by Lord Dunsany
IDLE DAYS ON THE YANN
So I came down through the wood to the bank of Yann and found, as hadbeen prophesied, the ship _Bird of the River_ about to loose hercable.
The captain sate cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitarlying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled tospread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream ofYann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind ofthe evening descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainousabode of distant gods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxiouscity, into the wing-like sails.
And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors loweredthe greater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and toinquire concerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of themost holy gods of whatever land he had come from. And the captainanswered that he came from fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods thatwere the least and humblest, who seldom sent the famine or thethunder, and were easily appeased with little battles. And I told howI came from Ireland, which is of Europe, whereat the captain and allthe sailors laughed, for they said, "There are no such places in allthe land of dreams." When they had ceased to mock me, I explained thatmy fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beautifulcity called Golthoth the Damned, which was sentinelled all round bywolves and their shadows, and had been utterly desolate for years andyears, because of a curse which the gods once spoke in anger and couldnever since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me as far as PungarVees, the red walled city where the fountains are, which trades withthe Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me upon theabode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen thesecities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest of thatevening I bargained with the captain over the sum that I should payhim for my fare if God and the tide of Yann should bring us safely asfar as the cliffs by the sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gateof Yann.
And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and heavenhad held a festival with him, and slipped one by one away before theimminent approach of night. The parrots had all flown home to thejungle on either bank, the monkeys in rows in safety on high branchesof the trees were silent and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of theforest were going up and down, and the great stars came gleaming outto look on the face of Yann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns andhung them round the ship, and the light flashed out on a sudden anddazzled Yann, and the ducks that fed along his marshy banks allsuddenly arose, and made wide circles in the upper air, and saw thedistant reaches of the Yann and the white mist that softly cloaked thejungle, before they returned again into their marshes.
And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not all together,but five or six at a time. Side by side there kneeled down togetherfive or six, for there only prayed at the same time men of differentfaiths, so that no god should hear two men praying to him at once. Assoon as any one had finished his prayer, another of the same faithwould take his place. Thus knelt the row of five or six with bendedheads under the fluttering sail, while the central stream of the RiverYann took them on towards the sea, and their prayers rose up fromamong the lanterns and went towards the stars. And behind them in theafter end of the ship the helmsman prayed aloud the helmsman's prayer,which is prayed by all who follow his trade upon the River Yann, ofwhatever faith they be. And the captain prayed to his little lessergods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealousGod there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love werebeing humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth,whom the men of the jungle have long since deserted, who is nowunworshipped and alone; and to him I prayed.
And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it comes upon allmen who pray at evening and upon all men who do not; yet our prayerscomforted our own souls when we thought of the Great Night to come.
And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elate withmolten snow that the Poltiades had brought him from the Hills of Hap,and the Marn and Migris were swollen full with floods; and he bore usin his might past Kyph and Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza.
Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship in themidstream of Yann.
When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by song he cheeredhimself in the lonely night. When the song ceased we suddenly allawoke, and another took the helm, and the helmsman slept.
We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a meal, andMandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosedagain the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream ofYann and came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon.Then while the sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to thegate of Mandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived theguard. A sentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate,armed with a rusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were coveredwith dust. Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness wasover all of it. The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick ondoorsteps; in the market-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent ofincense and burned poppies, and there was a hum of the echoes ofdistant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of the region ofYann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?"
He answered: "None may ask questions in this gate for fear they wakethe people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the godswill die. And when the gods die men may dream no more." And I began toask him what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike becausenone might ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the_Bird of the River_.
Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles peeringover her ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.
When I came back again to the _Bird of the River_, I found the sailorswere returned to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, and sailed outagain, and so came once more to the middle of the river. And now thesun was moving towards his heights, and there had reached us on theRiver Yann the song of those countless myriads of choirs that attendhim in his progress round the world. For the little creatures thathave many legs had spread their gauze wings easily on the air, as aman rests his elbows on a balcony and gave jubilant, ceremonialpraises to the sun, or else they moved together on the air in waveringdances intricate and swift, or turned aside to avoid the onrush ofsome drop of water that a breeze had shaken from a jungle orchid,chilling the air and driving it before it, as it fell whirring in itsrush to the earth; but all the while they sang triumphantly. "For theday is for us," they said, "whether our great and sacred father theSun shall bring up more life like us from the marshes, or whether allthe world shall end to-night." And there sang all those whose notesare known to human ears, as well as those whose far more numerousnotes have never been heard by man.
To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that should desolatecontinents during all the lifetime of a man.
And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to beholdand rejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And they danced,but danced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen ofdistant conquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in someencampment of the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyondthat would never abate her pride to dance for a fragment more.
