuffed the land from afar, and came to a great country, full of inland mountains, north and south stretching far out of sight. "All hail, Kolumbo!" cried Yoomy.
Coasting by a portion of it, which Mohi called Kanneeda, a province of King Bello's, we perceived the groves rocking in the wind; their flexible boughs bending like bows; and the leaves flying forth, and darkening the landscape, like flocks of pigeons.
"Those groves must soon fall," said Mohi.
"Not so," said Babbalanja. "My lord, as these violent gusts are formed by the hostile meeting of two currents, one from over the lagoon, the other from land; they may be taken as significant of the occasional variances between Kanneeda and Dominora."
"Ay," said Media, "and as Mohi hints, the breeze from Dominora must soon overthrow the groves of Kanneeda."
"Not if the land-breeze holds, my lord;-one breeze oft blows another home.-Stand up, and gaze! From cape to cape, this whole main we see, is young and froward. And far southward, past this Kanneeda and Vivenza, are haughty, overbearing streams, which at their mouths dam back the ocean, and long refuse to mix their freshness with the foreign brine:-so bold, so strong, so bent on hurling off aggression is this brave main, Kolumbo;-last sought, last found, Mardi's estate, so long kept back;-pray Oro, it be not squandered foolishly.
Here lie plantations, held in fee by stout hearts and arms; and boundless fields, that may be had for seeing. Here, your foes are forests, struck down with bloodless maces.-Ho! Mardi's Poor, and Mardi's Strong! ye, who starve or beg; seventh-sons who slave for earth's first-born-here is your home; predestinated yours; Come over, Empire-founders! fathers of the wedded tribes to come! — abject now, illustrious evermore:-Ho: Sinew, Brawn, and Thigh!"
"A very fine invocation," said Media, "now Babbalanja, be seated; and tell us whether Dominora and the kings of Porpheero do not own some small portion of this great continent, which just now you poetically pronounced as the spoil of any vagabonds who may choose to settle therein? Is not Kanneeda, Dominora's?"
"And was not Vivenza once Dominora's also? And what Vivenza now is, Kanneeda soon must be. I speak not, my lord, as wishful of what I say, but simply as foreknowing it. The thing must come. Vain for Dominora to claim allegiance from all the progeny she spawns. As well might the old patriarch of the flood reappear, and claim the right of rule over all mankind, as descended from the loins of his three roving sons.
"'Tis the old law:-the East peoples the West, the West the East; flux and reflux. And time may come, after the rise and fall of nations yet unborn, that, risen from its future ashes, Porpheero shall be the promised land, and from her surplus hordes Kolumbo people it."
Still coasting on, next day, we came to Vivenza; and as Media desired to land first at a point midway between its extremities, in order to behold the convocation of chiefs supposed to be assembled at this season, we held on our way, till we gained a lofty ridge, jutting out into the lagoon, a bastion to the neighboring land. It terminated in a lofty natural arch of solid trap. Billows beat against its base. But above, waved an inviting copse, wherein was revealed an open temple of canes, containing one only image, that of a helmeted female, the tutelar deity of Vivenza.
The canoes drew near.
"Lo! what inscription is that?" cried Media, "there, chiseled over the arch?"
Studying those immense hieroglyphics awhile, antiquarian Mohi still eyeing them, said slowly:-"In-this-re-publi-can-land-all-men-areborn-free-and-equal."
"False!" said Media.
"And how long stay they so?" said Babbalanja.
"But look lower, old man," cried Media, "methinks there's a small hieroglyphic or two hidden away in yonder angle.-Interpret them, old man."
After much screwing of his eyes, for those characters were very minute, Champollion Mohi thus spoke-" Except-the-tribe-of-Hamo."