Mardi And a Voyage Thither II

CHAPTER XLV

THEY BEHOLD KING BELLO’S

STATE CANOE

At last, bidding adieu to King Bello; and in the midst of the lowing of oxen, breaking away from his many hospitalities, we departed for the beach. But ere embarking, we paused to gaze at an object, which long fixed our attention.

Now, as all bold cavaliers have ever delighted in special chargers, gayly caparisoned, whereon upon grand occasions to sally forth upon the plains: even so have maritime potentates ever prided themselves upon some holiday galley, splendidly equipped, wherein to sail over the sea.

When of old, glory-seeking Jason, attended by his promising young lieutenants, Castor and Pollux, embarked on that hardy adventure to Colchis, the brave planks of the good ship Argos he trod, its model a swan to behold.

And when Trojan Aeneas wandered West, and discovered the pleasant land of Latium, it was in the fine craft Bis Taurus that he sailed: its stern gloriously emblazoned, its prow a leveled spear.

And to the sound of sackbut and psaltery, gliding down the Nile, in the pleasant shade of its pyramids to welcome mad Mark, Cleopatra was throned on the cedar quarter-deck of a glorious

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gondola, silk and satin hung; its silver plated oars, musical as flutes. So, too, Queen Bess was wont to disport on old Thames.

And tough Torf–Egill, the Danish Sea-king, reckoned in his stud, a slender yacht; its masts young Zetland firs; its prow a seal, dog-like holding a sword-fish blade. He called it the Grayhound, so swift was its keel; the Sea-hawk, so bloodstained its beak.

And groping down his palace stairs, the blind old Doge Dandolo, oft embarked in his gilded barge, like the lord mayor setting forth in civic state from Guildhall in his chariot. But from another sort of prow leaped Dandolo, when at Constantinople, he foremost sprang ashore, and with a right arm ninety years old, planted the standard of St. Mark full among the long chin-pennons of the long-bearded Turks.

And Kumbo Sama, Emperor of Japan, had a dragon-beaked junk, a floating Juggernaut, wherein he burnt incense to the sea-gods.

And Kannakoko, King of New Zealand; and the first Tahitian Pomaree; and the Pelew potentate, each possessed long state canoes; sea-snakes, all; carved over like Chinese cardcases, and manned with such scores of warriors, that dipping their paddles in the sea, they made a commotion like shoals of herring.

What wonder then, that Bello of the Hump, the old seaking of Mardi, should sport a brave ocean-chariot?

In a broad arbor by the water-side, it was housed like Alp Arsian’s war-horse, or the charger Caligula deified; upon its stern a wilderness of sculpture: – shell-work, medal-lions, masques, griffins, gulls, ogres, finned-lions, winged walruses; all manner

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of sea-cavalry, crusading centaurs, crocodiles, and sharks; and mermen, and mermaids, and Neptune only knows all.

And in this craft, Doge-like, yearly did King Bello stand up and wed with the Lagoon. But the custom originated not in the manner of the Doge’s, which was as follows; so, at least, saith Ghibelli, who tells all about it: –

When, in a stout sea-fight, ZianI defeated Barbarossa’s son Otho, sending his feluccas all flying, like frightened waterfowl from a lake, then did his Holiness, the Pope, present unto him a ring; saying, “Take this, oh Ziani, and with it, the sea for thy bride; and every year wed her again.”

So the Doge’s tradition; thus Bello’s: –

Ages ago, Dominora was circled by a reef, which expanding in proportion to the extension of the isle’s naval dominion, in due time embraced the entire lagoon; and this marriage ring zoned all the world.

But if the sea was King Bello’s bride, an Adriatic Tartar he wedded; who, in her mad gales of passions, often boxed about his canoes, and led his navies a very boisterous life indeed.

And hostile prognosticators opined, that ere long she would desert her old lord, and marry again. Already, they held, she had made advances in the direction of Vivenza.

But truly, should she abandon old Bello, he would straightway after her with all his fleets; and never rest till his queen was regained.

Now, old sea-king! look well to thy barge of state: for, peradventure, the dry-rot may be eating into its keel; and the wood-worms exploring into its spars.

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CHAPTER XLVI

WHEREIN BABBALANJA BOWS

THRICE

The next morning’s twilight found us once more afloat; and yielding to that almost sullen feeling, but too apt to prevail with some mortals at that hour, all but Media long remained silent.

But now, a bright mustering is seen among the myriad white Tartar tents in the Orient; like lines of spears defiling upon some upland plain, the sunbeams thwart the sky. And see! amid the blaze of banners, and the pawings of ten thousand thousand golden hoofs, day’s mounted Sultan, Xerxeslike, moves on: the Dawn his standard, East and West his cymbals.