And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purpleorchids and of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of thejungle's decay. And they, too, were among those whose voices are notdiscernible by human ears. And as they floated above the river, goingfrom forest to forest, their splendour was matched by the inimicalbeauty of the birds who darted out to pursue them. Or sometimes theysettled on the white and wax-like blooms of the plant that creeps andclambers about the trees of the forest; and their purple wings flashedout on the great blossoms as, when the caravans go from Nurl to Thace,the gleaming silks flash out upon the snow, where the crafty merchantsspread them one by one to astonish the mountaineers of the Hills ofNoor.
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But upon men and beasts the sun sent a drowsiness. The river monstersalong the river's marge lay dormant in the slime. The sailors pitcheda pavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain upon the deck, andthen went, all but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as anawning between two masts. Then they told tales to one another, each ofhis own city or of the miracles of his god, until all were fallenasleep. The captain offered me the shade of his pavilion with the goldtassels, and there we talked for a while, he telling me that he wastaking merchandise to Perdondaris, and that he would take back to fairBelzoond things appertaining to the affairs of the sea. Then, as Iwatched through the pavilion's opening the brilliant birds andbutterflies that crossed and recrossed over the river, I fell asleep,and dreamed that I was a monarch entering his capital underneatharches of flags, and all the musicians of the world were there,playing melodiously their instruments; but no one cheered.
In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke and found thecaptain buckling on his scimitar, which he had taken off him while herested.
And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn, which opensupon the river. Strange boats of antique design were chained there tothe steps. As we neared it we saw the open marble court, on threesides of which stood the city fronting on colonnades. And in the courtand along the colonnades the people of that city walked with solemnityand care according to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in that citywas of ancient device; the carving on the houses, which, when age hadbroken it remained unrepaired, was of the remotest times, andeverywhere were represented in stone beasts that have long sincepassed away from Earth--the dragon, the griffin, and the hippogriffin,and the different species of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found,whether material or custom, that was new in Astahahn. Now they took nonotice at all of us as we went by, but continued their processions andceremonies in the ancient city, and the sailors, knowing their custom,took no notice of them. But I called, as we came near, to one whostood beside the water's edge, asking him what men did in Astahahn andwhat their merchandise was, and with whom they traded. He said, "Herewe have fettered and manacled Time, who would otherwise slay thegods."
I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, "Allthose gods whom Time has not yet slain." Then he turned from me andwould say no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance withancient custom. And so, according to the will of Yann, we driftedonwards and left Astahahn, and we found in greater quantities suchbirds as prey on fishes. And they were very wonderful in theirplumage, and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, with theirlong necks stretched out before them, and their legs lying on the windbehind straight up the river over the mid-stream.
And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white mist hadappeared over the river, and was softly rising higher. It clutched atthe trees with long impalpable arms, it rose higher and higher,chilling the air; and white shapes moved away into the jungle asthough the ghosts of shipwrecked mariners were searching stealthily inthe darkness for the spirits of evil that long ago had wrecked them onthe Yann.
As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on the mattedsummit of the jungle, the river monsters came wallowing out of theslime in which they had reclined during the heat of the day, and thegreat beasts of the jungle came down to drink. The butterflies a whilesince were gone to rest. In little narrow tributaries that we passednight seemed already to have fallen, though the sun which haddisappeared from us had not yet set.
And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over us, with thesunlight glistening pink upon their breasts, and lowered their pinionsas soon as they saw the Yann, and dropped into the trees. And thewidgeon began to go up the river in great companies, all whistling,and then would suddenly wheel and all go down again. And there shot byus the small and arrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold cries offlocks of geese, which the sailors told me had recently come in fromcrossing over the Lispasian ranges; every year they come by the sameway, close by the peak of Mluna, leaving it to the left, and themountain eagles know the way they come and--men say--the very hour,and every year they expect them by the same way as soon as the snowshave fallen upon the Northern Plains. But soon it grew so dark that wesaw these birds no more, and only heard the whirring of their wings,and of countless others besides, until they all settled down along thebanks of the river, and it was the hour when the birds of the nightwent forth. Then the sailors lit the lanterns for the night, and hugemoths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at moments their gorgeouscolours would be revealed by the lanterns, then they would pass intothe night again, where all was black. And again the sailors prayed,and thereafter we supped and slept, and the helmsman took our livesinto his care.
