The Three Mulla-mulgars

by Walter De la Mare

But when Nod lifted his eyes to Mulgarmeerez, it seemed as if many phantom faces were looking down on them as they hastened, like some small company of hares or coneys, straggling across the whiteness. Being refreshed with sleep and Tishnar's phantom supper, the Mountain-mulgars did not stay to take their "glare," but just screened their feeble eyes against the sunbeams with eagle feathers, and, with Thimble swinging in his litter, scurried on across these smoother slopes. By night Mulgarmeerez, last of the seven peaks of Arakkaboa, was left behind them, and it seemed the wind blew not so sharply out of the haze on this side of the haunted woods. The travellers towards evening slept in a dry cavern. But it was a fidgety sleep, for this cave was the haunt of an odd and wily sand-flea that made the most of a Mulgar-supper, more toothsome than anything it had feasted on for many a day.

Near about the middle of the next morning the travellers came in their descent to a stream of water rushing swiftly but smoothly in the channel it had graven for its waters out of the rock. This torrent was green, icy, and deep. On its farther side the rock rose steep and smooth. The travellers kindled themselves a fire and warmed their cold bones. Then, having emptied their skin-bottles, they set off along the bank, or as near to it as they could walk at ease. Thimble's shivering was now gone, and he marched along with his brothers, rather hobbledy, but in very good spirits. He took good care, however, to keep well in front of the Mountain-mulgars, for if he so much as faintly sniffed their cheese, he fell sick. Ever downward now they were marching. A warm wind was blowing out of the valley, the snows were melting, and rills trickling everywhere into the green and swirling water. And after a march all morning, they came to a village of the Fishing-mulgars.

These are a peaceable and ugly tribe of Mulgars, with extremely long and sinewy tails, which are tufted at the tip, like those of the Moona-mulgars, with a bunch of fine silky hair. They smear upon this tuft the pulp of a fruit that grows on a bush hanging over the water, called Soota, which the fish that swim in this torrent never weary of nibbling. Then, sitting huddled up and motionless in some little inlet or rocky hole in the bank, the Fishing-mulgar pays out his long tail and lets it drift with the stream. By-and-by, maybe, some hungry fish comes swimming by that way and smells the pounded Soota. He softly stays, nibbling and tasting. Very slowly the Fishing-mulgar, who instantly perceives the least commotion in his tail-tuft, draws back his bait without so much as blinking an eyelid. And when he has enticed the fish quite close to the bank, still all intent on its feeding, he stoops in a flash, and, plunging his sharp-nailed hands in the water, hooks the struggler out.

They swarm about water, these Mulgars, and teach their tiny babies to fish, too, by scooping out a hole or basin in the rock, which they fill from the torrent. In this they set free two or three little half-grown fish. These, with their infant tails, the children catch again and again, and are rewarded at evening, according to their skill, with a slice of roe or a backbone to pick. An old and crafty Fishing-mulgar will sit happy all day in some smooth hollow, and, having snared perhaps four or five, or even, maybe, as many as nine or twelve fat fishes, home he goes to his leaf-thatched huddle or sand-hole, and eats and eats till he can eat no more. After which his wife and children squat round and feed on what remains. Some eat raw, and those of less gluttony cook their catch at a large fire, which they keep burning night and day. Here the whole village of them may be seen sitting of an evening toasting their silvery supper. But, although they are such greedy feeders, there is something in the fish that keeps these Mulgars very lean. And the more they eat the leaner they get.

Sometimes, Ghibba told Nod, Fishing-mulgars, who have given up all fruits and nuts to gluttonize, and live only on fish, have been known by much feeding to waste quite away. Moreover, a few years of this cold fishing paralyses their tails. And so many go misshapen. On being questioned as to where they had learned to make fire, the Fishing-mulgars told Ghibba that a certain squinting Môh-mulgar had come their way once along the torrent, tongue-tied and trembling with palsy. By the fire he had made for himself the Fishing-mulgars, after he was gone, had stacked wood, and this was the selfsame fire that had been kept burning ever since. Did once this fire die out, not knowing of, nor having any, first-sticks, it would be raw fish for the tribe for evermore. On hearing this, the travellers looked long at one another between gladness and dismay—gladness to hear that their father Seelem (if it was he) had come alive out of the Orchards, and dismay for his many ills.

They made their camp for two nights with these friendly people. They are as dull and stupid in most things as they are artful at fishing. But they are, beyond even the Munza-mulgars, mischievous mimics. Even the little ones would come mincing and peeping with wisps of moss and grass stuck on their faces for eyebrows and whiskers, their long tails cocked over their shoulders, their eyes screwed up, in imitation of the Men of the Mountains. Lank old Thimble laughed himself hoarse at these children. At night they beat little wood drums of different notes round their fires, making a sort of wearisome harmony. They also play at many sports—"Fish in the Ring," "A tail, a tail, a tail!" and "Here sups Sullilulli." But I will not describe them, for they are just such games as are played all the world over by Oomgar and Mulgar alike. They are all, however, young and old, hale and paralysed, incorrigible thieves and gluttons, and rarely comb themselves.

All along the rocky banks of the torrent the travellers passed next day the snug green houses of these Fishing-mulgars. Nod often stayed awhile to watch their fishing, and almost wished he had a tail, so that he, too, might smear and dangle and watch and plunge. But their language Nod could not in the least understand. Only by the help of signs and grimaces and long palaver could even Ghibba himself understand them. But he learned at least that, for some reason, the travellers would not long be able to follow the river, for the Fishing-mulgar would first point to the travellers, then to the water, and draw a great arch with their finger in the air, shaking their little heads with shut eyes.

Ghibba tried in vain to catch exactly what they meant by these signs, for they had no word to describe their meaning to him. But after he had patiently watched and listened, he said: "I think, Mulla-mulgars, they mean that if we keep walking along these slippery high banks, one by one, we shall topple head over heels into the torrent, and be drowned—over like that," he said, and traced with his finger an arch in the air.

But this was by no means what the Fishing-mulgars meant. For, about three leagues beyond the last of their houses, the travellers began to hear a distant and steady roar, like a faint, continuous thunder, which grew as they advanced ever louder and louder. And when the first faint flowers began to peep blue and yellow along the margin where the sun had melted the snow, they came to where the waters of the torrent widened and forked, some, with a great boiling of foam and prodigious clamour, whelming sheer down a precipice of rock, while the rest swept green and full and smooth into a rounded cavern in the mountain-side.

Here, as it was now drawing towards darkness, the travellers built their fire and made their camp. Next morning Ghibba decided, after long palaver, to take with him two or three of the Mountain-mulgars to see if they could clamber down beside the cataract, to discover what kind of country lay beneath. Standing above, and peering down, they could see nothing, because, with the melting of the snow, a thick mist had risen out of the valley, and swam white as milk beneath them, into which great dish of milk the cataract poured its foam. Ghibba took at last with him five of the nimblest and youngest of the Moona-mulgars, not knowing what difficulties or dangers might not beset them. But he promised to return to the Mulla-mulgars before nightfall.