Feoffment

“ The ground and the paving-stones are plastered with mud; the straw scattered for our sleeping is soaked through, by the water that comes through the holes and by the boots that wipe themselves with it. Besides, if you sit down, you freeze; and if you lie on the straw, you are troubled by the smell of manure, and sickened by the vapors of ammonia. Fouillade contents himself by looking at his place, and yawning wide enough to dislocate his long jaw, further lengthened by a goatee beard where you would see white hairs if the daylight were really daylight. ”

“ I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the inhabitants. They are constantly increasing in volume and are approaching the center of the city.
“The fog yet hangs over everything. If possible, it is even heavier than before. But the conditions have changed. Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost human agony. Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief glimpse of the streets below.
“People are running to and fro, screaming in despair. ”

“ Luckily the embers were still [Page 264] alive, and there was a fair amount of dry wood still, and by making a big fire we smoked and burnt them out: though through all the hours of that storm, and the whole night of dreary drizzle that succeeded it, these dangerous, venomous little pests constantly immolated themselves on the glowing embers of the fire.
It rained all day, and a wit boom was never intended by nature to do more than afford a modicum of shade from the sun, certainly not to keep out even a shower. ”

“ All the beetles we now see in the valleys or among the mesas were once evil Hopi. If, on coming out of the second fire pit, the breath-body is still considered bad by the chief, he takes it to the third fire, and, if there be no evil in it when it emerges from this pit, it is metamorphosed into an ant, but if unpurified by these three fires—that is, if the chief still finds evil left in the breath-body—he takes it to a fourth fire and again casts it into the flames, where it is utterly consumed, the only residue being soot on the side of the pit. ”

“ Indeed, during dry seasons it not infrequently happens that an immense tract of land is desolated with fire, communicated either by the design or carelessness of the natives, to the dry herbage on the surface. The moment the flame has been kindled, it only waits for the first breath of air to spread it far and wide; then, on the wings of the wind, the fiery tempest streams over the hillsides and through the vast plains. ”

“ Malarial fevers make their appearance in places where the forest has been recently felled, or where the surface earth has been disturbed. It is noticed that labourers employed in deep mines worked by shafts suffer less from fever than do those who are engaged in stripping the alluvial deposits. This, of course, means that a new station, where clearing, digging, and building are in progress, is often unhealthy for a time, and to this must be attributed the evil reputation which the peninsula formerly enjoyed. ”

“ The wind has no pity for weakness, and with a wild shriek of fiendish delight, it bore down upon the frail little body. Seizing the umbrella in its clutches, it whirled it into the air, whilst it made such a furious onslaught on the little waterproof cloak, that the owner of it staggered, lost her balance, and fell headlong to the ground, a bag of books discarding its contents in all directions. ”

“ Years may have passed; higher and higher grew the spinifex, and its long resinous needles entangled themselves in each other, unchecked by fire for no black hunters came there in that season of drought, and the men's bodies lay there, growing more and more unlike humanity, scorched by the seven times heated earth beneath, and the glaring sun above untouched, save by the ants, those scavengers of the desert, or the tiny bright-eyed lizards. ”

“ What the alternations of heat and chill, of moisture and drought, produce ordinarily in the way of miasmata, the same, we may suppose, is produced on the great scale, as a phenomenon at some particular time and place, by one of those cataclysms which break the surface of the earth or the bed of the sea, lower or raise the level of wells and springs, and fill the air with particles of dust or vapour which may overhang the locality for months and visibly disperse themselves to a great distance. ”

“ They are nothing more than the tiny bubbles, swirls, ripples, and breaks on the surface of the great volume of water that flows so inevitably onward. The bit of foam, the tiny wave caused by twig or branch or blade of water-grass, or the great rocks and cliffs that make the roaring whirlpools and rapids,—do they stay the waters, or turn the river back on its course, or in any way prevent its onward flow? ”

“ But towards the ray, towards the unique ray, motionless and eternal, the faint, square ray, which from the beginning of ages took and preserved the form of the air-hole, I advance; I advance in a stumbling hurry, while the fever consumes me, blazes, and dizzies my brain. My feet stop, but with such a shock that one would believe them caught by invisible hands, risen from the soil ”

“ Storms and floods may come and go unheeded, their steady flow is-maintained unchecked by summer or winter weather; for their birth is deep down in the earth, where meteorological disturbances are unknown. Like an old and battered tank, through whose cracked and leaky sides the water it contains is escaping, so these springs find vent through fissures in the mighty tableland, to flow down to the sea. ”

“ Hitherto the unmeltable slags and the molten portion of his heart had been boiling up together within him, and the warm flood had pressed upward, ever higher and hotter, in his bosom, only his face had remained cold and hard,—for certain persons have, exactly at the melting point, the greatest appearance and capacity of hardening, as snow freezes just before a thaw; but now the strain upon the too tightly-bound queue, which was the paradoxical sign of the approaching eruption, made him, in the paroxysm of his fury, tear the Würzburg appendage off over his head. ”

“ A priori we might suppose that the formation of fog would arrest cooling by radiation, and that fog would thus act as a protection of plants against frost. The condensation of water evaporated from wet ground, which affords the material for making fog, does apparently act as a protection, and heavy watering is sometimes used to protect plants from frost, but the same cannot be said of fog itself—cooling appears to go on in spite of the formation of fog. ”

