CHAPTER 98
THE TALE OF A TRAVELER
It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a traveler. But stay-at-homes say travelers lie. Yet a voyage to Ethiopia would cure them of that; for few skeptics are travelers; fewer travelers liars, though the proverb respecting them lies. It is false, as some say, that Bruce was cousin-german to Baron Munchausen; but true, as Bruce said, that the Abysinnians cut live steaks from their cattle. It was, in good part, his villainous transcribers, who made monstrosities of Mandeville’s travels. And though all liars go to Gehenna; yet, assuming that Mandeville died before Dante; still, though Dante took the census of Hell, we find not Sir John, under the likeness of a roasted neat’s tongue, in that infernalest of infernos, The Inferno.
But let not the truth be postponed. To the stand, Samoa, and through your interpreter, speak.
Once upon a time, during his endless sea-rovings, the Upoluan was called upon to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a desperate fight of slings.
Upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as the cranium itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being over, part of its live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan accomplished with cocoanut shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured.
This man died not, but lived. But from being a warrior of great sense and spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing many of the characteristics of his swinish grafting. He survived the operation more than a year; at the end of that period, however, going mad, and dying in his delirium.
Stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some present. But Babbalanja held out to the last.
“Yet, if this story be true,” said he, “and since it is well settled, that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium the contents of a man’s. I have long thought, that men, pigs, and plants, are but curious physiological experiments; and that science would at last enable philosophers to produce new species of beings, by somehow mixing, and concocting the essential ingredients of various creatures; and so forming new combinations. My friend Atahalpa, the astrologer and alchymist, has long had a jar, in which he has been endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being compounded according to a receipt of his own.”
But little they heeded Babbalanja. It was the traveler’s tale that most arrested attention.
Tough the thews, and tough the tales of Samoa.
CHAPTER 99
“MARNEE ORA, ORA MARNEE”
During the afternoon of the day of the diver’s decease, preparations were making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying them by torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in Odo, so was the custom here.
Meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally arrayed, beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying —“A man is dead; let no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh Oro! — Let no canoes put to sea till the burial. This night, oh Oro! — Let no food be cooked.”
And ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire; with castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang —
Be merry, oh men of Mondoldo,
A maiden this night is to wed:
Be merry, oh damsels of Mardi —
Flowers, flowers for the bridal bed.
Informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we repaired to the arbor, whither the body had been removed.
Arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed, between its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough.
The relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so that blood flowed, and spotted their vesture.
Upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the wife of the diver, she exclaimed, “Yes; great is the pain, but greater my affliction.”
Another, the deaf sire of the dead, went staggering about, and groping; saying, that he was now quite blind; for some months previous he had lost one eye in the death of his eldest son and now the other was gone.
“I am childless,” he cried; “henceforth call me Roi Mori,” that is, Twice–Blind.
While the relatives were thus violently lamenting, the rest of the company occasionally scratched themselves with their shells; but very slightly, and mostly on the soles of their feet; from long exposure, quite callous. This was interrupted, however, when the real mourners averted their eyes; though at no time was there any deviation in the length of their faces.
But on all sides, lamentations afresh broke forth, upon the appearance of a person who had been called in to assist in solemnizing the obsequies, and also to console the afflicted.
In rotundity, he was another Borabolla. He puffed and panted.
As he approached the corpse, a sobbing silence ensued; when holding the hand of the dead, between his, the stranger thus spoke:—
“Mourn not, oh friends of Karhownoo, that this your brother lives not. His wounded head pains him no more; he would not feel it, did a javelin pierce him. Yea; Karhownoo is exempt from all the ills and evils of this miserable Mardi!”
Hereupon, the Twice–Blind, who being deaf, heard not what was said, tore his gray hair, and cried, “Alas! alas! my boy; thou wert the merriest man in Mardi, and now thy pranks are over!”
But the other proceeded —“Mourn not, I say, oh friends of Karhownoo; the dead whom ye deplore is happier than the living; is not his spirit in the aerial isles?”
“True! true!” responded the raving wife, mingling her blood with her tears, “my own poor hapless Karhownoo is thrice happy in Paradise!” And anew she wailed, and lacerated her cheeks.
“Rave not, I say.”
But she only raved the more.
And now the good stranger departed; saying, he must hie to a wedding, waiting his presence in an arbor adjoining.
Understanding that the removal of the body would not take place till midnight, we thought to behold the mode of marrying in Mondoldo.
Drawing near the place, we were greeted by merry voices, and much singing, which greatly increased when the good stranger was perceived.
Gayly arrayed in fine robes, with plumes on their heads, the bride and groom stood in the middle of a joyous throng, in readiness for the nuptial bond to be tied.
Standing before them, the stranger was given a cord, so bedecked with flowers, as to disguise its stout fibers; and taking: the bride’s hands, he bound them together to a ritual chant; about her neck, in festoons, disposing the flowery ends of the cord. Then turning to the groom, he was given another, also beflowered; but attached thereto was a great stone, very much carved, and stained; indeed, so every way disguised, that a person not knowing what it was, and lifting it, would be greatly amazed at its weight. This cord being attached to the waist of the groom, he leaned over toward the bride, by reason of the burden of the drop.
All present now united in a chant, and danced about the happy pair, who meanwhile looked ill at ease; the one being