Suppose we had business with his majesty by day:we strolled over the sand and by the dwarfish palms,exchanged a 'KONAMAORI'with the crone on duty,and entered the compound.The wide sheet of coral glared before us deserted;all having stowed themselves in dark canvas from the excess of room.I have gone to and fro in that labyrinth of a place,seeking the king;and the only breathing creature I could find was when I peered under the eaves of a maniap',and saw the brawny body of one of the wives stretched on the floor,a naked Amazon plunged in noiseless slumber.If it were still the hour of the 'morning papers'the quest would be more easy,the half-dozen obsequious,sly dogs squatting on the ground outside a house,crammed as far as possible in its narrow shadow,and turning to the king a row of leering faces.Tembinok'would be within,the flaps of the cabin raised,the trade blowing through,hearing their report.Like journalists nearer home,when the day's news were scanty,these would make the more of it in words;and Ihave known one to fill up a barren morning with an imaginary conversation of two dogs.Sometimes the king deigns to laugh,sometimes to question or jest with them,his voice sounding shrilly from the cabin.By his side he may have the heir-apparent,Paul,his nephew and adopted son,six years old,stark naked,and a model of young human beauty.And there will always be the favourite and perhaps two other wives awake;four more lying supine under mats and whelmed in slumber.Or perhaps we came later,fell on a more private hour,and found Tembinok'retired in the house with the favourite,an earthenware spittoon,a leaden inkpot,and a commercial ledger.In the last,lying on his belly,he writes from day to day the uneventful history of his reign;and when thus employed he betrayed a touch of fretfulness on interruption with which I was well able to sympathise.The royal annalist once read me a page or so,translating as he went;but the passage being genealogical,and the author boggling extremely in his version,Iown I have been sometimes better entertained.Nor does he confine himself to prose,but touches the lyre,too,in his leisure moments,and passes for the chief bard of his kingdom,as he is its sole public character,leading architect,and only merchant.
第101章 THE KING OF APEMAMA：THE PALACE OF MANY WOMENTHE(3)（1 / 3）