Luana

“ As we touched the pretty, level beach Ja leaped out and I followed him. Together we dragged the skiff far up into the bushes that grew beyond the sand.
"We must hide our canoes," explained Ja, "for the Mezops of Luana are always at war with us and would steal them if they found them," he nodded toward an island farther out at sea, and at so great a distance that it seemed but a blur hanging in the distant sky. The upward curve of the surface of Pellucidar was constantly revealing the impossible to the surprised eyes of the outer-earthly. ”

“ A creature of almost volcanic impulse and hot emotion, there was something lawless in her mentality. It was her heritage from savage forbears.
The long journey was nearing its end. More than half the continent had passed under train wheels since the Reverend Arthur Steele and his little family had set out to return from the cities of the East to his mission on Lake Mataba. Vacation came to him once in three years, and this was the end of his first holiday since taking up his appointment.
Luana was glad it was over. Civilization had no appeal for her. She was of the outlands. ”

“ Unfortunately, the more telling phase of the climax was perforce enacted "off," when somewhere and at some time an exactly similar bundle was exultantly unwrapped, exposing to view a congealed mass of Luana's good red clay. But you cannot have it both ways, even in a peep show. ”

“ It was Sirjohnnie's first hurricane, that was clear. Go back! To what? Felisi led the way along the edge of the cliff.
"Gad!" said Sirjohnnie, looking over at the starlit water thrashing the foot of the cliff. "It's driven the sea clean over the beach. I wonder——"
His voice trailed away, and he hurried on in silence.
At the edge of the cove they stopped and stood side by side, looking down on where the beach had been. There was none. The green village had been wiped from the face of Luana as cleanly as a drawing from a slate. The beach was now a bay of foaming water. ”

“ The Complete Beachcomber THE imitation pink coral factory was situated high up on a cliff about a mile along the coast from Levuka.
Those who associate the word "factory" with a mental picture of towering chimneys belching black smoke, the hum of machinery, and streams of pale-faced men and women hurrying to work with papier mâché dispatch cases of lunch in their hands, will be grievously disappointed, because in this particular instance the factory belonged to Felisi of Luana, and, like its inventor, the process of production was as simple as it was effective. ”

“ Luan is inhabited by from two hundred to three hundred families, who reside in villages placed very near to each other on the north-east side of the island, at the foot of the mountain. The adjacent islets are not peopled, but they are occasionally visited by the inhabitants of Luan, who have gardens on them, while they also afford a resting place to those engaged in the trepang fishery. ”

“ Calling Luanus to him, he said, “My child, thou hast asked a perilous gift from God; many, out of undue love of knowledge, have made shipwreck of their souls.” “My father,” replied Luanus, with the utmost humility, “if I learn to know God I shall never offend Him, for those only offend Him who know him not.” “Go, my son,” said the abbot, charmed with his reply, “remain firm in the faith, and the true science shall conduct thee on the road to heaven.”
Luanus was the founder of the monastery of Clonfert, in Leinster, and the author of another religious rule highly prized by his countrymen. ”

“ Here, as in the Chapel of S. Catherine at Milan, we feel that Luini was the greatest colourist among frescanti. In the 'Sposalizio' the female heads are singularly noble and idyllically graceful. Some of the young men too have Luini's special grace and abundance of golden hair. In the 'Disputa' the gravity and dignity of old men are above all things striking.
Passing into the choir, we find on either hand the 'Adoration of the Magi' and the 'Purification of the Virgin,' two of Luini's divinest frescoes. ”

“ Their most famous port was Luna, which was situated on the Macra, a river which, flowing from the Apennines, divided Liguria from Etruria, and fell into the Tyrrhenian Sea. There seems good reason to believe that Luna was a place of great trade before the Trojan war; it was extremely capacious, and in every respect worthy of the commercial enterprise and wealth of the Tuscans. Populonium, a city which was situate on a high promontory of the same name, that ran a considerable way into the sea, also possessed a very commodious harbour, capable of receiving a great number of ships. ”

