Idle Days On The Yann

by Lord Dunsany

So I came down through the wood to the bank of Yann and

found, as had been prophesied, the ship "Bird of the River"
about to loose her cable.
The captain sate cross-legged upon the white deck with
his scimitar lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and
the sailors toiled to spread the nimble sails to bring the
ship into the central stream of Yann, and all the while sang
ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the evening
descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous
abode of distant gods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an
anxious city, into the wing-like sails.
And so we came into the central stream, whereat the
sailors lowered the greater sails. But I had gone to bow
before the captain, and to inquire concerning the miracles,
and appearances among men, of the most holy gods of whatever
land he had come from. And the captain answered that he
came from fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that were the
least and humblest, who seldom sent the famine or the
thunder, and were easily appeased with little battles. And
I told how I came fromIreland , which is ofEurope , whereat
the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said,
"There are no such places in all the land of dreams." When
they had ceased to mock me, I explained that my fancy mostly
dwelt in thedesertofCuppar-Nombo , about a beautiful blue
city called Golthoth the Damned, which was sentinelled all
round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterly
desolate for years and years, because of a curse which the
gods once spoke in anger and could never since recall. And
sometimes my dreams took me as far as Pungar Vees, the red
walled city where the fountains are, which trades with the
Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me upon
the abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never
seen these cities, such places might well be imagined. For
the rest of that evening I bargained with the captain over
the sum that I should pay him for my fare if God and the
tide of Yann should bring us safely as far as the cliffs by
the sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann.
And now the sun had set, and all the colors of the world
and heaven had held a festival with him, and slipped one by
one away before the imminent approach of night. The parrots
had all flown home to the jungle on either bank, the monkeys
in rows in safety on high branches of the trees were silent
and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of the forest were
going up and down, and the great stars came gleaming out to
look on the face of Yann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns
and hung them round the ship, and the light flashed out on a
sudden and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fed along his
marshy banks all suddenly arose, and made wide circles in
the upper air, and saw the distant reaches of the Yann and
the white mist that softly cloaked the jungle, before they
returned again into their marshes.
And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not
all together, but five or six at a time. Side by side there
kneeled down together five or six, for there only prayed at
the same time men of different faiths, so that no god should
hear two men praying to him at once. As soon as any one had
finished his prayer, another of the same faith would take
his place. Thus knelt the row of five or six with bended
heads under the fluttering sail, while the central stream of
the River Yann took them on towards the sea, and their
prayers rose up from among the lanterns and went towards the
stars. And behind them in the after end of the ship the
helmsman prayed aloud the helmsman's prayer, which is prayed
by all who follow his trade upon the River Yann, of whatever
faith they be. And the captain prayed to his little lesser
gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to
pray to a jealous God there where the frail affectionate
gods whom the heathen love were being humbly invoked; so I
bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, whom the men of
the jungle have long since deserted, who is now unworshipped
and alone; and to him I prayed.
And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it
comes upon all men who pray at evening and upon all men who
do not; yet our prayers comforted our own souls when we
thought of the Great Night to come.
And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was
elate with molten snow that the Poltiades had brought him
from the Hills of Hap, and the Marn and Migris were swollen
with floods; and he bore us in his full might past Kyph and
Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza.
Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship
in themid-streamofYann .
When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by
song he cheered himself in the lonely night. When the song
ceased we suddenly all awoke, and another took the helm, and
the helmsman slept.
We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a
meal, and Mandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded,
and the sailors loosed again the greater sails, and the ship
turned and left the stream of Yann and came into a harbour
beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon. Then while the
sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the gate of
Mandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the
guard. A sentinel with a long white beard was standing in
the gate, armed with a rusty pike. He wore large
spectacles, which were covered with dust. Through the gate
I saw the city. A deathly stillness was over all of it.
The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on doorsteps;
in the market-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of
incense came wafted through the gateway, of incense and
burned poppies, and there was a hum of the echoes of distant
bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of the region
of Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?"
He answered: "None may ask questions in this gate for
fear they will wake the people of the city. For when the
people of this city wake the gods will die. And when the
gods die men may dream no more." And I began to ask him
what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike
because none might ask questions there. So I left him and
went back to the "Bird of the River."
Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white
pinnacles peering over her ruddy walls and the green of her
copper roofs.
When I came back again to the "Bird of the River," I
found the sailors were returned to the ship. Soon we
weighed anchor, and sailed out again, and so came once more
to the middle of the river. And now the sun was moving
toward his heights, and there had reached us on the River
Yann the song of those countless myriads of choirs that
attend him in his progress round the world. For the little
creatures that have many legs had spread their gauze wings
easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on a balcony
and gave jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else
they moved together on the air in wavering dances intricate
and swift, or turned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop
of water that a breeze had shaken from a jungle orchid,
chilling the air and driving it before it, as it fell
whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they
sang triumphantly. "For the day is for us," they said,
"whether our great and sacred father the Sun shall bring up
more life like us from the marshes, or whether all the world
shall end to-night." And there sang all those whose notes
are known to human ears, as well as those whose far more
numerous notes have been never heard by man.
To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that
should desolate continents during all the lifetime of a man.
And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle
to behold and rejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy
butterflies. And they danced, but danced idly, on the ways
of the air, as some haughty queen of distant conquered lands
might in her poverty and exile dance, in some encampment of
the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond that
would never abate her pride to dance for a fragment more.
And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things,
of purple orchids and of lost pink cities and the monstrous
colours of the jungle's decay. And they, too, were among
those whose voices are not discernible by human ears. And
as they floated above the river, going from forest to
forest, their splendour was matched by the inimical beauty
of the birds who darted out to pursue them. Or sometimes
they settled on the white and wax-like blooms of the plant
that creeps and clambers about the trees of the forest; and
their purple wings flashed out on the great blossoms as,
when the caravans go from Nurl to Thace, the gleaming silks
flash out upon the snow, where the crafty merchants spread
them one by one to astonish the mountaineers of the Hills of
Noor.
But upon men and beasts the sun sent drowsiness. The
river monsters along the river's marge lay dormant in the
slime. The sailors pitched a pavillion, with golden
tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and then went, all
but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as an
awning between two masts. Then they told tales to one
another, each of his own city or of the miracles of his god,
until all were fallen asleep. The captain offered me the
shade of his pavillion with the gold tassels, and there we
talked for awhile, he telling me that he was taking
merchandise to Perdondaris, and that he would take back to
fair Belzoond things appertaining to the affairs of the
sea. Then, as I watched through the pavillion's opening the
brilliant birds and butterflies that crossed and recrossed
over the river, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was a
monarch entering his capital underneath arches of flags, and
all the musicians of the world were there, playing
melodiously their instruments; but no one cheered.
In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke
and found the captain buckling on his scimitar, which he had
taken off him while he rested.
And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn,
which opens upon the river. Strange boats of antique design
were chained there to the steps. As we neared it we saw the
open marble court, on three sides of which stood the city
fronting on colonnades. And in the court and along the
colonnades the people of that city walked with solemnity and
care according to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in
that city was of ancient device; the carving on the houses,
which, when age had broken it, remained unrepaired, was of
the remotest times, and everywhere were represented in stone
beasts that have long since passed away from Earth -- the
dragon, the griffin, the hippogriffin, and the different
species of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, whether
material or custom, that was new in Astahahn. Now they took
no notice at all of us as we went by, but continued their
processions and ceremonies in the ancient city, and the
sailors, knowing their custom, took no notice of them. But
I called, as we came near, to one who stood beside the
water's edge, asking him what men did in Astahahn and what
their merchandise was, and with whom they traded. He said,
"Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who would
otherwise slay the gods."
I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and
he said, "All those gods whom Time has not yet slain." Then
he turned from me and would say no more, but busied himself
in behaving in accordance with ancient custom. And so,
according to the will of Yann, we drifted onwards and left
Astahahn. The river widened below Astahahn, and we found in
greater quantities such birds as prey on fishes. And they
were very wonderful in their plumage, and they came not out
of the jungle, but flew, with their long necks stretched out
before them, and their legs lying on the wind behind,
straight up the river over the mid-stream.
And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white
mist had appeared over the river, and was softly rising
higher. It clutched at the trees with long impalpable arms,
it rose higher and higher, chilling the air; and white
shapes moved away into the jungle as though the ghosts of
shipwrecked mariners were searching stealthily in the
darkness for the spirits of evil that long ago had wrecked
them on the Yann.
