Mardi and a Voyage Thither

by Herman Melville

  In good time, we gained the thither side of great Kolumbo of the South; and sailing on, long waited for the day; and wondered at the darkness.

  "What steadfast clouds!" cried Yoomy, "yonder! far aloft: that ridge, with many points; it fades below, but shows a faint white crest."

  "Not clouds, but mountains," said Babbalanja, "the vast spine, that traverses Kolumbo; spurring off in ribs, that nestle loamy valleys, veined with silver streams, and silver ores."

  It was a long, embattled line of pinnacles. And high posted in the East, those thousand bucklered peaks stood forth, and breasted back the Dawn. Before their purple bastions bold, Aurora long arrayed her spears, and clashed her golden shells. The summons dies away. But now, her lancers charge the steep, and gain its crest a-glow;-their glittering spears and blazoned shields triumphant in the morn.

  But ere that sight, we glided on for hours in twilight; when, on those mountains' farther side, the hunters must have been abroad, morningglories all astir.

  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 widespread, 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 promisedland, 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 teats, 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 riverbeds. 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 river-margins, 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 he 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."

  CHAPTER LXIII

  They Seek Through The Isles Of Palms; And Pass The Isles Of Myrrh

  Now, our prows we turned due west, across the blue lagoon.

  Soon, no land appeared. Far as the eye could sweep, one azure plain; all over flaked with foamy fleeces:-a boundless flock upon a boundless mead!

  Again, all changed. Like stars in multitude, bright islets multiplied around. Emerald-green, they dotted shapes fantastic: circles, arcs, and crescents;-atolls all, or coral carcanets, begemmed and flashing in the sun.

  By these we glided, group after group; and through the foliage, spied sweet forms of maidens, like Eves in Edens ere the Fall, or Proserpines in Ennas. Artless airs came from the shore; and from the censer-swinging roses, a bloom, as if from Hebe's cheek.

  "Here, at last, we find sweet Yillah!" murmured Yoomy. "Here must she lurk in innocence! Quick! Let us land and search."

  "If here," said Babbalanja, "Yillah will not stay our coming, but fly before us through the groves. Wherever a canoe is beached, see you not the palm-trees pine? Not so, where never keel yet smote the strand. In mercy, let us fly from hence. I know not why, but our breath here, must prove a blight."

  These regions passed, we came to savage islands, where the glittering coral seemed
bones imbedded, bleaching in the sun. Savage men stood naked on the strand, and brandished uncouth clubs, and gnashed their teeth like boars.

  The full red moon was rising; and, in long review there passed before it, phantom shapes of victims, led bound to altars through the groves.

  Death-rattles filled the air. But a cloud descended, and all was gloom.

  Again blank water spread before us; and after many days, there came a gentle breeze, fraught with all spicy breathings; cinnamon aromas; and in the rose-flushed evening air, like glow worms, glowed the islets, where this incense burned.

  "Sweet isles of myrh! oh crimson groves," cried Yoomy. "Woe, woe's your fate! your brightness and your bloom, like musky fire-flies, double-lure to death! On ye, the nations prey like bears that gorge themselves with honey."

  Swan-like, our prows sailed in among these isles; and oft we landed; but in vain; and leaving them, we still pursued the setting sun.

  CHAPTER LXIV

  Concentric, Inward, With Mardi's Reef, They Leave Their Wake Around The World

  West, West! West, West! Whitherward point Hope and prophet-fingers; whitherward, at sun-set, kneel all worshipers of fire; whitherward in mid-ocean, the great whales turn to die; whitherward face all the Moslem dead in Persia; whitherward lie Heaven and Hell! — West, West!

  Whitherward mankind and empires-flocks, caravans, armies, navies; worlds, suns, and stars all wend! — West, West! — Oh boundless boundary!

  Eternal goal! Whitherward rush, in thousand worlds, ten thousand thousand keels! Beacon, by which the universe is steered! — Like the north-star, attracting all needles! Unattainable forever; but forever leading to great things this side thyself! — Hive of all sunsets! — Gabriel's pinions may not overtake thee!

