much parley of the hands and nodding of the head, as one who doth hold converse in dumbshow with an ape.
“At your Lordship’s service,” now says Simkyn Potter, who together with this Satchunk now shouldreth my litter -- into which I had no sooner entered and commenced my journey, than I looked out from my window on the night. And there for the last I beheld that precipice, that river rich in monstrous copulations, those wretched hovels ’neath the stars. But ’twas most melancholy, whilst thus I took my leave of this barbarous village, to behold withal my erstwhile footman Bromley, if indeed it were he. For -- yet bound to the stake before that fire -- he was so unseemly fouled and swollen, that he quite defied recognizance.
V.
We journeyed thorough the night and following day and ’twas night-time yet again ere we rested, albeit rest I had none. For these salvages were most prolifique of their ranting and I was grievously disquieted by muskittos. The day following proved nothing better. For altho’ within my litter I endeavoured to peruse the Spanyard’s booke for some further intelligence of Elixir, yet read I could not, because that this Satchunk had lamed her shank bone, which so greatly marred her carrying that I began to be much sea-sick. The pity is, whilst we forded streams or ascended hillocks, I had abundant cause to chastise her stumbling, yea, and regret her festering. For apace she had become much sluggish, mulish and infested by flyes which too oft did presume upon the precincts of my person.
In sooth this salvagess of late had become much delinquent to her duty, most saucy and averse to lifting, so that more than once I had recourse to the whipp, tho’ this was most contrarious to my nature. But exceedingly I feared that the ardour of my animal spirits had given occasion to this her surly reluctance and too great familiarity. And therefore I had full many a tiresome hour to lament that I ever had been enchanted by her smell.
Howsomever, at length and after a most nauseous journey, we approached a palizado, which I did surmize enclosed the very temple of these heathens’ mummery. For the crude stakes thereof were embellished with no end of leathern heads and hands and a wondrous deal of bones. Maugre this claptrap of the charnell house, at the first I beheld nought else therein but a stinking fen and the mouth of a prodigious cavern. Of a certainty, I also beheld therein a plenteous herd of crokadells, afloat upon this stew of slime or couchant on the mud, but nought else which might explain this fearsome palizado. Altho’ the mud in there was bestrewn, here and there, with still more butcher’s rubbish -- heads and hands in abundance -- yet what did most alarm was that the cavern’s mouth was quite over-glutted with this offal.
Indeed there I did behold such a heap of putrefactious meat, commix’d with golden gugaws and posies of butter-flowers which the salvages had left, that methought I should heave my gorge for the stench and go stone-deaf for the buzzing of the flyes.
“Motochichi! Motochichi! Motochichi!”
’Twas thus -- whilst I looked and unhappily smelt betwixt the stakes of this devilish palizado -- that of a sudden my ears were assailed by a most displeasing hubbub. Aye, presently these salvages did quite over-boil with their wretchedness. For their dotard priest had scrambled to a clift of rocks above them -- and there did he now stand holding by the hair what methought had once been a maiden’s head the which, tho’ sadly spoiled, did much provoke their merriment.
I have ever found that the nose, either when replete with phlegmatique matter or distressed by a surfeit of noisome odours, is most readily commoded by a pinch of soveraign snuff. Therefore, against this abundant foulness, did I now avail myself of my ivoried snuff-mill, the which my cousin Belinda had given
“At your Lordship’s service,” now says Simkyn Potter, who together with this Satchunk now shouldreth my litter -- into which I had no sooner entered and commenced my journey, than I looked out from my window on the night. And there for the last I beheld that precipice, that river rich in monstrous copulations, those wretched hovels ’neath the stars. But ’twas most melancholy, whilst thus I took my leave of this barbarous village, to behold withal my erstwhile footman Bromley, if indeed it were he. For -- yet bound to the stake before that fire -- he was so unseemly fouled and swollen, that he quite defied recognizance.
V.
We journeyed thorough the night and following day and ’twas night-time yet again ere we rested, albeit rest I had none. For these salvages were most prolifique of their ranting and I was grievously disquieted by muskittos. The day following proved nothing better. For altho’ within my litter I endeavoured to peruse the Spanyard’s booke for some further intelligence of Elixir, yet read I could not, because that this Satchunk had lamed her shank bone, which so greatly marred her carrying that I began to be much sea-sick. The pity is, whilst we forded streams or ascended hillocks, I had abundant cause to chastise her stumbling, yea, and regret her festering. For apace she had become much sluggish, mulish and infested by flyes which too oft did presume upon the precincts of my person.
In sooth this salvagess of late had become much delinquent to her duty, most saucy and averse to lifting, so that more than once I had recourse to the whipp, tho’ this was most contrarious to my nature. But exceedingly I feared that the ardour of my animal spirits had given occasion to this her surly reluctance and too great familiarity. And therefore I had full many a tiresome hour to lament that I ever had been enchanted by her smell.
Howsomever, at length and after a most nauseous journey, we approached a palizado, which I did surmize enclosed the very temple of these heathens’ mummery. For the crude stakes thereof were embellished with no end of leathern heads and hands and a wondrous deal of bones. Maugre this claptrap of the charnell house, at the first I beheld nought else therein but a stinking fen and the mouth of a prodigious cavern. Of a certainty, I also beheld therein a plenteous herd of crokadells, afloat upon this stew of slime or couchant on the mud, but nought else which might explain this fearsome palizado. Altho’ the mud in there was bestrewn, here and there, with still more butcher’s rubbish -- heads and hands in abundance -- yet what did most alarm was that the cavern’s mouth was quite over-glutted with this offal.
Indeed there I did behold such a heap of putrefactious meat, commix’d with golden gugaws and posies of butter-flowers which the salvages had left, that methought I should heave my gorge for the stench and go stone-deaf for the buzzing of the flyes.
“Motochichi! Motochichi! Motochichi!”
’Twas thus -- whilst I looked and unhappily smelt betwixt the stakes of this devilish palizado -- that of a sudden my ears were assailed by a most displeasing hubbub. Aye, presently these salvages did quite over-boil with their wretchedness. For their dotard priest had scrambled to a clift of rocks above them -- and there did he now stand holding by the hair what methought had once been a maiden’s head the which, tho’ sadly spoiled, did much provoke their merriment.
I have ever found that the nose, either when replete with phlegmatique matter or distressed by a surfeit of noisome odours, is most readily commoded by a pinch of soveraign snuff. Therefore, against this abundant foulness, did I now avail myself of my ivoried snuff-mill, the which my cousin Belinda had given
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