As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on
the matted summit of the jungle, the river monsters came
wallowing out of the slime in which they had reclined during
the heat of the day, and the great beasts of the jungle came
down to drink. The butterflies a while since were gone to
rest. In little narrow tributaries that we passed night
seemed already to have fallen, though the sun which had
disappeared from us had not yet set.
And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over
us, with the sunlight glistening pink upon their breasts,
and lowered their pinions as soon as they saw the Yann, and
dropped into the trees. And the widgeon began to go up the
river in great companies, all whistling, and then would
suddenly wheel and all go down again. And there shot by us
the small and arrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold
cries of flocks of geese, which the sailors told me had
recently come in from crossing over the Lispasian ranges;
every year they come by the same way, close by the peak of
Mluna, leaving it to the left, and the mountain eagles know
the way they come and -- men say -- the very hour, and every
year they expect them by the same way as soon as the snows
have fallen upon the Northern Plains. But soon it grew so
dark that we heard those birds no more, and only heard the
whirring of their wings, and of countless others besides,
until they all settled down along the banks of the river,
and it was the hour when the birds of the night went forth.
Then the sailors lit the lanterns for the night, and huge
moths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at moments
their gorgeous colours would be revealed by the lanterns,
then they would pass into the night again, where all was
black. And again the sailors prayed, and thereafter we
supped and slept, and the helmsman took our lives into his
care.
When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to
Perdondaris, that famous city. For there it stood upon the
left of us, a city fair and notable, and all the more
pleasant for our eyes to see after the jungle that was so
long with us. And we were anchored by the market-place, and
the captain's merchandise was all displayed, and a merchant
of Perdondaris stood looking at it. And the captain had his
scimitar in his hand, and was beating with it in anger upon
the deck, and the splinters were flying up from the white
planks; for the merchant had offered him a price for his
merchandise that the captain declared to be an insult to
himself and his country's gods, whom he now said to be great
and terrible gods, whose curses were to be dreaded. But the
merchant waved his hands, which were of great fatness,
showing the pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought
not at all, but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the
city to whom he wished to sell the merchandise for as low a
price as possible, leaving no remuneration for himself. For
the merchandise was mostly the thick toomarund carpets that
in the winter keep the wind from the floor, and tollub which
the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the merchant said if
he offered a piffek more the poor folk must go without their
toomarunds when the winter came, and without their tollub in
the evenings, or else he and his aged father must starve
together. Thereat the captain lifted his scimitar to his
own throat, saying that he was now a ruined man, and that
nothing remained to him but death. And while he was
carefully lifting his beard with his left hand, the merchant
eyed the merchandise again, and said that rather than see so
worthy a captain die, a man for whom he had conceived an
especial love when first he saw the manner in which he
handled his ship, he and his aged father should starve
together and therefore he offered fifteen piffeks more.
When he said this the captain prostrated himself and
prayed to his gods that they might yet sweeten this
merchant's bitter heart -- to his little lesser gods, to the
gods that bless Belzoond.
At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then
the captain wept, for he said that he was deserted of his
gods; and the merchant also wept, for he said that he was
thinking of his aged father, and of how he soon would
starve, and he hid his weeping face with both his hands, and
eyed the tollub again between his fingers. And so the
bargain was concluded, and the merchant took the toomarund
and tollub, paying for them out of a great clinking purse.
And these were packed up into bales again, and three of the
merchant's slaves carried them upon their heads into the
city. And all the while the sailors had sat silent,
cross-legged in a crescent upon the deck, eagerly watching
the bargain, and now a murmur of satisfaction arose among
them, and they began to compare it among themselves with
other bargains that they had known. And I found out from
them that there are seven merchants in Perdondaris, and that
they had all come to the captain one by one before the
bargaining began, and each had warned him privately against
the others. And to all the merchants the captain had
offered the wine of his own country, that they make in fair
Belzoond, but could in no wise persuade them to it. But now
that the bargain was over, and the sailors were seated at
the first meal of the day, the captain appeared among them
with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care and
all made merry together. And the captain was glad in his
heart because he knew that he had much honour in the eyes of
his men because of the bargain that he had made. So the
sailors drank the wine of their native land, and soon their
thoughts were back in fair Belzoond and the little
neighbouring cities of Durl and Duz.
