62. CHAPTER LXII.
THEY ENCOUNTER GOLD-HUNTERS.
Now, northward coasting along Kolumbo's Western
shore, whence came the same wild forest-sounds, as from the
Eastern; and where we landed not, to seek among those
wrangling tribes;—after many, many days, we spied prow
after prow, before the wind all northward bound: sails
wide-spread, and paddles plying: scaring the fish from
before them.
Their inmates answered not our earnest hail.
But as they sped, with frantic glee, in one long chorus
thus they sang:—
We rovers bold,
To the land of Gold,
Over bowling billows are gliding:
Eager to toil,
For the golden spoil,
And every hardship biding.
See! See!
Before our prows' resistless dashes,
The gold-fish fly in golden flashes!
'Neath a sun of gold,
We rovers bold,
On the golden land are gaining;
And every night,
We steer aright,
By golden stars unwaning!
All fires burn a golden glare:
No locks so bright as golden hair!
All orange groves have golden gushings:
All mornings dawn with golden flushings!
In a shower of gold, say fables old,
A maiden was won by the god of gold!
In golden goblets wine is beaming
On golden couches kings are dreaming!
The Golden Rule dries many tears!
The Golden Number rules the spheres!
Gold, gold it is, that sways the nations
Gold! gold! the center of all rotations!
On golden axles worlds are turning
With phosphorescence seas are burning!
All fire-flies flame with golden gleamings
Gold-hunters' hearts with golden dreamings!
With golden arrows kings are slain:
With gold we'll buy a freeman's name!
In toilsome trades,for scanty earnings,
At home we've slaved, with stifled yearnings:
No light! no hope! Oh, heavy woe!
When nights fled fast, and days dragged slow.
But joyful now, with eager eye,
Fast to the Promised Land we fly
Where in deep mines,
The treasure shines;
Or down in beds of golden streams,
The gold-flakes glance in golden gleams!
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 tears, 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 rivermargins,
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 be 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.’”