“ It pleased God to deliver us from such peril. Our course was now between the north and north-east, for our intention was to reach the coast of Ethiopia, our distance from it being 300 leagues, in the Gulf of the Atlantic Sea. By the grace of God, on the 10th day of May, we came in sight of land, where we were able to refresh ourselves, the land being called La Serra Liona. We were there fifteen days, and thence shaped a course to the islands of the Azores, which are distant nearly 750 leagues from that Serra. ”

“ The aurora, or the sun, hides during the night, and no one sees, no one is allowed to see her; the god Lunus shows himself; he remains during the night with the sun, or with the solar aurora, whom no [Pg 139] one can see during the night; the god Lunus then transforms and disfigures himself, so that he becomes unrecognisable, invisible; the guilty one glides away, and escapes; it then seems impossible that the god Lunus, who is no longer seen, can have been with the light of the sun ”

“ The walls are entirely covered with paintings, of the strong gay colour characteristic of Luini’s work, dimmed by time to a delightful harmony where the temptation to “freshen it up” has been resisted. Beautiful ladies, in richest robes, look out from beside the High Altar with that sweet familiar smile, of which the charm grows somewhat stale by too much repetition. The emblems they carry show them to be saints—Cecilia and Ursula holding a tabernacle between them, Apollonia and Lucia standing on either side of a small figure of the Redeemer. ”

“ Still to the south our pointed keels we guide,
And through the austral gulf still onward ride.
Her palmy forests mingling with the skies,
Leona's rugged steep behind us flies;
The Cape of Palms that jutting land we name,
Already conscious of our nation's fame.
Where the vext waves against our bulwarks roar,
And Lusian towers o'erlook the bending shore:
Our sails wide swelling to the constant blast,
Now by the isle from Thomas named we past ”

“ This magnificent mountain range can be seen better still from Lunga near Iona, whence it is a short sail with a southerly wind. In Lunga there is a hill called Cnoc Cruit or Dun Cruit, and thence one may see, as in a vast illuminated missal whose pages are of deep blue with bindings of azure and pale gold, innumerable green isles and peaks and hills of the hue of the wild plum. When last I was there it was a day of cloudless June. There was not a sound but the hum of the wild bee foraging in the long garths of [Pg 160] white clover, and the continual sighing of a wave. ”

“ The Body of the Island Luconia is composed of many spacious plain Savannahs, and large Mountains. The North-end seems to be more plain and even, I mean freer from Hills, than the South-end: but the Land is all along of a good heighth. It does not appear so flourishing and green as some of the other Islands in this Range; especially that of St. John, Mindanao, Batt Island, &c. yet in some places it is very Woody. Some of the Mountains of this Island afford Gold, and the Savannahs are well stockt with herds of Cattle, especially Buaffaloes [sic] . ”

“ You would have said there can be no lamp without oil or gas, or other combustible substance, to feed it; and yet you see a filament which sheds a light like that of noon all around it, and does not waste at all. So the Lunites live by influx of divine energy, just as the incandescent lamp glows,—glows, and is not consumed; receiving its life, if we may call it so, from the central power, which wears the unpleasant name of 'dynamo.'”
The Lunites appeared to me as pale phosphorescent figures of ill-defined outline, lost in their own halos, as it were. ”

“ LUNA (mod. Luni) , an ancient city of Etruria, Italy, 41/2 m. S.E. of the modern Sarzana. It was the frontier town of Etruria, on the left bank of the river, Macra, the boundary in imperial times between Etruria and Liguria. When the Romans first appeared in these parts, however, the Ligurians were in possession of the territory as far as Pisa. ”

“ Luini is, perhaps, the best central type of the highly-trained Italian painter. He is the only man who entirely united the religious temper which was the spirit-life of art, with the physical power which was its bodily life. He joins the purity and passion of Angelico to the strength of Veronese: the two elements, poised in perfect balance, are so calmed and restrained, each by the other, that most of us lose the sense of both. ”

