Volume I Part 20 (1/2)

Presently, the silence was relieved by a co under an ienuflexions, he deposited upon the altar before us The tray was loaded like any harvest wain; heaped up with good things sundry and divers: Bread-fruit, and cocoanuts, and plantains, and guavas; all pleasant to the eye, and furnishi+ng good earnest of so equally pleasant to the palate

Transported at the sight of these viands, after so long an estrangereen, I was forthwith proceeding to help Yillah and , a most unwelcome query obtruded Did deities dine? Then also recurred what Media had declared about ious deluttonize on the very offerings, laid before me in my own sacred fane? Give heed to thy ways, oh Taji, lest thou stumble and be lost

But hereupon, what sae, but his coolto lunch in the tead, it inal so entirely at his ease, with legs full cosily tucked away under the very altar itself This put to flight all appalling apprehensions of the necessity of starving to keep up the assuht and left; taking the best care of Yillah; who over fed her flushed beauty with juicy fruits, thereby transferring to her cheek the sweet glow of the guava

Our hunger appeased, and Media in token thereof celestially laying his hand upon the appropriate region, we proceeded to quit the inclosure But co to the here the breach had been made, lo, and behold, no breach was to be seen But down it caain, and forth we issued

This overthrowing of walls, be it known, is an incidental coes in this part of Mardi It would see an impression; even upon the most obdurate substances

But to return to our ambrosial lunch

Sublimate, as you will, the idea of our ethereality as intellectual beings; no sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast deal of satisfaction in dining More: there is a savor of life and i till filled

And well knowing this, nature has provided this jolly round board, our globe, which in an endless sequence of courses and crops, spreads a perpetual feast Though, as with o away fa Media A Host

Striking into a grove, about sunset we eed upon a fine, clear space, and spied a city in the woods

In thetents, was a structureMedia

Disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were ht froround, these supported nu of habiscus High over this dais, but resting upon independent supports beyond, a gable-ended roof sloped away to within a short distance of the ground

Such was the palace

We entered it by an arched, arbored entrance, at one of its palh this exclusive portal entered the Islanders Hu eaves A custom immemorial, and well calculated to renity of the habitation thus entered

Three steps led to the suht pillows of woven grass, stuffed with the golden down of a wild thistle, invited all loiterers to lounge

How pleasant the twilight that welled up from under the low eaves, above which ere seated And how obvious now the design of the roof No shadewithout like soaping at us like a butler in a quandary? Media's household deity, in the guise of a plethoricreen leaves Truly, had the idol possessed a soul under his knotty ribs, how tantalizing to hold so glorious a lutition Far worse than the inexorable lock-jahich will not admit of the step prelie was that of an inferior deity, the God of Good Cheer, and often after, we met with his merry round mouth in many other abodes in Mardi Daily, his jaws are replenished, as a flower vase in summer

But did the demi-divine Media thus brook the perpetual presence of a subaltern divinity? Stillthe Mardianplain whatus into his palace, Media did the honors by inviting his guests to recline He then seeing us to his ho the royal larder with our maintenance, he had taken no hasty or i round us viands, till ell nigh walled in At every fresh deposit, Media directing our attention to the same, as yet additional evidence of his ample resources as a host The evidence was finally closed by dragging under the eaves a felled plantain tree, the spike of red ripe fruit, sprouting therefro all over, at so rude an introduction to the notice of strangers

During this scene, Jarl was privily nudging Samoa, in wonderment, to knohat upon earth it all atories propounded through the elbow, only let drop a vague hint or two

It was quite aave hi the Mardians he was at hos, and says unto hi himself and the Skyeman, the tables were turned At sea, Jarl had been the oracle: an old sea-sage, learned in heh and dry, the Upoluan lifted his crest as the erudite pagan; s heathenish and obscure

An hour or tas now laughed away in very char conversation with Media; when I hinted, that a couch and solitude would be acceptable Whereupon, seizing a taper, our host escorted us without the palace And ushering us into a handsoaveto the dais, he then instituted a vigorous investigation, to discern whether every thing was in order Not fancying so about the mats, he rolled the at the heads of his servitors; who, upon that gentle hintwith fresh ones These, with mathematical precision, Media in person now spread on the dais; looking carefully to the fringes or ruffles hich they were bordered, as if striving to impart to them a sentimental expression

This done, he withdrew