Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

GOD, God! how Thy past clings to us like shadows, turn we as we may forever to the sunrise! Out of the night and from beyond it come forms that seem buried below the reach of gr...

SUCH was the name that one group of islands gave to this mystic region of the sea; and it meant “the ring of mist.” A sense of awe fell on me as I listened to the chorus. Whithe...

AT last, I was sure, we were about to know a people that had not blurred the features of primeval virtue. And yet I laughed at the thought. What was there in human nature to ins...

IN order to avoid too much observation, I got housed in an obscure hostelry that often accommodated foreigners. But none of the occupants knew my language, nor did I any of thei...

LIKE their language, their social fabric was an intricate work of art, and it took me months to understand even its elementary lessons and principles. It had the qualities of al...

MY admiration grew as I gradually discovered how everything in this wonderful country gave way before this great virtue. It was the first lesson taught the child; it was the las...

THE first time that I went to a high-rank social entertainment of theirs, I broke into a hearty laugh at the spectacle as I entered; but I came to regret my imprudence. There we...

“WHY should they refrain from the gifts that God in His goodness had bestowed on them?” Thus argued a party of gilded youth with me as they polecatted the air of a gorgeous room...

THESE items of information concerning the virtues of the race I learned not so much from the dwellers in the marble city themselves—they were too modest for that—as from public...

THE Bureau of Fame had come to be the real shrine of religion. For it had the power of heaven and hell beyond as well as on this side of the grave. And one of the most significa...

I WAS evidently as far astray on this point as I had been on the employment of convicts in the church. And when the full significance of the functions of state had been laid bef...

YET they gloried in their freedom and their love of freedom. No people could be freer than they. Daily in their temples were there songs and hymns chanted in honour of liberty....

HE went on board and I returned to my guide, whom I found greatly disturbed. An official spy had come down from the marble city; and this meant that a whole army of them in cove...

I ASKED him to sail round the bluff and communicate with my yacht. But he would not hear of it. He said that this would endanger the safety of all, for the Aleofanian king would...

I HAD other questions; but we had run into a basin that had once been a harbour. Every bastion and rampart had been pounded and bruised by the billows till the débris lay scatte...

THERE was one exception to the rule of masculine indifference. I had been watching the figure for some time amongst the women before I discovered it to be that of a man. He had...

THE darkness at first set the whole sense of touch on the alert; it seemed black and solid as a prison wall. But the eyes soon focussed the sparse rays of starlight and massed o...

IT was not far in the afternoon when my companion, taking a look ahead, gave a long, low whistle and laughed. He had recognised some feature of the land we were now approaching....

THERE was an island near that carried the belief in the potency of law to a still more insane pitch. I had heard of people with new-born legislative functions thinking that they...

THE adjacent island over which we had to pass made me almost regret our departure from Wotnekst. It was a low, marshy, rich-soiled island that did not bulk into the appearance o...

HE saw at last that I had little sympathy with the part he had assumed; and with a wily insight and versatility he snaked himself round into a confidential conversation on our n...

BETWEEN it and Awdyoo, but farther to the north than the current was likely to carry us, lay a group of islands that Sneekape declared would have been as good as a play to see....

THE only chance of restraining and correcting these furious scenes of debate, and preventing them from ending in complete annihilation of the Jabberoons, was to turn the inhabit...

THE adjacency of Vulpia was the only thing that saved the inhabitants of Witlingen from stark madness. They organised raids upon its shores in order to let off the accumulated w...

THE gauntlet of stenches that we had run stifled us into deep and long sleep. The sun was far up the sky when we awakened, and its heat seemed somehow to have subdued the traces...

MY fellow-voyager lay down to sleep as soon as the field of night above us broke into its myriad flowers. I could not sleep for the thought of that wretched miniature of the gre...

WE got at last to the highest point of the island, and thence we saw on the other shore a large falla at anchor. Sneekape came as close to ecstasy as such a petty nature could;...

WHETHER this was a mere fable I was never able to verify by personal experience. Christendom will doubtless take it as wholly the creation of Sneekape’s brain, so unlike nature...

WE got on shore in a sandy corner of a great cave; and we were soon asleep from our great exertions and endurance. When I awoke, I saw that the dome underneath which we slept wa...

OH, the ecstasy of that first day! To hear the accents of my native tongue around me, to see the features of the men I loved, after the long months of sojourn amongst strange pe...

BLASTEMO, warlike though he was, was greatly alarmed at seeing the wind fall and the _Daydream_ drift towards one of the lowest of the group. He knew it was Meskeeta, which he t...

“THE wind had risen offshore; but, not long after we weighed anchor, it fell and we began to drift. When the morning came, we saw that a current was rapidly bearing us down upon...

“ONE group of islands we were warned to avoid was that of the Rasolola, or theomaniacs. Hither had been deported from the chief countries all who allowed their peculiar religiou...

“AS we sailed off, Blastemo entertained us with stories of the groups of islands that lay near at hand, and especially of one that lay away off to the north nearer the sunset th...

“A NEIGHBOURING island, which Blastemo called Fanattia, he would not hear of our visiting; for there were gathered all the mad quixotists of the archipelago; any who thought tha...

DURING the latter part of our conferences Blastemo had fallen silent; his oaths and wild exclamations had first grown less frequent and then ceased. When I looked to find the ca...

AFTER many difficulties and delays I reached the garrison on the western shore of Broolyi, where it faced Kayoss. I delivered my pass to the commandant, and was accommodated wit...