But for me the captain poured into a little jar some
heavy yellow wine from a small jar which he kept apart among
his sacred things. Thick and sweet it was, even like honey,
yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardent fire which had
authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain told
me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of
six who lived in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once
in these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a
bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that family who had
hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way
with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in
the bear, and the wound was not fatal, and he had no other
weapon. And the bear was walking towards the man, very
slowly because his wound irked him -- yet he was now very
close. And what he captain did he would not say, but every
year as soon as the snows are hard, and travelling is easy
on the Hian Min, that man comes down to the market in the
plains, and always leaves for the captain in the gate of
fair Belzoond a vessel of that priceless secret wine.
And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I
remembered me of stalwart noble things that I had long since
resolutely planned, and my soul seemed to grow mightier
within me and to dominate the whole tide of the Yann. It
may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not now
minutely recollect every detail of that morning's
occupations. Towards evening, I awoke and wishing to see
Perdondaris before we left in the morning, and being unable
to wake the captain, I went ashore alone. Certainly
Perdondaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed by a
wall of great strength and altitude, having in it hollow
ways for troops to walk in, and battlements along it all the
way, and fifteen strong towers on it in every mile, and
copper plaques low down where men could read them, telling
in all the languages of those parts of the earth -- one
language on each plaque -- the tale of how an army once
attacked Perdondaris and what befell that army. Then I
entered Perdondaris and found all the people dancing, clad
in brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang as they
danced. For a fearful thunderstorm had terrified them while
I slept, and the fires of death, they said, had danced over
Perdondaris, and now the thunder had gone leaping away large
and black and hideous, they said, over the distant hills,
and had turned round snarling at them, shoving his gleaming
teeth, and had stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until
they rang as though they had been bronze. And often and
again they stopped in their merry dances and prayed to the
God they knew not, saying, "O, God that we know not, we
thank Thee for sending the thunder back to his hills." And
I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there upon
the marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and
breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of his hands
towards the sky, and slaves were fanning him to keep away
the flies. And from the market-place I came to a silver
temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many
wonders in Perdondaris, and I would have stayed and seen
them all, but as I came to the outer wall of the city I
suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For a while I paused
and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived the
dreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid piece!
I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship,
and even as I ran I thought that I heard far off on the
hills behind me the tramp of the fearful beast by whom that
mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps even then looking
for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I felt
safer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.
And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night
was rolling up from the East and North, and only the
pinnacles of the towers of Perdondaris still took the fallen
sunlight. Then I went to the captain and told him quietly
of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at once about
the gate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know;
and I told him how the weight of the thing was such that it
could not have been brought from afar, and the captain knew
that it had not been there a year ago. We agreed that such
a beast could never have been killed by any assault of man,
and that the gate must have been a fallen tusk, and one
fallen near and recently. Therefore he decided that it were
better to flee at once; so he commanded, and the sailors
went to the sails, and others raised the anchor to the deck,
and just as the highest pinnacle of marble lost the last
rays of the sun we left Perdondaris, that famous city. And
night came down and cloaked Perdondaris and hid it from our
eyes, which as things have happened will never see it again;
for I have heard since that something swift and wonderful
has suddenly wrecked Perdondaris in a day -- towers, walls
and people.
And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all
white with stars. And with the night there rose the
helmsman's song. As soon as he had prayed he began to sing
to cheer himself all through the lonely night. But first he
prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this is what I
remember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble
equivalent of the rhythm that seemed so resonant in those
tropic nights.

To whatever god may hear.

Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea:
whether their way be dark or whether through storm: whether
their peril be of beast or of rock: or from enemy lurking on
land or pursuing on sea: wherever the tiller is cold or the
helmsman stiff: wherever sailors sleep or helmsmen watch:
guard, guide and return us to the old land, that has known
us: to the far homes that we know.

To all the gods that are.

To whatever god may hear.

So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors

laid them down to rest for the night. The silence deepened,
and was only broken by the ripples of Yann that lightly
touched our prow. Sometimes some monster of the river
coughed.
Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again.
