The Purple Cloud
Page 37
stood one bright midnight before thatgreat pyramid of Shafra, and that dumb Sphynx, and, seated at the wellof one of the rock-tombs, looked till tears of pity streamed down mycheeks: for great is the earth, and her Ages, but man 'passeth away.'These tombs have pillars extremely like the two palace-pillars, onlythat these are round, and mine are square: for I chose it so: but thesame band near the top, then over this the closed lotus-flower, then thesmall square plinth, which separates them from the architrave, only minehave no architrave; the tombs consist of a little outer temple or court,then comes a well, and inside another chamber, where, I suppose, thedead were, a ribbon-like astragal surrounding the walls, which arecrowned with boldly-projecting cornices, surmounted by an abacus. Andhere, till the pressing want of food drove me back, I remained: for moreand more the earth over-grows me, wooes me, assimilates me; so that Iask myself this question: 'Must I not, in time, cease to be a man, andbecome a small earth, precisely her copy, extravagantly weird andfierce, half-demoniac, half-ferine, wholly mystic--morose andturbulent--fitful, and deranged, and sad--like her?'
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A whole month of that voyage, from May the 15th to June the 13th, Iwasted at the Andaman Islands near Malay: for that any old Chinamancould be alive in Pekin began, after some time, to seem the mostquixotic notion that ever entered a human brain; and these jungledislands, to which I came after a shocking vast orgy one night atCalcutta, when I fired not only the city but the river, pleased my fancyto such an extent, that at one time I intended to abide there. I was atthe one called in the chart 'Saddle Hill,' the smallest of them, Ithink: and seldom have I had such sensations of peace as I lay a wholeburning day in a rising vale, deeply-shaded in palm and tropicalranknesses, watching thence the _Speranza_ at anchor: for there was alittle offing here at the shore whence the valley arose, and I could seeone of its long peaks lined with cocoanut-trees, and all cloud burnedout of the sky except the flimsiest lawn-figments, and the sea asabsolutely calm as a lake roughened with breezes, yet making aconsiderable noise in its breaking on the shore, as I have noticed inthese sorts of places: I do not know why. These poor Andaman people seemto have been quite savage, for I met a number of them in roaming theisland, nearly skeletons, yet with limbs and vertebrae still, ingeneral, cohering, and in some cases dry-skinned and mummified relics offlesh, and never anywhere a sign of clothes: a very singular thing,considering their nearness to high old civilisations all about them.They looked small and black, or almost; and I never found a man withoutfinding on or near him a spear and other weapons: so that they wereeager folk, and the wayward dark earth was in them, too, as she shouldbe in her children. They had in many cases some reddish discoloration,which may have been the traces of betel-nut stains: for betel-nutsabound there. And I was so pleased with these people, that I took onboard with the gig one of their little tree-canoes: which was myfoolishness: for gig and canoe were only three nights later washed fromthe decks into the middle of the sea.
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I passed down the Straits of Malacca, and in that short distance betweenthe Andaman Islands, and the S.W. corner of Borneo I was thrice somauled, that at times it seemed quite out of the question that anythingbuilt by man could escape such unfettered cataclysms, and I resignedmyself, but with bitter reproaches, to perish darkly. The effect of thethird upon me, when it was over, was the unloosening afresh of all myevil passion: for I said: 'Since they mean to slay me, death shall findme rebellious'; and for weeks I could not sight some specially happyvillage, or umbrageous spread of woodland, that I did not stop the ship,and land the materials for their destruction; so that nearly all thosespicy lands about the north of Australia will bear the traces of my handfor many a year: for more and more my voyage became dawdling andzigzaged, as the merest whim directed it, or the movement of the pointeron the chart; and I thought of eating the lotus of surcease and nepenthein some enchanted nook of this bowering summer, where from my hut-door Icould see through the pearl-hues of opium the sea-lagoon slaver lazilyupon the old coral atol, and the cocoanut-tree would droop like slumber,and the bread-fruit tree would moan in sweet and weary dream, and Ishould watch the _Speranza_ lie anchored in the pale atol-lake, yearafter year, and wonder what she was, and whence, and why she dozed sodeep for ever, and after an age of melancholy peace and burdened bliss,I should note that sun and moon had ceased revolving, and hung inert,opening anon a heavy lid to doze and drowse again, and God would sigh'Enough,' and nod, and Being would swoon to sleep: for that any oldChinaman should be alive in Pekin was a thing so fantastically maniac,as to draw from me at times sudden fits of wild red laughter that leftme faint.