  Over balmy waves, still westward sailing! From dawn till eve, the bright, bright days sped on, chased by the gloomy nights; and, in glory dying, lent their luster to the starry skies. So, long the radiant dolphins fly before the sable sharks but seized, and torn in flames-die, burning:-their last splendor left, in sparkling scales that float along the sea.

  Cymbals, drums and psalteries! the air beats like a pulse with music!

  — High land! high land! and moving lights, and painted lanterns! — What grand shore is this?

  "Reverence we render thee, Old Orienda!" cried Media, with bared brow,

  "Original of all empires and emperors! — a crowned king salutes thee!"

  "Mardi's father-land!" cried Mohi, "grandsire of the nations, — hail!"

  "All hail!" cried Yoomy. "Kings and sages hither coming, should come like palmers, — scrip and staff! Oh Orienda! thou wert our East, where first dawned song and science, with Mardi's primal mornings! But now, how changed! the dawn of light become a darkness, which we kindle with the gleam of spears! On the world's ancestral hearth, we spill our brothers' blood!"

  "Herein," said Babbalanja, "have many distant tribes proved parricidal. In times gone by, Luzianna hither sent her prom; Franko, her scores of captains; and the Dykemen, their peddler hosts, with yard-stick spears! But thou, oh Bello! lord of the empire lineage!

  Noah of the moderns. Sire of the long line of nations yet in germ! — thou, Bello, and thy locust armies, are the present curse of Orienda.

  Down ancient streams, from holy plains, in rafts thy murdered float!

  The pestilence that thins thy armies here, is bred of corpses, made by thee. Maramma's priests, thy pious heralds, loud proclaim that of all pagans, Orienda's most resist the truth! — ay! vain all pious voices, that speak from clouds of war! The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but not the march of Love."

  "Thou, Bello!" cried Yoomy, "would'st wrest the crook from Alma's hand, and place in it a spear. But vain to make a conqueror of him, who put off the purple when he came to Mardi; and declining gilded miters, entered the nations meekly on an ass."

  "Oh curse of commerce!" cried Babbalanja, "that it barters souls for gold. Bello! with opium, thou wouldst drug this land, and murder it in sleep! — And what boot thy conquests here? Seed sown by spears but seldom springs; and harvests reaped thereby, are poisoned by the sickle's edge."

  Yet on, and on we coasted; counting not the days.

  "Oh, folds and flocks of nations! dusky tribes innumerable!" cried Yoomy, "camped on plains and steppes; on thousand mountains, worshiping the stars; in thousand valleys, offering up first-fruits, till all the forests seem in flames;-where, in fire, the widow's spirit mounts to meet her lord! — Oh, Orienda, in thee 'tis vain to seek our Yillah!"

  "How dark as death the night!" said Mohi, shaking the dew from his braids, "the Heavens blaze not here with stars, as over Dominora's land, and broad Vivenza."

  One only constellation was beheld; but every star was brilliant as the one, that promises the morning. That constellation was the CruxAustralis, — the badge, and type of Alma.

  And now, southwest we steered, till another island vast, was reached;

  — Hamora! far trending toward the Antarctic Pole.

  Coasting on by barbarous beaches, where painted men, with spears, charged on all attempts to land, at length we rounded a mighty bluff, lit by a beacon; and heard a bugle call:-Bello's! hurrying to their quarters, the World-End's garrison.

  Here, the sea rolled high, in mountain surges: mid which, we toiled and strained, as if ascending cliffs of Caucasus.

  But not long thus. As when from howling Rhoetian heights, the traveler spies green Lombardy below, and downward rushes toward that pleasant plain; so, sloping from long rolling swells, at last we launched upon the calm lagoon.

  But as we northward sailed, once more the storm-trump blew, and charger-like, the seas ran mustering to the call; and in battalions crouched before a towering rock, far distant from the main. No moon, eclipsed in Egypt's skies, looked half so lone. But from out that darkness, on the loftiest peak, Bello's standard waved.

