94. CHAPTER XCIV.
OF THAT JOLLY OLD LORD, BORABOLLA; AND THAT JOLLY
ISLAND OF HIS, MONDOLDO; AND OF THE FISH-PONDS, AND
THE HEREAFTERS OF FISH.
Drawing near Mondoldo, our next place of destination,
we were greeted by six fine canoes, gayly tricked out with
streamers, and all alive with the gestures of their occupants.
King Borabolla and court were hastening to welcome our
approach; Media, unbeknown to all, having notified him at
the Banquet of the Five-and-Twenty Kings, of our intention
to visit his dominions.
Soon, side by side, these canoes floated with ours; each
barge of Odo courteously flanked by those of Mondoldo.
Not long were we in identifying Borabolla: the portly,
pleasant old monarch, seated cross-legged upon a dais, projecting
over the bow of the largest canoe of the six, close-grappling
to the side of the Sea Elephant.
Was he not a goodly round sight to behold? Round all
over; round of eye and of head; and like the jolly round
Earth, roundest and biggest about the Equator. A girdle of
red was his Equinoctial Line, giving a compactness to his
plumpness.
This old Borabolla permitted naught to come between
his head and the sun; not even gray hairs. Bald as a
gourd, right down on his brazen skull, the rays of the luminary
converged.
He was all hilarity; full of allusions to the feast at Willamilla,
where he had done royal execution. Rare old
Borabolla! thou wert made for dining out; thy ample
mouth an inlet for good cheer, and a sally-port for good
humor.
Bustling about on his dais, he now gave orders for the
occupants of our canoes to be summarily emptied into his
own; saying, that in that manner only did he allow guests
to touch the beach of Mondoldo.
So, with no little trouble—for the waves were grown
somewhat riotous—we proceeded to comply; bethinking
ourselves all the while, how annoying is sometimes an over-strained
act of hospitality.
We were now but little less than a mile from the shore.
But what of that? There was plenty of time, thought
Borabolla, for a hasty lunch, and the getting of a subsequent
appetite ere we effected a landing. So viands were produced;
to which the guests were invited to pay heedful
attention; or take the consequences, and famish till the
long voyage in prospect was ended.
Soon the water shoaled (approaching land is like nearing
truth in metaphysics), and ere we yet touched the beach,
Borabolla declared, that we were already landed. Which
paradoxical assertion implied, that the hospitality of Mondoldo
was such, that in all directions it radiated far out upon
the lagoon, embracing a great circle; so that no canoe could
sail by the island, without its occupants being so long its
guests.
In most hospitable vicinity to the water, was a fine large
structure, inclosed by a stockade; both rather dilapidated;
as if the cost of entertaining its guests, prevented outlays
for repairing the place. But it was one of Borabolla's maxims,
that generally your tumble-down old homesteads yield
the most entertainment; their very dilapidation betokening
their having seen good service in hospitality; whereas,
spruce-looking, finical portals, have a phiz full of meaning;
for niggards are oftentimes neat.
Now, after what has been said, who so silly as to fancy,
that because Borabolla's mansion was inclosed by a stock
ade, that the same was intended as a defense against guests?
By no means. In the palisade was a mighty breach, not
an entrance-way, wide enough to admit six Daniel Lamberts
abreast.
“Look,” cried Borabolla, as landing we stepped toward
the place. “Look Media! look all. These gates, you here
see, lashed back with osiers, have been so lashed during my
life-time; and just where they stand, shall they rot; ay,
they shall perish wide open.”
“But why have them at all?” inquired Media.
“Ah! there you have old Borabolla,” cried the other.
“No,” said Babbalanja, “a fence whose gate is ever kept
open, seems unnecessary, I grant; nevertheless, it gives a
notable hint, otherwise not so aptly conveyed; for is not the
open gate the sign of the open heart?”
“Right, right,” cried Borabolla; “so enter both, cousin
Media;” and with one hand smiting his chest, with the
other he waved us on.
But if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure
within seemed only a roof; for nothing but a slender pillar
here and there, supported it.
“This is my mode of building,” said Borabolla; “I will
have no outside to my palaces. Walls are superfluous.
And to a high-minded guest, the entering a narrow doorway
is like passing under a yoke; every time he goes in, or
comes out, it reminds him, that he is being entertained at
the cost of another. So storm in all round.”
Within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we
looked up to endless rows of brown calabashes, and trenchers
suspended along the rafters; promissory of ample cheer as
regiments of old hams in a baronial refectory.
They were replenished with both meat and drink; the
trenchers readily accessible by means of cords; but the
gourds containing arrack, suspended neck downward, were
within easy reach where they swung.
Seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a
cautious young bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making,
Taji stood on his guard. And when Borabolla
urged him to empty a gourd or two, by way of making
room in him for the incidental repast about to be served,
Taji civilly declined; not wishing to cumber the floor, before
the cloth was laid.
Jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of
the unities of time and place, went freely about, from gourd
to gourd, concocting in him a punch. At which, Samoa
expressed much surprise, that he should be so unobservant
as not to know, that in Mardi, guests might be pressed to
demean themselves, without its being expected that so they
would do. A true toss-pot himself, he bode his time.
The second lunch over, Borabolla placed both hands to
the ground, and giving the sigh of the fat man, after three
vigorous efforts, succeeded in gaining his pins; which pins
of his, were but small for his body; insomuch that they
hugely staggered about, under the fine old load they carried.
The specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture,
was to put himself in motion, and conduct us to his
fish-ponds, famous throughout the Archipelago as the hobby
of the king of Mondoldo. Furthermore, as the great repast
of the day, yet to take place, was to be a grand piscatory
one, our host was all anxiety, that we should have a glimpse
of our fish, while yet alive and hearty.
We were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors
were preparing to accompany us with trenchers of edibles.
It begat the notion, that our trip to the fish-ponds was to
prove a long journey. But they were not three hundred
yards distant; though Borabolla being a veteran traveler,
never stirred from his abode without his battalion of butlers.
The ponds were four in number, close bordering the water,
embracing about an acre each, and situated in a low fen,
draining several valleys. The excavated soil was thrown
up in dykes, made tight by being beaten all over, while in a
soft state, with the heavy, flat ends of Palm stalks. Lying
side by side, by three connecting trenches, these ponds could
be made to communicate at pleasure; while two additional
canals afforded means of letting in upon them the salt waters
of the lagoon on one hand, or those of an inland stream on
the other. And by a third canal with four branches, together
or separately, they could be partially drained. Thus,
the waters could be mixed to suit any gills; and the young
fish taken from the sea, passed through a stated process of
freshening; so that by the time they graduated, the salt was
well out of them, like the brains out of some diplomaed
collegians.
Fresh-water fish are only to be obtained in Mondoldo by
the artificial process above mentioned; as the streams and
brooks abound not in trout or other Waltonian prey.
Taken all floundering from the sea, Borabolla's fish, passing
through their regular training for the table, and daily
tended by their keepers, in course of time became quite tame
and communicative. To prove which, calling his Head
Ranger, the king bade him administer the customary supply
of edibles.
Accordingly, mouthfuls were thrown into the ponds.
Whereupon, the fish darted in a shoal toward the margin;
some leaping out of the water in their eagerness. Crouching
on the bank, the Ranger now called several by name,
patted their scales, carrying on some heathenish nursery-talk,
like St. Anthony, in ancient Coptic, instilling virtuous
principles into his finny flock on the sea shore.
But alas, for the hair-shirted old dominie's backsliding
disciples. For, of all nature's animated kingdoms, fish are
the most unchristian, inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded
of creatures. At least, so seem they to strangers; though
at bottom, somehow, they must be all right. And truly it
is not to be wondered at, that the very reverend Anthony
strove after the conversion of fish. For, whose shall Christianize,
and by so doing, humanize the sharks, will do a
greater good, by the saving of human life in all time to
come, than though he made catechumens of the head-hunting
Dyaks of Borneo, or the blood-bibbing Battas of Sumatra.
And are these Dyaks and Battas one whit better than tiger-sharks?
Nay, are they so good? Were a Batta your
intimate friend, you would often mistake an orang-outang
for him; and have orang-outangs immortal souls? True,
the Battas believe in a hereafter; but of what sort? Full
of Blue-Beards and bloody bones. So, also, the sharks; who
hold that Paradise is one vast Pacific, ploughed by navies
of mortals, whom an endless gale forever drops into their
maws.
Not wholly a surmise. For, does it not appear a little
unreasonable to imagine, that there is any creature, fish,
flesh, or fowl, so little in love with life, as not to cherish
hopes of a future state? Why does man believe in it?
One reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he desires it. Who
shall say, then, that the leviathan this day harpooned on
the coast of Japan, goes not straight to his ancestor, who
rolled all Jonah, as a sweet morsel, under his tongue?
Though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best
hold themselves in a state of philosophical suspense. Say
they—“That catastrophe took place in the Mediterranean;
and the only whales frequenting the Mediterranean, are of
a sort having not a swallow large enough to pass a man
entire; for those Mediterranean whales feed upon small
things, as horses upon oats.” But hence, the sailors draw
a rash inference. Are not the Straits of Gibralter wide
enough to admit a sperm-whale, even though none have
sailed through, since Nineveh and the gourd in its suburbs
dried up?
As for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature
eighty feet long without stockings, and thirty feet round the
waist before dinner, is not inconsiderately to be consigned to
annihilation.