“ A forest of mangos, mangosteens, bread-fruit, and cocoa-palms, extends between the town and Fort Teloko, the first Portuguese stronghold, and now a rocky outpost of Fort Orange, the headquarters of the Dutch troops. Beyond shadowy nutmeg groves lies the Laguna, a volcanic lake between mountain and sea. In the poetic Moluccas one draws closer to the warm heart of Nature than in any other part of the vast Archipelago, for the great Mother seems calling her children to rest, as she raises the veil from her inmost shrine and discloses her altar of peace. ”

“ Midway between Moreno and Lujan is a small station called General Rodriguez. Lujan is one of the oldest towns in the province, a river of that name running past it to the Parana, joining the little stream of Tigre, the terminus of the Northern Railway, whence passenger steamers go up to Rosario. There is a large station and warehouse at Lujan, where a quantity of wheat was being loaded into carts, to be ground in a mill called the “Mill of the Virgins,” a name which I conclude arises from an anecdote recorded as to the formation of the town. ”

“ The discovery of Guiana, by some called “the Wild Coast,” has been long (though with uncertainty) attributed to the Spanish commander Vasco Nunes, who, in the year 1504, after discovering Cuba to be an island, landed on the continent of South America, penetrated as far as between the rivers Oroonoko and Amazon, and comprehended that country in the extensive tract of land, to which, in contradiction to Cuba and the adjacent islands, he gave the name of Terra Firma. ”

“ This is little more than a variant of the story that he went to Monza under similar circumstances and obtained the protection of the Pelucca family on the same terms. In the absence of anything in the nature of reliable record this story has been able to pass, but against it one likes to put the tradition that one of the heads in the frescoes is that of Luini himself. We find that head so simple, so refined, and so old—the beard is long and the hair is scanty—and so serene in its expression that it is exceedingly difficult to believe that brawling could have entered into the artist’s life. ”

“ The sun falls behind Marivales, painting a flaming background for mountains and sea. When that smouldering curtain of night has dropped, and the sea lies glooming, and the ships of all nations [52] swing on their anchor chains, there are few lovelier spots than the Luneta. The wind comes soft as velvet; the surf croons a lullaby, and the little toy horses and toy victorias spin up and down between the palms, settling at last around the turf oval which surrounds the bandstand.
The Luneta, Manila
Here are soldiers in clean khaki on the benches ”

“ The goddess spake.—We are now come to the conclusion of the fiction of the island of Venus, a fiction which is divided into three principal parts. In each of these the poetical merit is obvious, nor need we fear to assert, that the happiness of our author, in uniting all these parts together in one great episode, would have excited the admiration of Longinus. The heroes of the Lusiad receive their reward in the Island of Love. ”

“ The Llanos of South America incline towards the east and the south; their waters are tributary to the Orinoco, the Amazon, or the Rio de la Plata.
"What most strongly characterizes the savannahs or steppes of South America, is the entire absence of hills, or inequalities of any kind. The soil, for hundreds of miles together, is perfectly flat, without even a hillock. For this reason, the Castilian conquerors, who penetrated first from Coro to the banks of the Apuré, named the regions to which they came, neither deserts, nor savannahs, nor meadows, but plains—los Llanos. ”

“ A beautiful fantastic shape floats to us through the morning light; first cloudy gold like the horizon, then pearly gray, then varying blue, with growing green lights;—Saint Lucia. Most strangely formed of all this volcanic family;—everywhere mountainings sharp as broken crystals. Far off the Pitons—twin peaks of the high coast—show softer contours, like two black breasts pointing against the sky....
... As we enter the harbor of Castries, the lines of the land seem no less exquisitely odd, in spite of their rich verdure, than when viewed afar off;—they have a particular pitch of angle.... ”

“ He is said to have written poems and essays, though we are not in a position to say where they are to be found, and it is clear that he had a singularly detached spirit and that the hand of a skilled painter was associated with the mind of a little child. In some aspects he is as simple as those primitive painters of Umbria whose backgrounds are all of gold. Like so many other painters of the Renaissance Luini’s saints and angels are peasant folk, the people [Pg 42] he saw around him. ”