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- 8543
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z
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- 8465
- text
- CHAPTER LX.
Wherein, That Gallant Gentleman And Demi-God, King Media, Scepter In
Hand, Throws Himself Into The Breach
Sailing south from Vivenza, not far from its coast, we passed a cluster
of islets, green as new fledged grass; and like the mouths of floating
cornucopias, their margins brimmed over upon the brine with flowers. On
some, grew stately roses; on others stood twin-pillars; across others,
tri-hued rainbows rested.
Cried Babbalanja, pointing to the last, “Franko’s pledge of peace! with
that, she loudly vaunts she’ll span the reef!—Strike out all hues but
red,—and the token’s nearer truth.”
All these isles were prolific gardens; where King Bello, and the
Princes of Porpheero grew their most delicious fruits,—nectarines and
grapes.
But, though hard by, Vivenza owned no garden here; yet longed and
lusted; and her hottest tribes oft roundly swore, to root up all roses
the half-reef over; pull down all pillars; and dissolve all rainbows.
“Mardi’s half is ours;” said they. Stand back invaders! Full of vanity;
and mirroring themselves in the future; they deemed all reflected
there, their own.
’Twas now high noon.
“Methinks the sun grows hot,” said Media, retreating deeper under the
canopy. “Ho! Vee-Vee; have you no cooling beverage? none of that golden
wine distilled from torrid grapes, and then sent northward to be
cellared in an 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 golden-beaming 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 cable-vines; 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.
Out from those depths up rose a stream.
The land lay basking in the world’s round torrid brisket, hot with
solar fire.
“No need here to land,” cried Yoomy, “Yillah lurks not here.”
“Heat breeds life, and sloth, and rage,” said Babbalanja. “Here live
bastard tribes and mongrel nations; wrangling and murdering to prove
their freedom.—Refill, my lord.”
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