Ega

“ One day, soon after my arrival, when I was explaining these things to a listening circle seated on benches in the grassy street, one of the audience, a considerable tradesman, a Mameluco native of Ega, got suddenly quite enthusiastic, and exclaimed, “How rich are these great nations of Europe! We half-civilised creatures know nothing. Let us treat this stranger well, that he may stay amongst us and teach our children.” ”

“ Two or three dress themselves up as giants, with the help of a tall framework. One enacts the part of the Caypór, a kind of sylvan deity similar to the Curupíra which I have before mentioned. The belief in this being seems to be common to all the tribes of the Tupí stock. According to the figure they dressed up at Ega, he is a bulky, misshapen monster, with red skin and long shaggy red hair hanging half way down his back. They believe that he has subterranean campos and hunting grounds in the forest, well stocked with pacas and deer. ”

“ Of the town, nearly two miles distant, church spires and factory chimneys were visible; but beyond the roaring river and far away, rose against blue sky a battlement of hills, tapestried with that tender, purple mist woven only in the loom of distance. With less than usual interest, Eglah began to examine the papers and letters lying in her lap. One heavy envelope contained samples of sprigged muslin for curtains ”

“ Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Ogg's, and men who busied themselves with political questions were regarded with some suspicion, as dangerous characters; they were usually persons who had little or no business of their own to manage, or, if they had, were likely enough to become insolvent.
This was the general aspect of things at St. Ogg's in Mrs. Glegg's day, and at that particular period in her family history when she had had her quarrel with Mr. Tulliver. ”

“ Egas has a population of about eight hundred inhabitants, and is the largest and most thriving place above Barra. It occupies an important position with regard to the trade of the river, being nearly midway between Barra and Loreto, (the Peruvian frontier,) and near the mouths of the great rivers Juruá, Japurá, and Teffé.
There are now eight or ten commercial houses at Egas that drive a tolerably brisk trade between Peru and Pará, besides employing agents to go into the neighboring rivers and collect from the Indians the productions of the land and the water. ”

“ Egil had his weapons that he was wont to have, a helm and shield, a sword at his girdle, a halberd in his hand. He went up into the island and along the border of a wood. He had now drawn a hood over his helm. He came where there were some lads, and with them large sheep-dogs. And when they began to exchange words, he asked whence they were, and why they were there, and had such big dogs. They said: 'You must be a very silly fellow; have you not heard that a bear goes about the island here, a great pest? He kills both men and sheep, and a price is set upon his head. ”

“ In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true tale. ”

“ The chief then greeted Oga and persuaded him to stay on from day to day, and told him that a play was being brought from Bendega.
When the people from Bendega came near the town of Inkum, Abang, who was disguised in the dress of an Egbo and covered from head to foot in a very fantastic costume, sent some boys to Oga with a message telling him to come out and meet them. Oga was so proud at hearing that a play had come all the way from Bendega to escort him to the town that he willingly went out to meet them, not knowing that the real Abang had come with them. ”

“ At this point Gobin Agace, whom I had instructed, stepped forward and bent his head.
[Pg 77]
"Sire," began he, "I do know such a ford, and I promise, under peril of life, that I will conduct you to a place where you and your whole army may pass the Somme without any risk."
"Go on," said the king, inspired with a new hope by the peasant's words.
"There are certain fordable places," continued Gobin Agace, "where you may pass, twelve men abreast, twice in the day, and not have water above your knees. When the tide is in, the river is full and deep, and no one can cross it ”

“ But Pellana, a different place from these, belongs to the Lacedæmonians, and is situated towards the territory of Megalopolitis.
[Pg 73]
Ægeira255 is situated upon a hill. Bura is at the distance from the sea-coast of about 40 stadia. It was swallowed up by an earthquake. It is said, that from the fountain Sybaris which is there, the river Sybaris in Italy had its name.
Æga (for this is the name by which Ægæ is called) is not now inhabited, but the Ægienses occupy the territory. Ægium, however, is well inhabited. ”

“ Those wounded men who were fated to live were healed. Egil remained with the king the winter after the fall of Thorolf, and was greatly honoured by him. The men who had followed the brothers, and had escaped from the battle, were there with Egil. Egil made a drapa (= laudatory poem) on the king, who gave him two gold rings, each of which weighed one mark, and a costly cloak which he himself had worn. When spring began, Egil announced to the king that 478he intended to go away in the summer to Norway to find out how the affairs of Asgerd, the wife of his brother Thorolf, stood. ”

“ Awake! the balmy zephyr blows,
The hawthorn blooms, the daisy glows,
The trees regain their verdant pride,
The turtle woos his tender bride;
To love each warbler tunes the song,
And Forth in dimples glides along. ”

“ But remember, Eda, not one word of Dudley's return nor of his pardon. There is much to be done and thought of."
Eda would fain have had some explanations regarding the wreck of the vessel which brought her cousin over, but Edgar answered gaily, "I will tell all that to the assembled multitude in the drawing-room;" and then he, in turn, asked questions about Clive Grange, and its inhabitants; but Eda replied in the same tone in which he had spoken, "I will tell you all that to-morrow, Edgar. You cannot see Helen to-night, nor, indeed, to-morrow either, for she and Mr. ”

“ In this remote and solitary spot I can say that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring. ”