When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdondaris, thatfamous city. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair andnotable, and all the more pleasant for our eyes to see after thejungle that was so long with us. And we were anchored by themarketplace, and the captain's merchandise was all displayed, and amerchant of Perdondaris stood looking at it. And the captain had hisscimitar in his hand, and was beating with it in anger upon the deck,and the splinters were flying up from the white planks; for themerchant had offered him a price for his merchandise that the captaindeclared to be an insult to himself and his country's gods, whom henow said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to bedreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of greatfatness, showing his pink palms, and swore that of himself he thoughtnot at all, but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city towhom he wished to sell the merchandise for as low a price as possible,leaving no remuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostlythe thick toomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from thefloor, and tollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore themerchant said if he offered a piffek more the poor folk must gowithout their toomarunds when the winter came, and without theirtollub in the evenings, or else he and his aged father must starvetogether. Thereat the captain lifted his scimitar to his own throat,saying that he was now a ruined man, and that nothing remained to himbut death. And while he was carefully lifting he beard with his lefthand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, and said that ratherthan see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he had conceived anespecial love when first he saw the manner in which he handled hisship, he and his aged father should starve together and therefore heoffered fifteen piffeks more.
When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed to hisgods that they might yet sweeten this merchant's bitter heart--to hislittle lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the captainwept, for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the merchantalso wept, for he said that he was thinking of his aged father, and ofhow soon he would starve, and he hid his weeping face with both hishands, and eyed the tollub again between his fingers. And so thebargain was concluded, and the merchant took the toomarund and tollub,paying for them out of a great clinking purse. And these were packedup into bales again, and three of the merchant's slaves carried themupon their heads into the city. And all the while the sailors had satsilent, cross-legged in a crescent upon the deck, eagerly watching thebargain, and now a murmur of satisfaction arose among them, and theybegan to compare it among themselves with other bargains that they hadknown. And I found out from them that there are seven merchants inPerdondaris, and that they had all come to the captain one by onebefore the bargaining began, and each had warned him privately againstthe others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered the wineof his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in nowise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over, and thesailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain appearedamong them with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care andall made merry together. And the captain was glad in his heart becausehe knew that he had much honour in the eyes of his men because of thebargain that he had made. So the sailors drank the wine of th
eirnative land, and soon their thoughts were back in fair Belzoond andthe little neighbouring cities of Durl and Duz.
But for me the captain poured into a little glass some heavy yellowwine from a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things.Thick and sweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart amighty, ardent fire which had authority over souls of men. It wasmade, the captain told me, with great subtlety by the secret craft ofa family of six who lived in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Oncein these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a bear, and hecame suddenly on a man of that family who had hunted the same bear,and he was at the end of a narrow way with precipice all about him,and his spear was sticking in the bear, and the wound not fatal, andhe had no other weapon. And the bear was walking towards the man, veryslowly because his wound irked him--yet he was now very close. Andwhat the captain did he would not say, but every year as soon as thesnows are hard, and travelling is easy on the Hian Min, that man comesdown to the market in the plains, and always leaves for the captain inthe gate of fair Belzoond a vessel of that priceless secret wine.
And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remembered me ofstalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely planned, and mysoul seemed to grow mightier within me and to dominate the whole tideof the Yann. It may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do notnow minutely recollect every detail of that morning's occupations.Towards evening, I awoke and wishing to see Perdondaris before we leftin the morning, and being unable to wake the captain, I went ashorealone. Certainly Perdondaris was a powerful city; it was encompassedby a wall of great strength and altitude, having in it hollow ways fortroops to walk in, and battlements along it all the way, and fifteenstrong towers on it in every mile, and copper plaques low down wheremen could read them, telling in all the languages of those parts ofthe Earth--one language on each plaque--the tale of how an army onceattacked Perdondaris and what befell that army. Then I enteredPerdondaris and found all the people dancing, clad in brilliant silks,and playing on the tam-bang as they danced. For a fearful thunderstormhad terrified them while I slept, and the fires of death, they said,had danced over Perdondaris, and now the thunder had gone leaping awaylarge and black and hideous, they said, over the distant hills, andhad turned round snarling at them, showing his gleaming teeth, and hadstamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until they rang as though theyhad been bronze. And often and again they stopped in their merrydances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying, "O, God that weknow not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder back to his hills."And I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there upon themarble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily,with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaveswere fanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place Icame to a silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there weremany wonders in Perdondaris, and I would have stayed and seen themall, but as I came to the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in ita huge ivory gate. For a while I paused and admired it, then I camenearer and perceived the dreadful truth. The gate was carved out ofone solid piece!
I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and even as Iran I thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me the tramp ofthe fearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was shed, who was perhapseven then looking for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again Ifelt safer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.