  "Oh rifled tomb!" cried Babbalanja. "Wherein lay the Mars and Moloch of our times, whose constellated crown, was gemmed with diadems. Thou god of war! who didst seem the devouring Beast of the Apocalypse; casting so vast a shadow over Mardi, that yet it lingers in old Franko's vale; where still they start at thy tremendous ghost; and, late, have hailed a phantom, King! Almighty hero-spell! that after the lapse of half a century, can so bewitch all hearts! But one drop of hero-blood will deify a fool.

  "Franko! thou wouldst be free; yet thy free homage is to the buried ashes of a King; thy first choice, the exaltation of his race. In furious fires, thou burn'st Ludwig's throne; and over thy new-made chieftain's portal, in golden letters print'st-'The Palace of our Lord!' In thy New Dispensation, thou cleavest to the exploded Law. And on Freedom's altar-ah, I fear-still, may slay thy hecatombs. But Freedom turns away; she is sick with burnt blood of offerings. Other rituals she loves; and like Oro, unseen herself, would be worshiped only by invisibles. Of long drawn cavalcades, pompous processions, frenzied banners, mystic music, marching nations, she will none. Oh, may thy peaceful Future, Franko, sanctify thy bloody Past. Let not history say; 'To her old gods, she turned again.'"

  This rocky islet passed, the sea went down; once more we neared Hamora's western shore. In the deep darkness, here and there, its margin was lit up by foam-white, breaking billows rolled over from Vivenza's strand, and down from northward Dominora; marking places where light was breaking in, upon the interior's jungle-gloom.

  In heavy sighs, the night-winds from shore came over us.

  "Ah, vain to seek sweet Yillah here," cried Yoomy. — "Poor land! curst of man, not Oro! how thou faintest for thy children, torn from thy soil, to till a stranger's. Vivenza! did these winds not spend their plaints, ere reaching thee, thy every vale would echo them. Oh, tribe of Hamo! thy cup of woe so brims, that soon it must overflow upon the land which holds ye thralls. No misery born of crime, but spreads and poisons wide. Suffering hunteth sin, as the gaunt hound the hare, and tears it in the greenest brakes."

  Still on we sailed: and after many tr
anquil days and nights, a storm came down, and burst its thousand bombs. The lightnings forked and flashed; the waters boiled; our three prows lifted themselves in supplication; but the billows smote them as they reared.

  Said Babbalanja, bowing to the blast: "Thus, oh Vivenza! retribution works! Though long delayed, it comes at last-Judgment, with all her bolts."

  Now, a current seized us, and like three darts, our keels sped eastward, through a narrow strait, far in, upon a smooth expanse, an inland ocean, without a throb.

  On our left, Porpheero's southwest point, a mighty rock, long tiers of galleries within, deck on deck; and flag-staffs, like an admiral's masts: a line-of-battle-ship, all purple stone, and anchored in the sea. Here Bello's lion crouched; and, through a thousand port-holes, eyed the world.

  On our right, Hamora's northern shore gleamed thick with crescents; numerous as the crosses along the opposing strand.

  "How vain to say, that progress is the test of truth, my lord," said Babbalanja, "when, after many centuries, those crescents yet unwaning shine, and count a devotee for every worshiper of yonder crosses.

  Truth and Merit have other symbols than success; and in this mortal race, all competitors may enter; and the field is clear for all. Side by side, Lies run with Truths, and fools with wise; but, like geometric lines, though they pierce infinity, never may they join."

  Over that tideless sea we sailed; and landed right, and landed left; but the maiden never found; till, at last, we gained the water's limit; and inland saw great pointed masses, crowned with halos.

  "Granite continents," cried Babbalanja, "that seem created like the planets, not built with human hands. Lo, Landmarks! upon whose flanks Time leaves its traces, like old tide-rips of diluvian seas."

  As, after wandering round and round some purple dell, deep in a boundless prairie's heart, the baffled hunter plunges in; then, despairing, turns once more to gain the open plain; even so we seekers now curved round our keels; and from that inland sea emerged. The universe again before us; our quest, as wide.