“Oh, morning life!” cried Yoomy, with a Persian air; “would that all time were a sunrise, and all life a youth.”

“Ah! but these striplings whimper of youth,” said Mohi, caressing his braids, “as if they wore this beard.”

“But natural, old man,” said Babbalanja. “We Mardians never seem young to ourselves; childhood is to youth what manhood is to age: – something to be looked back upon, with sorrow that it is past. But childhood reeks of no future, and knows no past; hence, its present passes in a vapor.”

“Mohi, how’s your appetite this morning?” said Media.

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“Thus, thus, ye gods,” sighed Yoomy, “is feeling ever scouted. Yet, what might seem feeling in me, I can not express.”

“A good commentary on old Bardianna, Yoomy,” said Babbalanja, “who somewhere says, that no Mardian can out with his heart, for his unyielding ribs are in the way. And indeed, pride, or something akin thereto, often holds check on sentiment. My lord, there are those who like not to be detected in the possession of a heart.”

“Very true, Babbalanja; and I suppose that pride was at the bottom of your old Ponderer’s heartless, unsentimental, baldpated style.”

“Craving pardon, my lord is deceived. Bardianna was not at all proud; though he had a queer way of showing the absence of pride. In his essay, entitled – “On the Tendency to curl in Upper Lips,” he thus discourses. “We hear much of pride and its sinfulness in this MardI wherein we dwell: whereas, I glory in being brimmed with it; – my sort of pride. In the presence of kings, lords, palm-trees, and all those who deem themselves taller than myself, I stand stiff as a pike, and will abate not one vertebra of my stature. But accounting no Mardian my superior, I account none my inferior; hence, with the social, I am ever ready to be sociable.”

“An agrarian!” said Media; “no doubt he would have made the headsman the minister of equality.”

“At bottom we are already equal, my honored lord,” said Babbalanja, profoundly bowing – “One way we all come into Mardi, and one way we withdraw. Wanting his yams a king will starve, quick as a clown; and smote on the hip, saith old Bardianna, he will roar as loud as the next one.”

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CHAPTER XLVII

BABBALANJA PHILOSOPHIZES, AND MY LORD MEDIA PASSES ROUND THE CALABASHES

An interval of silence passed; when Media cried, “Out upon thee, Yoomy! curtail that long face of thine.”

“How can he, my lord,” said Mohi, “when he is thinking of furlongs?”

“Fathoms you mean, Mohi; see you not he is musing over the gunwale? And now, minstrel, a banana for thy thoughts. Come, tell me how you poets spend so many hours in meditation.”

“My lord, it is because, that when we think, we think so little of ourselves.”

“I thought as much,” said Mohi, “for no sooner do I undertake to be sociable with myself, than I am straightway forced to beat a retreat.”

“Ay, old man,” said Babbalanja, “many of us Mardians are but sorry hosts to ourselves. Some hearts are hermits.”

“If not of yourself, then, Yoomy, of whom else do you think?” asked Media.

“My lord, I seldom think,” said Yoomy, “I but give ear to the voices in my calm.”

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“Did Babbalanja speak?” said Media. “But no more of your reveries;” and so saying Media gradually sunk into a reverie himself.

The rest did likewise; and soon, with eyes enchanted, all reclined: gazing at each other, witless of what we did.

It was Media who broke the spell; calling for Vee–Vee our page, his calabashes and cups, and nectarines for all.

Eyeing his goblet, Media at length threw himself back, and said: “Babbalanja, not ten minutes since, we were all absentminded; now, how would you like to step out of your body, in reality; and, as a spirit, haunt some shadowy grove?”

“But our lungs are not wholly superfluous, my lord,” said Babbalanja, speaking loud.

“No, nor our lips,” said Mohi, smacking his over his wine. “But could you really be disembodied here in Mardi, Bab-

balanja, how would you fancy it?” said Media.

“My lord,” said Babbalanja, speaking through half of a nectarine, “defer putting that question, I beseech, till after my appetite is satisfied; for, trust me, no hungry mortal would forfeit his palate, to be resolved into the impalpable.”

“Yet pure spirits we must all become at last, Babbalanja,” said Yoomy, “even the most ignoble.”

“Yes, so they say, Yoomy; but if all boors be the immortal sires of endless dynasties of immortals, how little do our pious patricians bear in mind their magnificent destiny, when hourly they scorn their companionship. And if here in MardI they can not abide an equality with plebeians, even at the altar; how shall they endure them, side by side, throughout eternity? But since the prophet Alma asserts, that Paradise is almost entirely made

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