“Another of your crazy conceits, philosopher,” replied Mohi, disdainfully; “yet, sometimes plenty of strange black-letter characters have been discovered in amber.” And throwing back his hoary old head, he jetted forth his vapors like a whale.
“Indeed?” cried Babbalanja. “Then, my lord Media, it may be earnestly inquired, whether the gentle laws of the tribes before the flood, were not sought to be embalmed and perpetuated between transparent and sweet scented tablets of amber.”
“That, now, is not so unlikely,” said Mohi; “for old King Rondo the Round once set about getting him a coffin-lid of amber; much desiring a famous mass of it owned by the ancestors of Donjalolo of Juam. But no navies could buy it. So Rondo had himself urned in a crystal.”
“And that immortalized Rondo, no doubt,” said Babbalanja. “Ha! ha! pity he fared not like the fat porpoise frozen and tombed in an iceberg; its icy shroud drifting south, soon melted away, and down, out of sight, sunk the dead.”
“Well, so much for amber,” cried Media. “Now, Mohi, go on about Farnoo.”
“Know, then, my lord, that Farnoo is more like ambergris than amber.”
“Is it? then, pray, tell us something on that head. You know all about ambergris, too, I suppose.”
“Every thing about all things, my lord. Ambergris is found both on land and at sea. But especially, are lumps of it picked up on the spicy coasts of Jovanna; indeed, all over the atolls and reefs in the eastern quarter of Mardi.”
“But what is this ambergris? Braid–Beard,” said Babbalanja.
“Aquovi, the chymist, pronounced it the fragments of mushrooms growing at the bottom of the sea; Voluto held, that like naptha, it springs from fountains down there. But it is neither.”
“I have heard,” said Yoomy, “that it is the honey-comb of bees, fallen from flowery cliffs into the brine.”
“Nothing of the kind,” said Mohi. “Do I not know all about it, minstrel? Ambergris is the petrified gall-stones of crocodiles.”
“What!” cried Babbalanja, “comes sweet scented ambergris from those musky and chain-plated river cavalry? No wonder, then, their flesh is so fragrant; their upper jaws as the visors of vinaigrettes.”
“Nay, you are all wrong,” cried King Media.
Then, laughing to himself:—“It’s pleasant to sit by, a demi-god, and hear the surmisings of mortals, upon things they know nothing about; theology, or amber, or ambergris, it’s all the same. But then, did I always out with every thing I know, there would be no conversing with these comical creatures.
“Listen, old Mohi; ambergris is a morbid secretion of the Spermaceti whale; for like you mortals, the whale is at times a sort of hypochondriac and dyspeptic. You must know, subjects, that in antediluvian times, the Spermaceti whale was much hunted by sportsmen, that being accounted better pastime, than pursuing the Behemoths on shore. Besides, it was a lucrative diversion. Now, sometimes upon striking the monster, it would start off in a dastardly fright, leaving certain fragments in its wake. These fragments the hunters picked up, giving over the chase for a while. For in those days, as now, a quarter-quintal of ambergris was more valuable than a whole ton of spermaceti.”
“Nor, my lord,” said Babbalanja, “would it have been wise to kill the fish that dropped such treasures: no more than to murder the noddy that laid the golden eggs.”
“Beshrew me! a noddy it must have been,” gurgled Mohi through his pipe-stem, “to lay golden eggs for others to hatch.”
“Come, no more of that now,” cried Media. “Mohi, how long think you, may one of these pipe-bowls last?”
“My lord, like one’s cranium, it will endure till broken. I have smoked this one of mine more than half a century.”
“But unlike our craniums, stocked full of concretions,” said Babbalanja, our pipe-bowls never need clearing out.”
“True,” said Mohi, “they absorb the oil of the smoke, instead of allowing it offensively to incrust.”
“Ay, the older the better,” said Media, “and the more delicious the flavor imparted to the fumes inhaled.”
“Farnoos forever! my lord,” cried Yoomy. “By much smoking, the bowl waxes russet and mellow, like the berry-brown cheek of a sunburnt brunette.”
“And as like smoked hams,” cried Braid–Beard, “we veteran old smokers grow browner and browner; hugely do we admire to see our jolly noses and pipe-bowls mellowing together.”
“Well said, old man,” cried Babbalanja; “for, like a good wife, a pipe is a friend and companion for life. And whoso weds with a pipe, is no longer a bachelor. After many vexations, he may go home to that faithful counselor, and ever find it full of kind consolations and suggestions. But not thus with cigars or cigarrets: the acquaintances of a moment, chatted with in by-places, whenever they come handy; their existence so fugitive, uncertain, unsatisfactory. Once ignited, nothing like longevity pertains to them. They never grow old. Why, my lord, the stump of a cigarret is an abomination; and two of them crossed are more of a memento-mori, than a brace of thigh-bones at right angles.”
“So they are, so they are,” cried King Media. “Then, mortals, puff we away at our pipes. Puff, puff, I say. Ah! how we puff! But thus we demi-gods ever puff at our ease.”
“Puff; puff, how we puff,” cried Babbalanja. “but life itself is a puff and a wheeze. Our lungs are two pipes which we constantly smoke.”
“Puff, puff! how we puff,” cried old Mohi. “All thought is a puff.”
“Ay,” said Babbalanja, “not more smoke in that skull-bowl of yours than in the skull on your shoulders: both ends alike.”
“Puff! puff! how we puff,” cried Yoomy. “But in every puff, there hangs a wreath. In every puff, off flies a care.”
“Ay, there they go,” cried Mohi, “there goes another — and, there, and there; — this is the way to get rid of them my worshipful lord; puff them aside.”
“Yoomy,” said Media, “give us that pipe song of thine. Sing it, my sweet and pleasant poet. We’ll keep time with the flageolets of ours.”
“So with pipes and puffs for a chorus, thus Yoomy sang:—
Care is all stuff:—
Puff! Puff:
To puff is enough:—
Puff! Puff!
More musky than snuff,
nd warm is a puff:—
Puff! Puff!
Here we sit mid our puffs,
Like old lords in their ruffs,
Snug as bears in their muffs:—
Puff! Puff!
Then puff, puff, puff;
For care is all stuff,
Puffed off in a puff:—
Puff! Puff!
“Ay, puff away,” cried Babbalanja, “puff; puff, so we are born, and so die. Puff, puff, my volcanos: the great sun itself will yet go out in a snuff, and all Mardi smoke out its last wick.”
“Puffs enough,” said King Media, “Vee–Vee! haul down my flag. There, lie down before me, oh Gonfalon! and, subjects, hear — when I die, lay this spear on my right, and this pipe on my left, its colors at half mast; so shall I be ambidexter, and sleep between eloquent symbols.”
CHAPTER 18
THEY VISIT AN EXTRAORDINARY OLD ANTIQUARY