41. CHAPTER XLI.
“Now Taji,” said Media, “with old Bello of the Hump
whose island of Dominora is before us, I am at variance.”
“Ah! How so?”
“A dull recital, but you shall have it.”
And forthwith his Highness began.
This princely quarrel originated, it seems, in a slight
jostling concerning the proprietorship of a barren islet in a
very remote quarter of the lagoon. At the outset the
matter might have been easily adjusted, had the parties but
exchanged a few amicable words. But each disdaining to
visit the other, to discuss so trivial an affair, the business of
negotiating an understanding was committed to certain
plenipos, men with lengthy tongues, who scorned to utter a
word short of a polysyllable.
Now, the more these worthies penetrated into the difficulty,
the wider became the breach; till what was at first
a mere gap, became a yawning gulf.
But that which had perhaps tended more than any thing
else to deepen the variance of the kings, was hump-backed
Bello's dispatching to Odo, as his thirtieth plenipo, a diminutive
little negotiator, who all by himself, in a solitary canoe,
sailed over to have audience of Media; into whose presence
he was immediately ushered.
Darting one glance at him, the king turned to his chieftains,
and said:—“By much straining of your eyes, my
lords, can you perceive this insignificant manikin? What!
are there no tall men in Dominora, that King Bello must
needs send this dwarf hither?”
And charging his attendents to feed the embassador
extraordinary with the soft pap of the cocoanut, and provide
nurses during his stay, the monarch retired from the
arbor of audience.
“As I am a man,” shouted the despised plenipo, raising
himself on his toes, “my royal master will resent this affront!
—A dwarf, forsooth!—Thank Oro, I am no long-drawn
giant! There is as much stuff in me, as in others; what
is spread out in their clumsy carcasses, in me is condensed.
I am much in little! And that much, thou shalt know
full soon, disdainful King of Odo!”
“Speak not against our lord the king,” cried the attendants.
“And speak not ye to me, ye headless spear poles!”
And so saying, under sufferance of being small, the plenipo
was permitted to depart unmolested; for all his bravadoes,
fobbing his credentials and affronts.
Apprized of his servant's ignoble reception, the choleric
Bello burst forth in a storm of passion; issuing orders for
one thousand conch shells to be blown, and his warriors to
assemble by land and by sea.
But bethinking him of the hostilities that might ensue,
the sagacious Media hit upon an honorable expedient to ward
off an event for which he was then unprepared. With all
haste he dispatched to the hump-backed king a little dwarf
of his own; who voyaging over to Dominora in a canoe,
sorry and solitary as that of Bello's plenipo, in like manner,
received the same insults. The effect whereof, was, to
strike a balance of affronts; upon the principle, that a blow
given, heals one received.
Nevertheless, these proceedings but amounted to a postponement
of hostilities; for soon after, nothing prevented the
two kings from plunging into war, but the following judicious
considerations. First: Media was almost afraid of
being beaten. Second: Bello was almost afraid to conquer.
Media, because he was inferior in men and arms; Bello, because
his aggrandizement was already a subject of warlike
comment among the neighboring kings.
Indeed, did the old chronicler Braid-Beard speak truth,
there were some tribes in Mardi, that accounted this king
of Dominora a testy, quarrelsome, rapacious old monarch;
the indefatigable breeder of contentions and wars; the elder
brother of this household of nations, perpetually essaying to
lord it over the juveniles; and though his patrimonial dominions
were situated to the north of the lagoon, not the
slightest misunderstanding took place between the rulers of
the most distant islands, than this doughty old cavalier on a
throne, forthwith thrust his insolent spear into the matter,
though it in no wise concerned him, and fell to irritating all
parties by his gratuitous interference.
Especially was he officious in the concerns of Porpheero,
a neighboring island, very large and famous, whose numerous
broad valleys were divided among many rival kings:—
the king of Franko, a small-framed, poodle-haired, fine, fiery
gallant; finical in his tatooing; much given to the dance
and glory;—the king of Ibeereea, a tall and stately cavalier,
proud, generous, punctilious, temperate in wine; one hand
forever on his javelin, the other, in superstitions homage,
lifted to his gods; his limbs all over marks of stakes and
crosses;—the king of Luzianna; a slender, dark-browed
chief; at times wrapped in a moody robe, beneath which he
fumbled something, as if it were a dagger; but otherwise a
sprightly troubadour, given to serenades and moonlight;—
the many chiefs of sunny Latianna; minstrel monarchs, full
of song and sentiment; fiercer in love than war; glorious
bards of freedom; but rendering tribute while they sang;—
the priest-king of Vatikanna; his chest marked over with
antique tatooings; his crown, a cowl; his rusted scepter
swaying over falling towers, and crumbling mounds; full of
the superstitious past; askance, eyeing the suspicious time
to come;—the king of Hapzaboro; portly, pleasant; a lover
of wild boar's meat; a frequent quaffer from the can; in
his better moods, much fancying solid comfort;—the eight-and-thirty
banded kings, chieftains, seigniors, and oligarchies
of the broad hill and dale of Tutoni; clubbing together their
domains, that none might wrest his neighbor's; an earnest
race; deep thinkers, deeper drinkers; long pipes, long heads;
their wise ones given to mystic cogitations, and consultations
with the devil;—the twin kings of Zandinavia; hardy, frugal
mountaineers; upright of spine and heart; clad in skins
of bears;—the king of Jutlanda; much like their Highnesses
of Zandinavia; a seal-skin cap his crown; a fearless sailor
of his frigid seas;—the king of Muzkovi; a shaggy, icicled
White-bear of a despot in the north; said to reign over
millions of acres of glaciers; had vast provinces of snowdrifts,
and many flourishing colonies among the floating ice-bergs.
