Chapter 41

Chiefly Of Sing Bello

"Now Taji," said Media, "with old Bello of the Hump whose island of
Dominora is before us, I am at variance."

"Ah! How so?"

"A dull recital, but you shall have it."

And forthwith his Highness began.

This princely quarrel originated, it seems, in a slight jostling
concerning the proprietorship of a barren islet in a very remote
quarter of the lagoon. At the outset the matter might have been easily
adjusted, had the parties but exchanged a few amicable words. But each
disdaining to visit the other, to discuss so trivial an affair, the
business of negotiating an understanding was committed to certain
plenipos, men with lengthy tongues, who scorned to utter a word short
of a polysyllable.

Now, the more these worthies penetrated into the difficulty, the wider
became the breach; till what was at first a mere gap, became a yawning
gulf.

But that which had perhaps tended more than any thing else to deepen
the variance of the kings, was hump-backed Bello's dispatching to Odo,
as his thirtieth plenipo, a diminutive little negotiator, who all by
himself, in a solitary canoe, sailed over to have audience of Media;
into whose presence he was immediately ushered.

Darting one glance at him, the king turned to his chieftains, and
said:--"By much straining of your eyes, my lords, can you perceive
this insignificant manikin? What! are there no tall men in Dominora,
that King Bello must needs send this dwarf hither?"

And charging his attendents to feed the embassador extraordinary with
the soft pap of the cocoanut, and provide nurses during his stay, the
monarch retired from the arbor of audience.

"As I am a man," shouted the despised plenipo, raising himself on his
toes, "my royal master will resent this affront!--A dwarf, forsooth!--
Thank Oro, I am no long-drawn giant! There is as much stuff in me, as
in others; what is spread out in their clumsy carcasses, in me is
condensed. I am much in little! And that much, thou shalt know full
soon, disdainful King of Odo!"

"Speak not against our lord the king," cried the attendants.

"And speak not ye to me, ye headless spear poles!"

And so saying, under sufferance of being small, the plenipo was
permitted to depart unmolested; for all his bravadoes, fobbing his
credentials and affronts.

Apprized of his servant's ignoble reception, the choleric Bello burst
forth in a storm of passion; issuing orders for, one thousand conch
shells to be blown, and his warriors to assemble by land and by sea.

But bethinking him of the hostilities that might ensue, the sagacious
Media hit upon an