And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night was rolling upfrom the East and North, and only the pinnacles of the towers ofPerdondaris still took the fallen sunlight. Then I went to the captainand told him quietly of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me atonce about the gate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know;and I told him how the weight of the thing was such that it could nothave been brought from afar, and the captain knew that it had not beenthere a year ago. We agreed that such a beast could never have beenkilled by any assault of man, and that the gate must have been afallen tusk, and one fallen near and recently. Therefore he decidedthat it were better to flee at once; so he commanded, and the sailorswent to the sails, and others raised the anchor to the deck, and justas the highest pinnacle of marble lost the last rays of the sun weleft Perdondaris, that famous city. And night came down and cloakedPerdondaris and hid it from our eyes, which as things have happenedwill never see it again; for I have heard since that something swiftand wonderful has suddenly wrecked Perdondaris in a day--towers, andwalls, and people.
And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all white withstars. And with the night there arose the helmsman's song. As soon ashe had prayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonelynight. But first he prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this iswhat I remember of it, rendered into English with a very feebleequivalent of the rhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropicnights
To whatever god may hear.
Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea: whether their way be dark or whether through storm: whether their perils be of beast or of rock: or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea: wherever the tiller is cold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors sleep or helmsman watch: guard, guide, and return us to the old land, that has known us: to the far homes that we know.
To all the gods that are.
To whatever god may hear.
So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors laid them down torest for the night. The silence deepened, and was only broken by theripples of Yann that lightly touched our prow. Sometimes some monsterof the river coughed.
Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again.
And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he began to sing.And he sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, and the olddragon-legends of Belzoond.
Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann the littletales and trifles of his city of Durl. And the songs welled up overthe black jungle and came into the clear cold air above, and the greatbands of stars that looked on Yann began to know the affairs of Durland Duz, and of the shepherds that dwelt in the fields between, andthe flocks that they had, and the loves that they had loved, and allthe little things that they hoped to do. And as I lay wrapped up inskins and blankets listening to those songs, and watching thefantastic shapes of the great trees like to black giants stalkingthrough the night, I suddenly fell asleep.
When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the Yann. And theflow of the river was tumbling now tumultuously, and little wavesappeared; for Yann had scented from afar the ancient crags of Glorm,and knew that their ravines lay cool before him wherein he should meetthe merry wild Irillion rejoicing from fields of snow. So he shook offfrom him the torpid sleep that had come upon him in the hot andscented jungle, and forgot its orchids and its butterflies, and swepton turbulent, expectant, strong; and soon the snowy peaks of the Hillsof Glorm came glittering into view. And now the sailors were waking upfrom sleep. Soon we all ate, and then the helmsman laid him down tosleep while a comrade took his place, and they all spread over himtheir choicest furs.
And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made as she camedown dancing from the fields of snow.
And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying precipitous andsmooth before us, into which we were carried by the leaps of Yann. Andnow we left the steamy jungle and breathed the mountain air; thesailors stood up and took deep breaths of it, and thought of their ownfar-off Acroctian hills on which were Durl and Duz--below them in theplains stands fair Belzoond.
A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but the crags wereshining above us like gnarled moons, and almost lit the gloom. Louderand louder came the Irillion's song, and the sound of her dancing downfrom the fields of snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists,and wreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had plucked upnear the mountain's summit from some celestial garden of the Sun. Thenshe went away seawards with the huge grey Yann and the ravine wi
dened,and opened upon the world, and our rocking ship came through to thelight of day.
And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed through themarshes of Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and flowed solemnly andslowly, and the captain bade the sailors beat on bells to overcome thedreariness of the marshes.
At last the Irusian Mountains came in sight, nursing the villages ofPen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where priestspropitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then the night came downover the plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cappadarnia. Weheard the Pathnites beating upon drums as we passed Imaut andGolzunda, then all but the helmsman slept. And villages scatteredalong the banks of the Yann heard all that night in the helmsman'sunknown tongue the little songs of cities that they know not.
I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before Iremembered why. Then I recalled that by the evening of the approachingday, according to all forseen probabilities, we should come toBar-Wul-Yann, and I should part from the captain and his sailors. And Ihad liked the man because he had given me of his yellow wine that wasset apart among his sacred things, and many a story he had told meabout his fair Belzoond between the Acrotian hills and the Hian Min.And I had liked the ways that his sailors had, and the prayers thatthey prayed at evening side by side, grudging not one another theiralien gods. And I had a liking too for the tender way in which theyoften spoke of Durl and Duz, for it is good that men should love theirnative cities and the little hills that hold those cities up.
And I had come to know who would meet them when they returned to theirhomes, and where they thought the meetings would take place, some in avalley of the Acrotian hills where the road comes up from Yann, othersin the gateway of one or another of the three cities, and others bythe fireside in the home. And I thought of the danger that had menacedus all alike outside Perdondaris, a danger that, as things havehappened, was very real.
