BLIND ALLEY-GORIES.
By Dunno Währiar.
(Translated from the original Lappish by Mr. Punch's own Hyperborean Enthusiast.)
No. IV.—Signs and Wonders.
I sat on the beach one forenoon in midsummer. A great number of people were doing much the same. The rhapsodists and orators, the blameless Ethiopians with their barbaric instruments of music, the itinerant magicians with their wands, the statuesque groups posed before the tripod of the photographer, the snow-white sea-chariots with crimson wheels, the bare-legged riders on antique steeds, made me fancy I was gazing at a scene of Southern Hellenic life. Why I know not—for it was not in the least like.
Then I saw an enormous black hand stretch down over the fjord. I was not alarmed, for I am becoming accustomed to apparitions of this kind.
It set weird signs and black marks upon the railings of the jetty, and on the white sides of the bathing machines, and on the sails of the fishing-boats, and when I turned about, the parade itself was plastered with tablets.
And on all things had the New Lawgiver incised in letters of gold and azure and purple upon shining tables the new commandments:
"Use Skäuerskjin's Soap!"; "Try Tommeliden Tonic!"; "Buy Boömpvig's Pills!"; "Ask for Baldersen's Hairwash!"
And I heard the voice of the wild waves saying, as they lapped up over the cheap sandshoes and saturated paper bags full of gingerbread nuts:
"This is the new moral law. That men should cherish the outside and insides of their bodies, and keep them clean, like precious vessels of brass and copper. Rather to let the picturesque perish than forget for a moment which is the best soap for the complexion, and which will not wash clothes. Never to see a ship spreading her canvas like a sea bird without associations of a Purifying Saline Draught or a Relishing Pickle. To ask and see that ye procure!"