Chapter 62 - Page 2

Yet ere it ripen, frosts may nip;--and then, we
plant again; and yet again. Deep, Yoomy, deep, true treasure lies;
deeper than all Mardi's gold, rooted to Mardi's axis. But unlike gold,
it lurks in every soil,--all Mardi over. With golden pills and
potions is sickness warded off?--the shrunken veins of age, dilated
with new wine of youth? Will gold the heart-ache cure? turn toward us
hearts estranged? will gold, on solid centers empires fix? 'Tis toil
world-wasted to toil in mines. Were all the isles gold globes, set in
a quicksilver sea, all Mardi were then a desert. Gold is the only
poverty; of all glittering ills the direst. And that man might not
impoverish himself thereby, Oro hath hidden it, with all other
banes,--saltpeter and explosives, deep in mountain bowels, and river-
beds. But man still will mine for it; and mining, dig his doom.--
Yoomy, Yoomy!--she we seek, lurks not in the Golden Hills!"

"Lo, a vision!" cried Yoomy, his hands wildly passed across his eyes.
"A vast and silent bay, belted by silent villages:--gaunt dogs howling
over grassy thresholds at stark corpses of old age and infancy; gray
hairs mingling with sweet flaxen curls; fields, with turned furrows,
choked with briers; arbor-floors strown over with hatchet-helves,
rotting in the iron; a thousand paths, marked with foot-prints, all
inland leading, none villageward; and strown with traces, as of a
flying host. On: over forest--hill, and dale--and lo! the golden
region! After the glittering spoil, by strange river-margins, and
beneath impending cliffs, thousands delve in quicksands; and, sudden,
sink in graves of their own making: with gold dust mingling their own
ashes. Still deeper, in more solid ground, other thousands slave; and
pile their earth so high, they gasp for air, and die; their comrades
mounting on them, and delving still, and dying--grave pile on grave!
Here, one haggard hunter murders another in his pit; and murdering,
himself is murdered by a third. Shrieks and groans! cries and curses!
It seems a golden Hell! With many camels, a sleek stranger comes--
pauses before the shining heaps, and shows _his_ treasures: yams and
bread-fruit. 'Give, give,' the famished hunters cry--, 'a thousand
shekels for a yam!--a prince's ransom for a meal!--Oh,
stranger! on our knees we worship thee:--take, take our gold; but let
us live!' Yams are thrown them and they fight. Then he who toiled not,
dug not, slaved not, straight loads his caravans with gold; regains
the beach, and swift embarks for home. 'Home! home!' the hunters cry,
with bursting eyes. 'With this bright gold, could we but join our
waiting wives, who wring their hands on distant shores, all then were
well. But we can not fly; our prows lie