During a space of four months, from the 18th June to the 23rd October, Ivisited the Fijis, where I saw skulls still surrounded with remnants ofextraordinary haloes of stiff hair, women clad in girdles made of thongsfixed in a belt, and, in Samoa near, bodies crowned with coronets ofnautilus-shell, and traces of turmeric-paint and tattooing, and in onetownlet a great assemblage of carcasses, suggesting by their look somefestival, or dance: so that I believe that these people were overthrownwithout the least fore-knowledge of anything. The women of the Maoriswore an abundance of green-jade ornaments, and I found a peculiar kindof shell-trumpet, one of which I have now, also a tattooing chisel, anda nicely-carved wooden bowl. The people of New Caledonia, on the otherhand, went, I should think, naked, confining their attention to thehair, and in this resembling the Fijians, for they seemed to wear anartificial hair made of the fur of some creature like a bat, and alsothey wore wooden masks, and great rings--for the ear, no doubt--whichmust have fallen to the shoulders: for the earth was in them all, andmade them wild, perverse and various like herself. I went from one tothe other without any system whatever, searching for the idealresting-place, and often thinking that I had found it: but only wearyingof it at the thought that there was a yet deeper and dreamier in theworld. But in this search I received a check, my God, which chilled meto the marrow, and set me flying from these places.
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One evening, the 29th November, I dined rather late--at eight--sitting,as was my custom in calm weather, cross-legged on the cabin-rug at theport aft corner, a small semicircle of _Speranza_ gold-plate before me,and near above me the red-shaded lamp with green conical reservoir,whose creakings never cease in the stillest mid-sea, and beyond theplates the array of preserved soups, meat-extracts, meats, fruit,sweets, wines, nuts, liqueurs, coffee on the silver spirit-tripod,glasses, cruet, and so on, which it was always my first care to selectfrom the store-room, open, and lay out once for all in the morning onrising. I was late, seven being my hour: for on that day I had beenengaged in the occasionally necessary, but always deferred, task ofoverhauling the ship, brushing here a rope with tar, there a board withpaint, there a crank with oil, rubbing a door-handle, a brass-fitting,filling the three cabin-lamps, dusting mirrors and furniture, dashingthe great neat-joinered plains of deck with bucketfulls, or, high inair, chopping loose with its rigging the mizzen top-mast, which since amonth was sprained at the clamps, all this in cotton drawers under loose_quamis_, bare-footed, my beard knotted up, the sun a-blaze, the seasmooth and pale with the smooth pallor of strong currents, the shipstill enough, no land in sight, yet great tracts of sea-weed makingeastward--I working from 11 A.M. till near 7, when sudden darknessinterrupted: for I wished to have it all over in one obnoxious day. Iwas therefore very tired when I went down, lit the central chain-leverlamp and my own two, washed and dressed in my bedroom, and sat to dinnerin the dining-hall corner. I ate voraciously, with sweat, as usual,pouring down my eager brow, using knife or spoon in the right hand, butnever the Western fork, licking the plates clean in the Mohammedanmanner, and drinking pretty freely. Still I was tired, and went upondeck, where I had the threadbare blue-velvet easy-chair with the brokenleft arm before the wheel, and in it sat smoking cigar after cigar fromthe Indian D box, half-asleep, yet conscious. The moon came up into apretty cloudless
sky, and she was bright, but not bright enough toout-shine the enlightened flight of the ocean, which that night was onecontinuous swamp of Jack-o'-lantern phosphorescence, a wild but faintluminosity mingled with stars and flashes of brilliance, the wholetrooping unanimously eastward, as if in haste with elfin momentouspurpose, a boundless congregation, in the sweep of a strong oceaniccurrent. I could hear it, in my slumbrous lassitude, struggling andgurgling at the tied rudder, and making wet sloppy noises under thesheer of the poop; and I was aware that the _Speranza_ was gliding alongpretty fast, drawn into that procession, probably at the rate of four tosix knots: but I did not care, knowing very well that no land was withintwo hundred miles of my bows, for I was in longitude 173 deg., in thelatitude of Fiji and the Society Islands, between those two: and after atime the cigar drooped and dropped from my mouth, and sleep overcameme, and I slept there, in the lap of the