And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he
began to sing. And he sang the market songs of Durl and
Duz, and the old dragon-legends of Belzoond.
Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann
the little tales and trifles of his city of Durl. And the
songs welled up over the black jungle and came into the
clear cold air above, and the great bands of stars that look
on Yann began to know the affairs of Durl and Duz, and of
the shepherds that dwelt in the fields between, and the
flocks that they had, and the loves that they had loved, and
all the little things that they had hoped to do. And as I
lay wrapped up in skins and blankets, listening to those
songs, and watching the fantastic shapes of the great trees
like to black giants stalking through the night, I suddenly
fell asleep.
When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the
Yann. And the flow of the river was tumbling now
tumultuously, and little waves appeared; for Yann had
scented from afar the ancient crags of Glorm, and knew that
their ravines lay cool before him wherein he should meet the
merry wild Irillion rejoicing from fields of snow. So he
shook off from him the torpid sleep that had come upon him
in the hot and scented jungle, and forgot its orchids and
its butterflies, and swept on turbulent, expectant, strong;
and soon the snowy peaks of the Hills of Glorm came
glittering into view. And now the sailors were waking up
from sleep. Soon we all ate, and then the helmsman laid him
down to sleep while a comrade took his place, and they all
spread over him their choicest furs.
And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made
as she came down dancing from the fields of snow.
And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying
precipitous and smooth before us, into which we were carried
by the leaps of Yann. And now we left the steamy jungle and
breathed the mountain air; the sailors stood up and took
deep breaths of it, and thought of their own far-off
Acroctian hills on which were Durl and Duz -- below them in
the plains stands fair Belzoond.
A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but
the crags were shining above us like gnarled moons, and
almost lit the gloom. Louder and louder came the Irillion's
song, and the sound of her dancing down from the fields of
snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists, and
wreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had
plucked up near the mountain's summit from some celestial
garden of the Sun. Then she went away seawards with the
huge grey Yann and the ravine widened, and opened upon the
world, and our rocking ship came through to the light of the
day.
And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed
through the marshes of Pondoovery; and Yann widened there,
and flowed solemnly and slowly, and the captain bade the
sailors beat on bells to overcome the dreariness of the
marshes.
At last the Irusian mountains came in sight, nursing the
villages of Pen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of
Mlo, where priests propitiate the avalanche with wine and
maize. Then night came down over the plains of Tlun, and we
saw the lights of Cappadarnia. We heard the Pathnites
beating upon drums as we passed Imaut and Golzunda, then all
but the helmsman slept. And villages scattered along the
banks of the Yann heard all that night in the helmsman's
unknown tongue the little songs of cities that they knew
not.
I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy
before I remembered why. Then I recalled that by the
evening of the approaching day, according to all foreseen
probabilities, we should come to Bar-Wul-Yann, and I should
part from the captain and his sailors. And I had liked the
man because he had given me of his yellow wine that was set
apart among his sacred things, and many a story he had told
me about his fair Belzoond between the Acroctian hills and
the Hian Min. And I had liked the ways that his sailors
had, and the prayers that they prayed at evening side by
side, grudging not one another their alien gods. And I had
a liking too for the tender way in which they often spoke of
Durl and Duz, for it is good that men should love their
native cities and the little hills that hold those cities
up.
And I had come to know who would meet them when they
returned to their homes, and where they thought the meetings
would take place, some in a valley of the Acroctian hills
where the road comes up from Yann, others in the gateway of
one or another of the three cities, and others by the
fireside in the home. And I thought of the danger that had
menaced us all alike outside Perdondaris, a danger that, as
things have happened, was very real.
And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the
cold and lonely night, and how he had held our lives in his
careful hands. And as I thought of this the helmsman ceased
to sing, and I looked up and saw a pale light had appeared
in the sky, and the lonely night had passed; and the dawn
widened, and the sailors awoke.
And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing
resolute between Yann's borders, and Yann sprang lithely at
him and they struggled awhile; then Yann and all that was
his were pushed back northward, so that the sailors had to
hoist the sails and, the wind being favorable, we still held
onwards.
And we passed Gondara and Narl and Haz. And we saw
memorable, holy Golnuz, and heard the pilgrims praying.