Absolute in his rule as Predestination in metaphysics,
did he command all his people to give up the ghost, it
would be held treason to die last. Very precise and foppish
in his imperial tastes was this monarch. Disgusted with
the want of uniformity in the stature of his subjects, he was
said to nourish thoughts of killing off all those below his
prescribed standard—six feet, long measure. Immortal
souls were of no account in his fatal wars; since, in some
of his serf-breeding estates, they were daily manufactured to
order.
Now, to all the above-mentioned monarchs, old Bello
would frequently dispatch heralds; announcing, for example,
his unalterable resolution, to espouse the cause of this
king, against that; at the very time, perhaps, that their
Serene Superfluities, instead of crossing spears, were touching
flagons. And upon these occasions, the kings would
often send back word to old Bello, that instead of troubling
himself with their concerns, he might far better attend to
his own; which, they hinted, were in a sad way, and much
needed reform.
The royal old warrior's pretext for these and all similar
proceedings, was the proper adjustment in Porpheero, of
what he facetiously styled the “Equipoise of Calabashes;”
which he stoutly swore was essential to the security of the
various tribes in that country.
“But who put the balance into thy hands, King Bello?”
cried the indignant nations.
“Oro!” shouted the hump-backed king, shaking his
javelin.
Superadded to the paternal interest which Bello betrayed
in the concerns of the kings of Porpheero, according to our
chronicler, he also manifested no less interest in those of the
remotest islands. Indeed, where he found a rich country,
inhabited by a people, deemed by him barbarous and incapable
of wise legislation, he sometimes relieved them from
their political anxieties, by assuming the dictatorship over
them. And if incensed at his conduct, they flew to their
spears, they were accounted rebels, and treated accordingly.
But as old Mohi very truly observed,—herein, Bello was
not alone; for throughout Mardi, all strong nations, as well
as all strong men, loved to govern the weak. And those
who most taunted King Bello for his political rapacity, were
open to the very same charge. So with Vivenza, a distant
island, at times very loud in denunciations of Bello, as a
great national brigand. Not yet wholly extinct in Vivenza,
were its aboriginal people, a race of wild Nimrods and
hunters, who year by year were driven further and further
into remoteness, till as one of their sad warriors said, after
continual removes along the log, his race was on the point
of being remorselessly pushed off the end.
Now, Bello was a great geographer, and land surveyor,
and gauger of the seas. Terraqueous Mardi, he was continually
exploring in quest of strange empires. Much he
loved to take the altitude of lofty mountains, the depth of
deep rivers, the breadth of broad isles. Upon the highest
pinnacles of commanding capes and promontories, he loved
to hoist his flag. He circled Mardi with his watch-towers:
and the distant voyager passing wild rocks in the remotest
waters, was startled by hearing the tattoo, or the reveille,
beating from hump-backed Bello's omnipresent drum.
Among Antartic glaciers, his shrill bugle calls mingled with
the scream of the gulls; and so impressed seemed universal
nature with the sense of his dominion, that the very clouds
in heaven never sailed over Dominora without rendering the
tribute of a shower; whence the air of Dominora was more
moist than that of any other clime.
In all his grand undertakings, King Bello was marvelously
assisted by his numerous fleets of war-canoes; his navy
being the largest in Mardi. Hence his logicians swore that
the entire Lagoon was his; and that all prowling whales,
prowling keels, and prowling sharks were invaders. And
with this fine conceit to inspire them, his poets-laureat composed
some glorious old salt-water odes, enough to make your
very soul sing to hear them.
But though the rest of Mardi much delighted to list
to such noble ministrelsy, they agreed not with Bello's
poets in deeming the lagoon their old monarch's hereditary
domain.
Once upon a time, the paddlers of the hump-backed king,
meeting upon the broad lagoon certain canoes belonging to
the before-mentioned island of Vivenza; these paddlers
seized upon several of their occupants; and feeling their
pulses, declared them born men of Dominora; and therefore,
not free to go whithersoever they would; for, unless they
could somehow get themselves born over again, they must
forever remain subject to Bello. Shed your hair; nay, your
skin, if you will, but shed your allegiance you can not;
while you have bones, they are Bello's. So, spite of all
expostulations and attempts to prove alibis, these luckless
paddlers were dragged into the canoes of Dominora, and
commanded to paddle home their captors.
Whereof hearing, the men of Vivenza were thrown into
a great ferment; and after a mighty pow-wow over their
council fire, fitting out several double-keeled canoes, they
sallied out to sea, in quest of those, whom they styled the
wholesale corsairs of Dominora.
But lucky perhaps it was, that at this juncture, in all
parts of Mardi, the fleets of the hump-backed king, were
fighting, gunwale and gunwale, alongside of numerous foes;
else there had borne down upon the canoes of the men of
Vivenza so tremendous an armada, that the very swell
under its thousand prows might have flooded their scattered
proas forever out of sight.
As it was, Bello dispatched a few of his smaller craft to
seek out, and incidentally run down the enemy; and without
returning home, straightway proceed upon more important
enterprises.
But it so chanced, that Bello's crafts, one by one meeting
the foe, in most cases found the canoes of Vivenza much
larger than their own; and manned by more men, with
hearts bold as theirs; whence, in the ship-duels that ensued,
they were worsted; and the canoes of Vivenza, locking
their yard-arms into those of the vanquished, very courteously
gallanted them into their coral harbors.
Solely imputing these victories to their superior intrepidity
and skill, the people of Vivenza were exceedingly boisterous
in their triumph; raising such obstreperous peans, that they
gave themselves hoarse throats; insomuch, that according to
Mohi, some of the present generation are fain to speak
through their noses.
