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- # CHAPTER LXXXVII. Nora-Bamma
## Overview
Chapter LXXXVII, titled "Nora-Bamma," is a chapter from the novel [Mardi: And a Voyage Thither](arke:01KG8AJA6157W2830190N652KA) by Herman Melville. The chapter appears in the source text between lines 9458 and 9501.
## Context
This chapter is part of a larger work, [Mardi: And a Voyage Thither](arke:01KG8AJA6157W2830190N652KA), which is included in the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The chapter was extracted from the file [mardi_vol1.txt](arke:01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK) using structure-extraction-lambda. It is preceded by [CHAPTER LXXXVI. Of Those Scamps The Plujii](arke:01KG8AJW83ZNH2JQR58YXYCRR6) and followed by [CHAPTER LXXXVIII. In A Calm, Hautia’s Heralds Approach](arke:01KG8AJW834JRFKDF4QHK1P8YS).
## Contents
The chapter describes the island of Nora-Bamma, also known as the Isle of Nods, a place inhabited by dreamers, hypochondriacs, and somnambulists seeking oblivion. The island is characterized by its nodding summit, willowy shores, and murmuring streams, creating a dreamy and soporific atmosphere. The chapter recounts Braid-Beard's tales of the island, where visitors are overcome by the need to nap and encounter silent specters. The narrator notes that as they floated on, the island looked as it was described, and the crew felt the urge to yawn, similar to crews of vessels passing opium ships.
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- CHAPTER LXXXVII. Nora-Bamma
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- CHAPTER LXXXVII.
Nora-Bamma
Still onward gliding, the lagoon a calm.
Hours pass; and full before us, round and green, a Moslem turban by us
floats—Nora-Bamma, Isle of Nods.
Noon-tide rolls its flood. Vibrates the air, and trembles. And by
illusion optical, thin-draped in azure haze, drift here and there the
brilliant lands: swans, peacock-plumaged, sailing through the sky. Down
to earth hath heaven come; hard telling sun-clouds from the isles.
And high in air nods Nora-Bamma. Nid-nods its tufted summit like three
ostrich plumes; its beetling crags, bent poppies, shadows, willowy
shores, all nod; its streams are murmuring down the hills; its wavelets
hush the shore.
Who dwells in Nora-Bamma? Dreamers, hypochondriacs, somnambulists; who,
from the cark and care of outer Mardi fleeing, in the poppy’s jaded
odors, seek oblivion for the past, and ecstasies to come.
Open-eyed, they sleep and dream; on their roof-trees, grapes unheeded
drop. In Nora-Bamma, whispers are as shouts; and at a zephyr’s breath,
from the woodlands shake the leaves, as of humming-birds, a flight.
All this spake Braid-Beard, of the isle. How that none ere touched its
strand, without rendering instant tribute of a nap; how that those who
thither voyaged, in golden quest of golden gourds, fast dropped asleep,
ere one was plucked; waking not till night; how that you must needs rub
hard your eyes, would you wander through the isle; and how that silent
specters would be met, haunting twilight groves, and dreamy meads;
hither gliding, thither fading, end or purpose none.
True or false, so much for Mohi’s Nora Bamma.
But as we floated on, it looked the place described. We yawned, and
yawned, as crews of vessels may; as in warm Indian seas, their
winnowing sails all swoon, when by them glides some opium argosie.
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- CHAPTER LXXXVII. Nora-Bamma