And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonelynight, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands. And as Ithought of this the helmsman ceased to sing, and I looked up and saw apale light had appeared in the sky, and the lonely night had passed;and the dawn widened, and the sailors awoke.
And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing resolute betweenYann's borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him and they struggled awhile; then Yann and all that was his were pushed back northwards, sothat the sailors had to hoist the sails, and the wind beingfavourable, we still held onwards.
And we passed Gondara and Narl and Hoz. And we saw memorable, holyGolnuz, and heard the pilgrims praying.
When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near to Nen, thelast of the cities in the River Yann. And the jungle was all about usonce again, and about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges stood up overall things, and watched the city from beyond the jungle.
Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the city andfound that the Wanderers had come into Nen.
And the Wanderers were a weird, dark, tribe, that once in every sevenyears came down from the peaks of Mloon, having crossed by a pass thatis known to them from some fantastic land that lies beyond. And thepeople of Nen were all outside their houses, and all stood wonderingat their own streets. For the men and women of the Wanderers hadcrowded all the ways, and every one was doing some strange thing. Somedanced astounding dances that they had learned from the desert wind,rapidly curving and swirling till the eye could follow no longer.Others played upon instruments beautiful wailing tunes that were fullof horror, which souls had taught them lost by night in the desert,that strange far desert from which the Wanderers came.
None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen nor in anypart of the region of the Yann; even the horns out of which some weremade were of beasts that none had seen along the river, for they werebarbed at the tips. And they sang, in the language of none, songs thatseemed to be akin to the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fearthat haunts dark places.
Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the Wanderers toldone another fearful tales, for though no one in Nen knew aught oftheir language, yet they could see the fear on the listeners' faces,and as the tale wound on, the whites of their eyes showed vividly interror as the eyes of some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Thenthe teller of the tale would smile and stop, and another would tellhis story, and the teller of the first tale's lips would chatter withfear. And if some deadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers wouldgreet him like a brother, and the snake would seem to give hisgreetings to them before he passed on again. Once that most fierce andlethal of tropic snakes, the giant lythra, came out of the jungle andall down the street, the central street of Nen, and none of theWanderers moved away from him, but they all played sonorously ondrums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and the snakemoved through the midst of them and smote none.
Even the Wanderers' children could do strange things, for if any oneof them met with a child of Nen the two would stare at each other insilence with large grave eyes; then the Wanderers' child would slowlydraw from his turban a live fish or snake. And the children of Nencould do nothing of that kind at all.
Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with which theygreet the night, that is answered by the wolves on the heights ofMloon, but it was now time to raise the anchor again that the captainmight return from Bar-Wul-Yann upon the landward tide. So we went onboard and continued down the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little,for we were thinking of our parting, which should be for long, and wewatched instead the splendour of the westerning sun. For the sun was aruddy gold, but a faint mist cloaked the jungle, lying low, and intoit poured the smoke of the little jungle cities, and the smoke of themmet together in the mist and joined into one haze, which becamepurple, and was lit by the sun, as the thoughts of men become hallowedby some great and sacred thing. Sometimes one column from a lonelyhouse would rise up higher than the cities' smoke, and gleam by itselfin the sun.
And now as the sun's last rays were nearly level, we saw the sightthat I had come to see, for from two mountains that stood on eithershore two cliffs of pink marble came out into the river, all glowingin the light of the low sun, and they were quite smooth and ofmountainous altitude, and they nearly met, and Yann went tumblingbetween them and found the sea.
And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the distancethrough that barrier's gap I saw the azure indescribable sea, wherelittle fishing-boats went gleaming by.
And the sunset and the brief twilight came, and the exultation of theglory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink cliffs glowed, thefairest marvel that the eye beheld-and this in a land of wonders. Andsoon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and thecolours of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of thosecliffs was to me as some chord of music that a master's hand hadlaunched from the violin, and which carries to Heaven of Faery thetremulous spirits of men.
And now by the shore they anchored and went no farther, for they weresailors of the river and not of the sea, and knew the Yann but not thetides beyond.
And the time was come when the captain and I must part, he to go backagain to his fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks of the HianMin, and I to find my way by strange means back to those hazy fieldsthat all poets know, wherein stand small mysterious cottages throughwhose windows, looking westwards, you may see the fields of men, andlooking eastwards see glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow,going range on range into the region of Myth, and beyond it into thekingdom of Fantasy, which pertain to the Lands of Dream. Long weshould meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by,and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we claspedhands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting inhis country, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, tohis little lesser gods, the humble ones, to the gods that blessBelzoond.
