CHAPTER IX
The Valley of Rasselas
It was an incongruous position, and a mind responsive only to the ludicrous would have been delighted with mirth over it. But it was really no joke, and if Hopkins, whose risibilities were the least easily subdued, had ventured upon one of his whirlwinds of laughter, instead of sedately rising (enjoining us to imitate him) and bowing profoundly, it might have had a tragic termination.
As it was, Hopkins himself actually prescribed our solemn behavior. It somehow appealed just then to his freakish sense of humor to appear portentously grave and decorous, and as he kept up his salaaming we fell in with the trick, and were bobbing away with the gravity of mandarins.
The crowd, as we slammed into the road, were pretty well upset. There was a queer gurgling groan, and then a shout, and a few of the men rushed forward with leveled poles, from which the black squirming ribbons uncannily unrolled, as if to strike us. Our appealing gestures for forbearance disarmed them, and then curiously some of them began to smile. Hopkins’ later reflection that we would probably have “made a meal sack split open with diversion,” was about correct, and it must have been the preposterous absurdity of it all, conjoined with our indefatigable rolling up and down, and some improvised gesture of the Yankee, expressive of submission and subjection, that gradually increased their merriment, until we had in front of us a friendly audience, simmering with amusement.
The commotion and noise of the bending, breaking branches had been seen and heard much further along the cortege, and it had caught the eye of the dignitaries on the wheeled platform. In a few minutes a number of these ambling, beetle-like worthies arrived and, withdrawing cautiously into the protecting circle of the Eskimo youth, gazed at us with unaffected astonishment. We now had the best opportunity to see them at short range, and this was so desirable that we brought our antics to a close, reciprocating their scrutiny with as keen an inspection on our part. The impression made on me, on all of us, was favorable.
The faces of these short men were remarkable for an unmistakable gravity; their eyes, from which they had removed the goggles, were penetrating and bright, sunken beneath arched and conspicuous eyebrows, and set alongside of prominent aquiline noses. The lower parts of their faces were weak, narrowed, and clothed with a scanty pointed beard. Their brows were broad, high and of alabaster whiteness. This colorlessness pervaded their whole anatomy, related at it were, to the thinness of their legs, their slim long arms and pendulous fingers, their flat and insufficient feet. We noticed then that they carried in their belts tubes of metal similar or identical to the wand-like ones that had seemed to aid their flight with the balloons.
Their study of us was emphasized by considerable stroking of the beards, shrugging of the shoulders, and an occasional despairing waving of the hands. Everyone, everything, remained motionless while these wiseacres made up their minds as to the meaning of our intrusion, or endeavored to meet the broader problem of what do to with us. And so the whole mass slowly gathered, the first ranks of the muscular Eskimo older men, the drummers and the cymbalists, the fluttering, diversified groups of the little people; they crushed into the woods, blocked the road, climbed up into the trees; many pressed near to us, their hands resting on their hips, regarding us with a tense and silent absorption that made me nervous.
Hopkins nudged the Professor. “Prof., give ’em a lecture, anything, only hand it over highly flavored—paprika-like. Slam a few dictionaries at ’em. What we need just now is a little intellectual standing, I take it. These highbrows think we’re no better than we look.”
Oddly they had said nothing to us until they noticed Hopkins talking; then one of them, a rather benignant and especially reflective looking individual, who had been arguing vehemently the moment before with one of his colleagues, advanced and said what sounded like “do bau” or, had it been in such Hebrew as I myself understood, “dobare”; namely “speak,” “talk.”