- end_line
- 8831
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8768
- text
- How we long to sift,
That yellow drift!
Rivers! Rivers! cease your going!
Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide!
’Till we’ve gained the golden flowing;
And in the golden haven ride!
“Quick, quick, my lord,” cried Yoomy, “let us follow them; and from the
golden waters where she lies, our Yillah may emerge.”
“No, no,” said Babbalanja,—“no Yillah there!—from yonder promised-land,
fewer seekers will return, than go. Under a gilded guise, happiness is
still their instinctive aim. But vain, Yoomy, to snatch at Happiness.
Of that we may not pluck and eat. It is the fruit of our own toilsome
planting; slow it grows, nourished by many teats, and all our earnest
tendings. Yet ere it ripen, frosts may nip;—and then, we plant again;
and yet again. Deep, Yoomy, deep, true treasure lies; deeper than all
Mardi’s gold, rooted to Mardi’s axis. But unlike gold, it lurks in
every soil,—all Mardi over. With golden pills and potions is sickness
warded off?—the shrunken veins of age, dilated with new wine of youth?
Will gold the heart-ache cure? turn toward us hearts estranged? will
gold, on solid centers empires fix? ’Tis toil world-wasted to toil in
mines. Were all the isles gold globes, set in a quicksilver sea, all
Mardi were then a desert. Gold is the only poverty; of all glittering
ills the direst. And that man might not impoverish himself thereby, Oro
hath hidden it, with all other banes,—saltpeter and explosives, deep in
mountain bowels, and river-beds. But man still will mine for it; and
mining, dig his doom.— Yoomy, Yoomy!—she we seek, lurks not in the
Golden Hills!”
“Lo, a vision!” cried Yoomy, his hands wildly passed across his eyes.
“A vast and silent bay, belted by silent villages:—gaunt dogs howling
over grassy thresholds at stark corpses of old age and infancy; gray
hairs mingling with sweet flaxen curls; fields, with turned furrows,
choked with briers; arbor-floors strown over with hatchet-helves,
rotting in the iron; a thousand paths, marked with foot-prints, all
inland leading, none villageward; and strown with traces, as of a
flying host. On: over forest—hill, and dale—and lo! the golden region!
After the glittering spoil, by strange river-margins, and beneath
impending cliffs, thousands delve in quicksands; and, sudden, sink in
graves of their own making: with gold dust mingling their own ashes.
Still deeper, in more solid ground, other thousands slave; and pile
their earth so high, they gasp for air, and die; their comrades
mounting on them, and delving still, and dying—grave pile on grave!
Here, one haggard hunter murders another in his pit; and murdering,
himself is murdered by a third. Shrieks and groans! cries and curses!
It seems a golden Hell! With many camels, a sleek stranger comes—
pauses before the shining heaps, and shows _his_ treasures: yams and
bread-fruit. ‘Give, give,’ the famished hunters cry—, ‘a thousand
shekels for a yam!—a prince’s ransom for a meal!—Oh, stranger! on our
knees we worship thee:—take, take our gold; but let us live!’ Yams are
thrown them and they fight. Then he who toiled not, dug not, slaved
not, straight loads his caravans with gold; regains the beach, and
swift embarks for home. ‘Home! home!’ the hunters cry, with bursting
eyes. ‘With this bright gold, could we but join our waiting wives, who
wring their hands on distant shores, all then were well. But we can not
fly; our prows lie rotting on the beach. Ah! home! thou only
happiness!—better thy silver earnings than all these golden findings.
Oh, bitter end to all our hopes—we die in golden graves.”
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- Chunk 2