“ Flashing jets of flame from the exploding shells cast a weird, unnatural light over the surroundings, and as if some mighty convulsion of nature was upheaving them, giant geysers of earth, mud and débris shot high in the air, while streams of iron and steel created havoc and destruction on every hand. ”

“ Destructive damps, and clouds of noxious dust, infect the air they breathe. Sometimes water incessantly distils on their naked bodies; or, bursting upon them in streams, drowns them, and deluges their work. At other times, pieces of detached rocks crush them to death; or the earth, breaking in upon them, buries them alive. ”

“ The storm raged and the snow fell nearly all day. The rations were all gone, and progress against the wind and through the drifts was impossible. Another night of such bitter cold and exposure would in all probability be their last.
They shouted in unison, but their shouts were drowned in the shrieks of the tempest. Towards night the storm lulled and again they shouted, but no sound came back but the sigh of the blast. Help! help! they cried. Unhappy men, could help come to them except from on high! ”

“ The immense mass of vegetation with which the fertile soil loads itself during the summer is suddenly withered, and the whole earth is covered with combustible materials. A single spark of fire falling anywhere upon these plains at such a time, instantly kindles a blaze that spreads on every side, and continues its destructive course as long as it finds fuel, these fires sweeping on with a rapidity which renders it hazardous even to fly before them. ”

“ I've been in ships with fever before now."
Awaking, as it were, at the sound of his voice, she came closer to him. "But ship fever! I have heard of it! Men have died like rotten sheep in crowded vessels like this." ”

“ If by any accident a spark of fire falls on the scorched plains, a conflagration spreads from river to river, destroying every animal, and leaves the clayey soil sterile for years, till vicissitudes of weather crumble the brick-like surface into earth. ”

“ The flux and reflux, when seen were quite regular. Every flood began gently, its velocity increasing by degrees, until at length it rushed in with great impetuosity, till it had attained its full hight. Having remained for a little time stationary, it then retired, ebbing gently at first, but afterward sinking away with great swiftness. At every flux the whole body of water seemed to be violently thrown against the bank; but neither during the time of the flux, nor that of the reflux, did there appear even the least wrinkle of a wave on the other parts of the moat. ”

“ A current, much agitated, traversed it at all times from end to end. The sharpness of its turnings was favourable or unfavourable, according to the nature of the prevailing wind; sometimes it broke the swell and caused it to fall; sometimes it exasperated it. This latter effect was the most frequent. An obstacle arouses the anger of the sea, and pushes it to excesses. The foam is the exaggeration of the waves.
The stormy winds in these narrow and tortuous passages between the rocks are subjected to a similar compression, and acquire the same malignant character. ”

“ He may possibly avoid the surging flame of the fire damp, he may escape from the falling after damp, and make his way unharmed through bodies of black damp lying thick about his feet, but if he has still to encounter this terrible white damp his good fortune will have been of little avail; death will almost surely seize him. ”

“ And over and above all else there was bestial fever, a lust for death which made this multitude delirious, an eagerness to see life flow forth fresh and ruddy beneath the knife, so that as it coursed over the soil they might dip their feet in it. ”

“ Those who resided where the vast mass of eruptive matter broke forth, filled with consternation and dread, had to flee almost naked from their houses to find shelter and safety on higher ground from the desolating, foul, muddy flood, leaving furniture and cattle behind them — a prey to the black and nauseous stream. ”

“ A great mass of foam was around its mouth, and it was brandishing a marline spike, and bellowing. A terrifying spectacle in the half light of dusk—a spectacle to put the fear of God into any man. And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. ”

“ Such catastrophes roll mountains and masses like a brook does its little pebbles, and throw up the water released from confinement in the cavities of heights which attract and collect it. A flood of liquid earth rolled then far and wide from the mountains without order and with numerous arms, but conformably to nature, the heavy particles sank. ”

“ The furnace winds of midnight were withering to flesh and blood. And sometimes the air carried invisible death in shape of poison gas or dust. In winter, sudden changes of temperature, whirling icy winds down upon a prospector who had gone to sleep in warmth, would freeze him to death. ”

“ Down pours a tornado of wind, sweeping over land and water, driving the ill-secured vessels from their moorings, bearing clouds of noxious sands into our habitations, and but that long experience has suggested to us efficient means of securing our property from destruction, much ruin would constantly result from the visit of that little, apparently simple mist. ”

“ These Patients earnestly covet a great Load of covering, during the Cold or Shivering; but we should be very careful to lighten them as soon as it abates; so that when the succeeding Heat begins, they may have no more than their usual Weight of Covering. It were to be wished perhaps, they had rather less. The Country People lie upon a Feather-bed, and under a downy Coverlet, or Quilt, that is commonly extremely heavy; and the Heat which is heightened and retained by Feathers, is particularly troublesome to Persons in a Fever. ”

“ When thoroughly dry, the slightest touch with the point of a feather, shaking the paper on which it rests, or even opening too rapidly the door of a closet where it has been put to dry, will cause it to explode, producing a quantity of violet-colored fumes. ”

“ The grand provocative of plague was no obvious nuisance above ground, but the loading [Pg 337] of the soil, generation after generation, with an immense quantity of cadaveric matters, which were diffused in the pores of the ground under the feet of the living, to rise in emanations, more deadly in one season than in another, according as the level of the ground-water and the heat of the earth determined the degree of oxidation, or the formation of the more dangerous half-way products of decomposition. ”