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- # CHAPTER XIII. Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery
## Overview
This is a chapter from the novel [Mardi: And a Voyage Thither](arke:01KG8AJ8ZNB03D0FWFP362WQEN) by Herman Melville. It is labeled as "CHAPTER XIII. Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery". The chapter appears between [CHAPTER XII](arke:01KG8AJQ13BDK91849MWT5SA42) and [CHAPTER XIV](arke:01KG8AJQ1512PWTAW89J5TP4FX) in the novel's sequence.
## Context
The chapter is part of the larger work, [Mardi: And a Voyage Thither](arke:01KG8AJ8ZNB03D0FWFP362WQEN), which is included in the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The text was extracted from the file [mardi_vol2.txt](arke:01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9) using a structure extraction process.
## Contents
In this chapter, the character Babbalanja attempts to explain the mystery surrounding Hivohitee, a pontiff figure. The chapter includes a conversation between Yoomy and Babbalanja, where Yoomy expresses his wonderment at Hivohitee being different from his expectations. Babbalanja explains that "the shadows of things are greater than themselves; and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike to the substance.” The chapter further explores the perception and reality of Hivohitee through discussions with Mohi, who describes the pontiff's enigmatic nature and the rumors surrounding him.
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- CHAPTER XIII. Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery
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- CHAPTER XIII.
Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery
This Great Mogul of a personage, then; this woundy Aliasuerus; this man
of men; this same Hivohitee, whose name rumbled among the mountains
like a peal of thunder, had been seen face to face, and taken for
naught, but a bearded old hermit, or at best, some equivocal conjuror.
So great was his wonderment at the time, that Yoomy could not avoid
expressing it in words.
Whereupon thus discoursed Babbalanja:
“Gentle Yoomy, be not astounded, that Hivohitee is so far behind your
previous conceptions. The shadows of things are greater than
themselves; and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike to the
substance.”
“But knowing now, what manner of person Hivohitee is,” said Yoomy,
“much do I long to behold him again.”
But Mohi assured him it was out of the question; that the Pontiff
always acted toward strangers as toward him (Yoomy); and that but one
dim blink at the eremite was all that mortal could obtain.
Debarred thus from a second and more satisfactory interview with one,
concerning whom his curiosity had been violently aroused, the minstrel
again turned to Mohi for enlightenment; especially touching that
magnate’s Egyptian reception of him in his aerial den.
Whereto, the chronicler made answer, that the Pontiff affected darkness
because he liked it: that he was a ruler of few words, but many deeds;
and that, had Yoomy been permitted to tarry longer with him in the
pagoda, he would have been privy to many strange attestations of the
divinity imputed to him. Voices would have been heard in the air,
gossiping with Hivohitee; noises inexplicable proceeding from him; in
brief, light would have flashed out of his darkness.
“But who has seen these things, Mohi?” said Babbalanja, “have you?”
“Nay.”
“Who then?—Media?—Any one you know?”
“Nay: but the whole Archipelago has.”
“Thus,” exclaimed Babbalanja, “does Mardi, blind though it be in many
things, collectively behold the marvels, which one pair of eyes sees
not.”
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- CHAPTER XIII. Babbalanja Endeavors To Explain The Mystery