Volume I Part 38 (1/2)
The second day of our stay in Mondoldo was signalized by a noteworthy exhibition of the surgical skill of Sah well versed in the science of breakingtheir crockery
Overnight, Borabolla had directed his corps of sea-divers to repair early on the reat Mardian reef, for the purpose of procuring for our regalement some of the fine Hawk's-bill turtle, whose secret retreats were aed wall of coral, fro no plummet dropped ever yet touched botto far down under the surface; and then swi into the coral honeyco at a flipper when seen, as at a pinion in a range of billing dove-cotes
As the king's divers were thus employed, one of them, Karhownoo by na wistfully toward hirotto in the reef No way petrified by the sight, and pursuing the usual encies, Karhownoo, splashi+ng the water, instantly swaer But the shark, undaunted, advanced: a thing so unusual, and fearful, that, in an agony of fright, the diver shot up for the surface Heedless, he looked not up as he went; and ithin a few inches of the open air, dashed his head against a projection of the reef He would have sank into the live to on the brink, perceived his peril, and dragged hi the poor felloas insensible, they endeavored, ineffectually, to revive hi him in their canoe, athered, and the diver was borne to a habitation, close adjoining Borabolla's; whence, hearing of the disaster, we sallied out to render assistance
Upon entering the hut, the benevolent old king commanded it to be cleared; and then proceeded to examine the sufferer
The skull proved to be very badly fractured; in one place, splintered
”Lettold of his experience in such ourd of water, and a tappa cloth, the one-ar for a sharp splinter of bamboo, and a thin, semi-transparent cup of cocoa-nut shell, he went about the operation: nothing less than the ”To), in other words the trepan
The patient still continuing insensible, the fraged by help of a ba cup--previously dipped in the milk of a cocoanut--was nicely fitted into the vacancy, the skin as nicely adjusted over it, and the operation was co out in admiration of Saarding his workht be well to ascertain whether the patient survived When, upon sounding his heart, the diver was found to be dead
The bystanders loudly laeon ato Borabolla's,the sad scene we had witnessed, which presently branched into a learned discussion upon aled the company with a story; for the truth of which no one but hih there is testi at variance with the customs of certain barbarous tribes
Read on
CHAPTER XCVII Faith And Knowledge
A thing incredible is about to be related; but a thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true And s; and ots reject the most obvious But let us hold fast to all we have; and stop all leaks in our faith; lest an opening, but of a hand's breadth, should sink our seventy-fours The wide Atlantic can rush in at one port-hole; and if we surrender a plank, we surrender the fleet Panoplied in all the arht the Turks inch by inch, and yield theht but our corpse
But let us not turn round upon friends, confounding them with foes
For dissenters only assent to h Milton was a heretic to the creed of Athanasius, his faith exceeded that of Athanasius himself; and the faith of Athanasius that of Thomas, the disciple, ith his own eyes beheld the h we be all Christians now, the best of us had perhaps been otherwise in the days of Thoence, the more faith, and the less credulity: Gabriel rejects reatest marvels are first truths; and first truths the last unto which we attain Things nearest are furthest off Though your ear be next-door to your brain, it is forever reht Man has a more comprehensive view of the moon, than the man in the moon himself We know the moon is round; he only infers it It is because we ourselves are in ourselves, that we know ourselves not And it is only of our easy faith, that we are not infidels throughout; and only of our lack of faith, that we believe e do
In some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers Do you believe that you lived three thousand years ago? That you were at the taking of Tyre, were overwhel of the Deluge, and helped swab the ground, and build the first house With the Israelites, I fainted in the wilderness; was in court, when Soloes before him I, it ho suppressed the lost work of Manetho, on the Egyptian theology, as containing s at ith the canonical scriptures; I, who originated the conspiracy against that purple reat and good Aurelian be eated the abdication of Diocletian, and Charles the Fifth; I touched Isabella's heart, that she hearkened to Colu's minions hid the Charter in the old oak at Hartford; I harbored Goffe and Whalley: I am the leader of the Mohawk masks, who in the Old Commonwealth's harbor, overboard threw the East India Co; I am the Vailed Persian Prophet; I, the man in the iron mask; I, Junius
CHAPTER XCVIII The Tale Of A Traveler
It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a traveler But stay-at-hoe to Ethiopia would cure them of that; for few skeptics are travelers; fewer travelers liars, though the proverb respecting theerman to Baron Munchausen; but true, as Bruce said, that the Abysinnians cut live steaks froood part, his villainous transcribers, who h all liars go to Gehenna; yet, assuh 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, Sah your interpreter, speak
Once upon a tis, the Upoluan was called upon to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a desperate fight of slings