Silence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calm water, fell full and long upon the ear.
Anon, lifting his head, Babbalanja thus:--"Yillah still eludes us. And in all this tour of Mardi, how little have we found to fill the heart with peace: how much to slaughter all our yearnings."
"Croak no more, raven!" cried Media. "Mardi is full of spring-time sights, and jubilee sounds. I never was sad in my life."
"But for thy one laugh, my lord, how many groans! Were all happy, or all miserable,--more tolerable then, than as it is. But happiness and misery are so broadly marked, that this Mardi may be the retributive future of some forgotten past.--Yet vain our surmises. Still vainer to say, that all Mardi is but a means to an end; that this life is a state of probation: tha
