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- 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 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 blood-stained 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 card-cases, 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 sea-king 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 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 water-fowl 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.
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