When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near
to Nen, the last of the cities on the River Yann. And the
jungle was all about us once again, and about Nen; but the
great Mloon ranges stood up over all things, and watched the
city from beyond the jungle.
Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the
city and found that the Wanderers had come into Nen.
And the Wanderers were a weird, dark, tribe, that once in
every seven years came down from the peaks of Mloon, having
crossed by a pass that is known to them from some fantastic
land that lies beyond. And the people of Nen were all
outside their houses, and all stood wondering at their own
streets. For the men and women of the Wanderers had crowded
all the ways, and every one was doing some strange thing.
Some danced astounding dances that they had learned from the
desert wind, rapidly curving and swirling till the eye could
follow no longer. Others played upon instruments beautiful
wailing tunes that were full of horror, which souls had
taught them lost by night in the desert, that strange far
desert from which the Wanderers came.
None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen
nor in any part of the region of the Yann; even the horns
out of which some were made were of beasts that none had
seen along the river, for they were barbed at the tips. And
they sang, in the language of none, songs that seemed to be
akin to the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fear
that haunts dark places.
Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the
Wanderers told one another fearful tales, for though no one
in Nen knew ought of their language yet they could see the
fear on the listeners' faces, and as the tale wound on the
whites of their eyes showed vividly in terror as the eyes of
some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Then the teller
of the tale would smile and stop, and another would tell his
story, and the teller of the first tale's lips would chatter
with fear. And if some deadly snake chanced to appear the
Wanderers would greet him as a brother, and the snake would
seem to give his greetings to them before he passed on
again. Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic snakes,
the giant lythra, came out of the jungle and all down the
street, the central street of Nen, and none of the Wanderers
moved away from him, but they all played sonorously on
drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and
the snake moved through the midst of them and smote none.
Even the Wanderers' children could do strange things, for
if any one of them met with a child of Nen the two would
stare at each other in silence with large grave eyes; then
the Wanderers' child would slowly draw from his turban a
live fish or snake. And the children of Nen could do
nothing of that kind at all.
Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with
which they greet the night, that is answered by the wolves
on the heights of Mloon, but it was now time to raise the
anchor again that the captain might return from Bar-Wul-Yann
upon the landward tide. So we went on board and continued
down the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little, for we
were thinking of our parting, which should be for long, and
we watched instead the splendour of the westerning sun. For
the sun was a ruddy gold, but a faint mist cloaked the
jungle, lying low, and into it poured the smoke of the
little jungle cities, and the smoke of them met together in
the mist and joined into one haze, which became purple, and
was lit by the sun, as the thoughts of men become hallowed
by some great and sacred thing. Some times one column from
a lonely house would rise up higher than the cities' smoke,
and gleam by itself in the sun.
And now as the sun's last rays were nearly level, we saw
the sight that I had come to see, for from two mountains
that stood on either shore two cliffs of pink marble came
out into the river, all glowing in the light of the low sun,
and they were quite smooth and of mountainous altitude, and
they nearly met, and Yann went tumbling between them and
found the sea.
And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the
distance through that barrier's gap I saw the azure
indescribable sea, where little fishing-boats went gleaming
by.
And the sun set, and the brief twilight came, and the
exultation of the glory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still
the pink cliffs glowed, the fairest marvel that the eye
beheld -- and this in a land of wonders. And soon the
twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the
colours of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight
of those cliffs was to me as some chord of music that a
master's hand had launched from the violin, and which
carries to Heaven or Faery the tremulous spirits of men.
And now by the shore they anchored and went no further,
for they were sailors of the river and not of the sea, and
knew the Yann but not the tides beyond.
And the time was come when the captain and I must part,
he to go back to his fair Belzoond in sight of the distant
peaks of the Hian Min, and I to find my way by strange means
back to those hazy fields that all poets know, wherein stand
small mysterious cottages through whose windows, looking
westwards, you may see the fields of men, and looking
eastwards see glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow,
going range on range into the region of Myth, and beyond it
into the kingdom of Fantasy, which pertain to the Lands of
Dream. Long we regarded one another, knowing that we should
meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip
by, and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then
we clasped hands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the
method of greeting in his country, and he commended my soul
to the care of his own gods, to his little lesser gods, the
humble ones, to the gods that bless Belzoond.