way. The fog at last lifted, and it was at once apparent to my father that, although the animals were guiding them towards human habitations, yet it was not the land he had quitted upon starting out upon the journey to the mountain peak. The path now became so plainly visible that my father removed the improvised muzzles from the two animals and allowed them to satisfy their hunger, which they proceeded to do with the keenest relish. So worn out was my mother that she sank helpless to the ground. Refreshing her with a draught of spring-water and the juice of some wild grapes, my father hastily prepared a bed of soft foliage, upon which they were both glad to throw themselves after their long and weary tramp.
They had soon fallen into a deep and most delightful sleep. How long they lay on their leafy bed, wrapt in their refreshing slumber, they knew not.
It certainly was for many a long hour; for when they awoke, hunger was gnawing at their stomachs. Fain would they have at once proceeded to gather fruit, had not their ears been suddenly saluted with most extraordinary noises. They rubbed their eyes and looked about and at each other, deeming themselves the sport of some merry jack-a-dreamer.
But, no; they were wide awake and in full possession of their senses. Again the strange sounds are heard and this time they are nearer and clearer.
There is a rise and a fall, a swelling out and then a dying away.
The sounds are jerky and snappy like and there is a singular music in them.
Nearer and still nearer they come. Louder and still louder they grow. “Wild beasts?” whispered my mother half inquiringly.
“Nay!” falls from my father’s lips. “Not unless human beings may be so wild as to merit the name of beasts.”
“Hark again!” murmured my mother.
There was no mistaking the sounds any longer, for, like a chorus of many voices, shrill and piping, deep and grumbling, soft and musical, harsh and guttural, yet all in a sort of rude and wild harmony, mingling in one mighty strain, now low and scarcely audible and now breaking out with a fierce and seemingly threatening vigor, the singers, chanters, howlers or what they might be, rushed into the valley below us in a wild and yet half regulated disorder.
They were human beings in savage garb, with painted faces and clubs swung lightly across their shoulders. Whether pausing or advancing they still kept up their wild and mysterious chant, choppy, jerky and snappy for all the world like a thousand people who had just drawn plentifully from a thousand snuff boxes.
“Save me, husband!” cried my mother with pallid face. “We shall be put to some awful torture by these wild children of the forest.” A smile so gentle, and yet so calm, that it could not fail to be reassuring spread over my father’s features.
“Never fear!” said he, “I know them, I’ve been seeking them! What has been denied many a traveler stronger and bolder than I, has been accorded to a member of the Trump family in the most miraculous manner. When we return to Europe every Monarch, every learned society, will hasten to bind a medal on my breast, for, dear wife, your husband is the first white man to enter the land of the—”
“The—?” echoed my mother leaning forward and grasping her husband’s arm.
“Melodious Sneezers!”
“Melodious Sneezers?” repeated my mother with wide-opened eye, and amusement seated in every feature.
“Melo—”
But she could get no further. To my father’s infinite amusement, she fell a-sneezing most violently. In such rapid succession did the sneezes flow that it sounded exactly like a diminutive engine under full headway.
At last the fit seemed to have passed. “Melo—” but in vain; she could not reach the second syllable.
And now, in his turn, my father started off, slow at first but going faster and faster.
Strange to say their sneezing soon began to catch the ways of the country and blended thoroughly, keeping time in spite of their efforts to check it.
“Know then, dear wife,” cried my father pantingly when his fit was over, “that those strange people stretched on the greensward below are the “Melodious Sneezers;” that they are not only perfectly harmless, but gentle, kind and peaceable to an astonishing degree. Fear them not! Their clubs are only for game.” “But why—?” asked my mother warily lest another fit should take her.
“I understand thee,” was the reply. “Listen. Know, that in this valley and in the greater ones below, the air is always filled with myriads upon myriads of insects of infinitesimal size; only the strongest microscope can give proof to your sight of their actual existence. For countless generations, these peaceable barbarians here have been subjected to the tickling sensations which you and I have—”
Again my poor parent fell a-sneezing in regular and musical cadences, up and down, deep and shrill, now fast and faster, now slow and slower until silence reigned again.
“Just experienced,” resumed my father, “until it has rendered the effort of sneezing quite as easy as breathing, and taking advantage of results which they soon discerned could not be avoided, these children of nature were not slow to lay aside their usual speech and literally talk by sneezes!”
“With them, a sneeze is capable of so many intonations, so many inflections, that they find no difficulty in expressing all the necessary feelings and sensations,—at least necessary for them in their simple lives, as you shall see later on.”
Fain would my poor mother here express her passing wonder but she dare not open her mouth. “Come, dearest mate,” cried my father gayly. “Courage! Let us descend into this beautiful valley, for as yet we are only standing upon the borders of the “Land of the Melodious Sneezers” called in their soft and musical tongue Lâ-aah-chew-lâ.”
The pronunciation of this word again threw my poor parents into a perfect whirlwind of sneezes; but nothing daunted, they advanced to meet the natives, who at first sight fell prostrate on their faces and for several moments kept up a low plaintive hum of sneezes, with their noses thrust into the grass.
By degrees however, my father succeeding in convincing them that he was quite as peaceably inclined as they were.
Whereupon the Melodious Sneezers performed a most singular and withal pleasing dance of joy, their feet keeping perfect time with their chorus of sneezing.
As my father afterwards learned, the dance was to express their intense gratitude to the “white spirits” for not having eaten them alive.
The march homeward was now entered upon, my father walking hand in hand with the King Chew-chew-lô, and my mother escorted by a score or more of his wives, the favorite of the royal house being named Chew-lâ-â-â-â-â and each successive one according as she occupied a less lofty place in the King’s affections having a shorter name until at last Chew-lâ signified little better than a mere serving maid.
My father found that the villages of the Melodious Sneezers, on account of the frequency and the violence of inundations from the network of rivers which completely shut in their land, consisted of houses or habitations built in the trees or upon lofty piles.
He and my mother were lodged in one of the most commodious of the royal dwellings and so many slaves and attendants were assigned to care for their wants that there was little or no room to move about.
To their great sorrow, my father proceeded to dismiss several hundred in order that he might get close enough to my mother to converse without holloaing and then sent word to King Chew-chew-lô that both he and my mother would need at least a week of perfect rest and quiet to regain their health and strength after their terrible sufferings on the slopes of the Mountains of the Moon.
CHAPTER III.
My birth. The elder Baron reads my horoscope.