Chapter 44

Through Dominora, They Wander After Yillah

At last, withdrawing from the presence of King Bello, we went forth,
still intent on our search.

Many brave sights we saw. Fair fields; the whole island a garden;
green hedges all round; neat lodges, thick as white mice in the
landscape; old oak woods, hale and hearty as ever; old temples buried
in ivy; old shrines of old heroes, deep buried in broad groves of bay
trees; old rivers laden down with heavy-freighted canoes; humped
hills, like droves of camels, piled up with harvests; every sign and
token of a glorious abundance, every sign and token of generations of
renown. Rare sight! fine sight! none rarer, none finer in Mardi.

But roving on through this ravishing region, we passed through a corn-
field in full beard, where a haggard old reaper laid down his hook,
beseeching charity for the sake of the gods.--"Bread, bread! or I die
mid these sheaves!"

"Thrash out your grain, and want not."

"Alas, masters, this grain is not mine; I plough, I sow, I reap, I
bind, I stack,--Lord Primo garners."

Rambling on, we came to a hamlet, hidden in a hollow; and beneath
weeping willows saw many mournful maidens seated on a bank; beside
each, a wheel that was broken. "Lo, we starve," they cried, "our
distaffs are snapped; no more may we weave and spin!"

Then forth issued from vaults clamorous crowds of men, hands tied to
their backs.--"Bread! Bread!" they cried. "The magician hath turned us
out from our glen, where we labored of yore in the days of the merry
Green Queen. He has pinioned us hip and arm that we starve. Like sheep
we die off with the rot.--Curse on the magician. A curse on his
spell."

Bending our steps toward the glen, roaring down the rocks we descried
a stream from the mountains. But ere those waters gained the sea,
vassal tribute they rendered. Conducted through culverts and moats,
they turned great wheels, giving life to ten thousand fangs and
fingers, whose gripe no power could withstand, yet whose touch was
soft as the velvet paw of a kitten. With brute force, they heaved down
great weights, then daintily wove and spun; like the trunk of the
elephant, which lays lifeless a river-horse, and counts the pulses of
a moth. On all sides, the place seemed alive with its spindles. Round
and round, round and round; throwing off wondrous births at every
revolving; ceaseless as the cycles that circle in heaven. Loud hummed
the loom, flew the shuttle like lightning, red roared the grim forge,
rung anvil and sledge; yet no mortal was seen.

"What ho, magician! Come forth from thy cave!"

But all deaf were the spindles, as the mutes, that