80. CHAPTER LXXX.
DONJALOLO IN THE BOSOM OF HIS FAMILY.
To pretend to relate the manner in which Juam's ruler
passed his captive days, without making suitable mention
of his harem, would be to paint one's full-length likeness
and omit the face. For it was his harem that did much
to stamp the character of Donjalolo.
And had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous,
surely, to have overlooked the princess; much more,
then, as it is; and by how much the more, a plurality exceeds
a unit.
Exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the
person of the king, he had wives thirty in number, corresponding
in name to the nights of the moon. For, in Juam, time is
not reckoned by days, but by nights; each night of the lunar
month having its own designation; which, relatively only,
is extended to the day.
In uniform succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of
the king's heart. An arrangement most wise and judicious;
precluding much of that jealousy and confusion prevalent in
ill-regulated seraglios. For as thirty spouses must be either
more desirable, or less desirable than one; so is a harem
thirty times more difficult to manage than an establishment
with one solitary mistress. But Donjalolo's wives were so
nicely drilled, that for the most part, things went on very
smoothly. Nor were his brows much furrowed with wrinkles
referable to domestic cares and tribulations. Although,
as in due time will be seen, from these he was not altogether
exempt.
Now, according to Braid-Beard, who, among other abstruse
political researches, had accurately informed himself
concerning the internal administration of Donjalolo's harem,
the following was the method pursued therein.
On the Aquella, or First Night of the month, the queen
of that name assumes her diadem, and reigns. So too with
Azzolino the Second, and Velluvi the Third Night of the
Moon; and so on, even unto the utter eclipse thereof;
through Calends, Nones, and Ides.
For convenience, the king is furnished with a card,
whereon are copied the various ciphers upon the arms of
his queens; and parallel thereto, the hieroglyphics significant
of the corresponding Nights of the month. Glancing
over this, Donjalolo predicts the true time of the rising and
setting of all his stars.
This Moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios,
which few mortals beheld. For, so deeply were they buried
in a grove; so overpowered with verdure; so overrun with
vines; and so hazy with the incense of flowers; that they
were almost invisible, unless closely approached. Certain
it was, that it demanded no small enterprise, diligence, and
sagacity, to explore the mysterious wood in search of them.
Though a strange, sweet, humming sound, as of the clustering
and swarming of warm bees among roses, at last hinted
the royal honey at hand. High in air, toward the summit
of the cliff, overlooking this side of the glen, a narrow
ledge of rocks might have been seen, from which, rumor
whispered, was to be caught an angular peep at the tip of
the apex of the roof of the nearest seraglio. But this
wild report had never been established. Nor, indeed, was
it susceptible of a test. For was not that rock inaccessible
as the eyrie of young eagles? But to guard against the
possibility of any visual profanation, Donjalolo had authorized
an edict, forever tabooing that rock to foot of man or
pinion of fowl. Birds and bipeds both trembled and obeyed;
taking a wide circuit to avoid the spot.
Access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors
leading from the palace. The seraglio to the right was
denominated “Ravi” (Before), that to the left “Zono”
(After). The meaning of which was, that upon the termination
of her reign the queen wended her way to the Zono;
there tarrying with her predecessors till the Ravi was
emptied; when the entire Moon of wives, swallow-like,
migrated back whence they came; and the procession was
gone over again.
In due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with
their respective ciphers. In the Ravi, the mat of the
queen-apparent, or next in succession, was spread by the
portal. In the Zono, the newly-widowed queen reposed
furthest from it.
But alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned.
Notwithstanding these excellent arrangements, the
mature result of ages of progressive improvement in the
economy of the royal seraglios in Willamilla, it must needs
be related, that at times the order of precedence became
confused, and was very hard to restore.
At intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to
the no small delight of the remainder; but to their equal
vexation her place would soon after be supplied by some
beautiful stranger; who assuming the denomination of the
vacated Night of the Moon, thenceforth commenced her
monthly revolutions in the king's infallible calendar.
In constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone,
thin of leg, and puny of frame; whose grateful
task it was, to tarry in the garden of Donjalolo's delights,
without ever touching the roses. Along with innumerable
other duties, they were perpetually kept coming and going
upon ten thousand errands; for they had it in strict charge
to obey the slightest behests of the damsels; and with all
imaginable expedition to run, fly, swim, or dissolve into impalpable
air, at the shortest possible notice.
So laborious their avocations, that none could discharge
them for more than a twelvemonth, at the end of that
period giving up the ghost out of pure exhaustion of the
locomotive apparatus. It was this constant drain upon the
stock of masculine old age in the glen, that so bethinned
its small population of gray-beards and hoary-heads. And
any old man hitherto exempted, who happened to receive a
summons to repair to the palace, and there wait the pleasure
of the king: this unfortunate, at once suspecting his
doom, put his arbor in order; oiled and suppled his joints;
took a long farewell of his friends; selected his burial-place;
and going resigned to his fate, in due time expired
like the rest.
Had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance,
he might possibly have derived some little consolation
from the thought, that though a slave to the whims
of thirty princesses, he was nevertheless one of their guardians,
and as such, he might ingeniously have concluded, their
superior. But small consolation this. For the damsels
were as blithe as larks, more playful than kittens; never
looking sad and sentimental, projecting clandestine escapes.
But supplied with the thirtieth part of all that Aspasia
could desire; glorying in being the spouses of a king; nor
in the remotest degree anxious about eventual dowers;
they were care-free, content, and rejoicing, as the rays of
the morning.
Poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of
your fate, one drop of the balm of consolation. For, commissioned
to watch over those who forever kept you on the
trot, affording you no time to hunt up peccadilloes; was
not this circumstance an aggravation of hard times? a
sharpening and edge-giving to the steel in your souls?
But much yet remains unsaid.
To dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident
to these attenuated old warders, they were intensely hated
by the damsels. Inasmuch, as it was archly opined, for
what ulterior purposes they were retained.
Nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless
old bronze dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old
men ever and anon cried out mightily, by reason of sore
pinches and scratches received in the dark. And tri-trebly-tri-triply
girt about as he was, Donjalolo himself started
from his slumbers, raced round and round through his ten
thousand corridors; at last bursting all dizzy among his
twenty-nine queens, to see what under the seventh-heavens
was the matter. When, lo and behold! there lay the innocents
all sound asleep; the dragons moaning over their
mysterious bruises.
Ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight
and the torment of the days and nights of Donjalolo.
And in one special matter was he either eminently miserable,
or otherwise: for all his multiplicity of wives, he
had never an heir. Not his, the proud paternal glance of
the Grand Turk Solyman, looking round upon a hundred
sons, all bone of his bone, and squinting with his squint.