“ For some distance the lower vegetation was so dense that the road runs under an arcade of foliage, the branches having been cut away only sufficiently to admit of the passage of a small canoe. These thickets are formed chiefly of bamboos, whose slender foliage and curving stems arrange themselves in elegant, feathery bowers; but other social plants,—slender green climbers with tendrils so eager in aspiring to grasp the higher boughs that they seem to be endowed almost with animal energy, and certain low trees having large elegantly-veined leaves, contribute also to the jungly masses. ”

“ It was as when you lift a wreck from the tranquil sea and let it fall again to the depths, useless to wave or shore; the black and ghastly hulk is covered; it is seen no more; but the water palpitates with circling rings, trembles above the grave, dashes quick and apprehensive billows upon the sand, and is long in regaining its quiet surface.
"I wonder if there ever was a perfect man," said Jo, at length, drawing a deep sigh. ”

“ And a gallant fleet was sailing there whose fighting days are done,
Sloop and galleon, brig and pinnace, all the rigs you never met,
Fighting frigate, grave three-decker with their snowy canvas set;
Dozed and dreamed, when, on a sudden, ev'ry sail began to swell,
For the breeze has spoken strangers, with a stirring tale to tell,
And a thousand eager voices flung the challenge out to sea:
"Come they hither in the old way, in the only way that's free?" ”

“ What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring things. Boldwood, who seemed so much deeper and higher and stronger in feeling than Gabriel, had not yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simple lesson which Oak showed a mastery of by every turn and look he gave—that among the multitude of interests by which he was surrounded, those which affected his personal well-being were not the most absorbing and important in his eyes. Oak meditatively looked upon the horizon of circumstances without any special regard to his own standpoint in the midst. That was how she would wish to be. ”

“ We may yet visit many lovely and lonely places,—meadows thick with violet, or the homes of the shy Rhodora, or those sloping forest-haunts where the slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads,—but no scene will linger on our vision like this annual Feast of the Lilies. On scorching mountains, amid raw prairie-winds, or upon the regal ocean, the white pageant shall come back to us again, with all the luxury of summer heats, and all the fragrant coolness that can relieve them. ”

“ The cargo had been placed too far forward, and to make matters worse my heavy friend obstinately insisted on sitting astride on the top of the pile, instead of taking his place near the stern; singing from his perch a most indecent love-song, and disregarding the inconvenience of having to bend down almost every minute to pass under the boughs and hanging sipós as we sped rapidly along. The canoe leaked, but not, at first, alarmingly. Long before sunset, darkness began to close in under these gloomy shades, and our steersman could not avoid now and then running the boat into the thicket. ”

“ But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one of his fields on a certain December morning—sunny and exceedingly mild—might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these. ”

“ He will be acquitted, to a certainty, I think: nay, I am sure."
"I do not know, Edgar," answered Eda; "but in the mean time we must do all we can to help and comfort him; and that is why I wished to speak with you so much, for I know no one but you who seem to love him here."
"Oh, yes! there is one other, Eda," answered Edgar, with a smile; "one who loves him very well, I think."
The colour rose in Eda's cheek, but she raised her eyes to his, answering at once, "There certainly is, Edgar, and I have just told your father so. ”

“ And then by the dear subtlety of all things great and good, with passion came also, with unhesitating foot, reverence and happiness and aspiration, and Love thus born made of Ogga a divine thing, and of Lhatto, yet unwaking, yet unknown, a woman drifting ashore in a little awkward boat from the irresolute sea, it made of her a wonder of life, full of affluent loveliness, full of assured excellence, full of peace, and Ogga, feeling all these things, knelt and touched the hand of the sleeping girl. ”

“ It was before a creature of this sort, gigantic, grotesque, decadent and foreign, that Ogga stared with all his eyes, thinking to please Lhatto by bringing back to her some trophy from its body. The strange beast continued its prolonged feeding and Ogga watched. The night, darkening the valley with blue shadows, that sensibly thickened, overtaking each other and pressing like a repulsing force the fleeing lights, rising upward on the mountain, soon hid the animal, and with the night came rain and a low wind raising innumerable voices in the great woods. ”

“ Yes! in the prehistoric, in Ogga, the gaunt horror of the desire to kill had arisen. The pallid beast of hatred, ridden by the clutching hags of envy and jealousy and spite and terror, ran before Ogga in his path. He—Ogga—stared wildly at the image of a man, stifled and gasping, held at the throat by Ogga’s hand—his own—until the eyes started from their sockets, turning their lifeless whitenesses downward and upward in the wanton agony of death. ”

“ The Aga had sent four servants belonging to his stables to accompany us; active, lively, and good-humoured fellows. Our people too, were all recruited. Ismael, and blind Georgis, were left to take care of the house in my absence. About twelve o'clock we got into a valley, and hid ourselves in the lowest part of it, under a bank, for the night was exceeding cold; but we had spirits with us, which we drank with moderation. We there refreshed our beasts about half an hour, and again stopt in a valley among trees. ”

“ Ogga stole under the cover of the darkness across the valley, and guided by that indefinite light which even in the starless nights pervades the air drew near to his prey whose occasional movements he heard, heavy, slow and irregular. ”

“ And who, born amongst men, shall not know beauty? Ogga’s eyes had only met the forest, the wild animal, the untenanted steppes, the sky, the ice, the river, but when they met the face of Lhatto, the charm of abiding there was unquestioned. ”

“ As Ogga saw Lhatto he loved her, and he loved her nobly. The whole process of approach, preparation, attack and capture was instantaneously traversed. How could it be otherwise! The physiological instant was critical and victorious. Ogga was young, the tides of blood in his veins bore with [Pg 114] them the impetuous claims of nature. ”