1. MARDI.
1. CHAPTER I.
We were now voyaging straight for Maramma; where
lived and reigned, in mystery, the High Pontiff of the adjoining
isles: prince, priest, and god, in his own proper
person: great lord paramount over many kings in Mardi;
his hands full of scepters and crosiers.
Soon, rounding a lofty and insulated shore, the great central
peak of the island came in sight; domineering over the
neighboring hills; the same aspiring pinnacle, descried in
drawing near the archipelago in the Chamois.
“Tall Peak of Ofo!” cried Babbalanja, “how comes it
that thy shadow so broods over Mardi; flinging new shades
upon spots already shaded by the hill-sides; shade upon
shade!”
“Yet so it is,” said Yoomy, sadly, “that where that
shadow falls, gay flowers refuse to spring; and men long
dwelling therein become shady of face and of soul. `Hast
thou come from out the shadows of Ofo?' inquires the
stranger, of one with a clouded brow.”
“It was by this same peak,” said Mohi, “that the nimble
god Roo, a great sinner above, came down from the skies,
a very long time ago. Three skips and a jump, and he landed
on the plain. But alas, poor Roo! though easy the descent,
there was no climbing back.
“No wonder, then,” said Babbalanja, “that the peak is
inaccessible to man. Though, with a strange infatuation,
many still make pilgrimages thereto; and wearily climb and
climb, till slipping from the rocks, they fall headlong backward,
and oftentimes perish at its base.”
“Ay,” said Mohi, “in vain, on all sides of the Peak,
various paths are tried; in vain new ones are cut through
the cliffs and the brambles:—Ofo yet remains inaccessible.”
“Nevertheless,” said Babbalanja, “by some it is believed,
that those, who by dint of hard struggling climb so high as
to become invisible from the plain; that these have attained
the summit; though others much doubt, whether their becoming
invisible is not because of their having fallen, and
perished by the way.”
“And wherefore,” said Media, “do you mortals undertake
the ascent at all? why not be content on the plain? and
even if attainable, what would you do upon that lofty,
clouded summit? Or how can you hope to breathe that
rarefied air, unfitted for your human lungs?”
“True, my lord,” said Babbalanja; “and Bardianna
asserts that the plain alone was intended for man; who
should be content to dwell under the shade of its groves,
though the roots thereof descend into the darkness of the
earth. But, my lord, you well know, that there are those
in Mardi, who secretly regard all stories connected with this
peak, as inventions of the people of Maramma. They deny
that any thing is to be gained by making a pilgrimage
thereto. And for warranty, they appeal to the sayings of
the great prophet Alma.”
Cried Mohi, “But Alma is also quoted by others, in vindication
of the pilgrimages to Ofo. They declare that the
prophet himself was the first pilgrim that thitherward journeyed:
that from thence he departed to the skies.”
Now, excepting this same peak, Maramma is all rolling
hill and dale, like the sea after a storm; which then seems
not to roll, but to stand still, poising its mountains. Yet
the landscape of Maramma has not the merriness of meadows;
partly because of the shadow of Ofo, and partly
because of the solemn groves in which the Morais and
temples are buried.
According to Mohi, not one solitary tree bearing fruit, not
one esculent root, grows in all the isle; the population
wholly depending upon the large tribute remitted from the
neighboring shores.
“It is not that the soil is unproductive,” said Mohi, “that
these things are so. It is extremely fertile; but the inhabitants
say that it would be wrong to make a Bread-fruit
orchard of the holy island.”
“And hence, my lord,” said Babbalanja, “while others
are charged with the business of their temporal welfare,
these Islanders take no thought of the morrow; and broad
Maramma lies one fertile waste in the lagoon.”
