The Sultan sent his son Abdallah, a youth of about fifteen years old, who proved so troublesome that Lieutenant Speke was forced repeatedly to dismiss him: still the lad would not leave the caravan till it reached the Dulbahanta frontier. And the Abban delayed a Negro servant, Lieutenant Speke's gun-bearer, trying by many offers and promises to seduce him from service. _19th November_.--At dawn the camels were brought in; they had been feeding at large all night, which proves the safety of the country. After three hours' work at loading, the caravan started up the watercourse. The road was rugged; at times the watercourse was blocked up with boulders, which compelled the travellers temporarily to leave it. With a little cutting away of projecting rocks, which are of soft stone, the road might be made tolerably easy. Scattered and stunted Acacias, fringed with fresh green foliage, relieved the eye; all else was barren rock. After marching about two miles the traveller was obliged to halt by the Sultan; a messenger arrived with the order. The halting-place is called Damalay. It is in the bed of the watercourse, stagnating rain, foul-looking but sweet, lying close by. As in all other parts of this Fiumara, the bed was dotted with a bright green tree, sometimes four feet high, resembling a willow. Lieutenant Speke spread his mat in the shade, and spent the rest of the day at his diary and in conversation with the natives. The next day was also spent at Damalay. The interpreter, Mohammed Ahmed, a Somali of the Warsingali tribe, and all the people, refused positively to advance. Lieutenant Speke started on foot to Las Kuray in search of the Abban: he was followed at some distance by the Somal, and the whole party returned on hearing a report that the chief and the Abban were on the way. The traveller seems on this occasion to have formed a very low estimate of the people. He stopped their food until they promised to start the next day. _21st November_.--The caravan marched at gun-fire, and, after a mile, left the watercourse, and ascended by a rough camel-path a buttress of hill leading to the ridge of the mountains. The ascent was not steep, but the camels were so bad that they could scarcely be induced to advance. The country was of a more pleasant aspect, a shower of rain having lately fallen. At this height the trees grow thicker and finer, the stones are hidden by grass and heather, and the air becomes somewhat cooler. After a six miles' march Lieutenant Speke encamped at a place called Adhai. Sweet water was found within a mile's walk;--the first spring from which our traveller drank. Here he pitched a tent. At Adhai Lieutenant Speke was detained nine days by the non-appearance of his "Protector" and the refusal of his followers to march without him. The camels were sent back with the greatest difficulty to fetch the portion of the baggage left behind. On the 24th Lieutenant Speke sent his Hindostani servant to Las Kuray, with orders to bring up the baggage. "Imam" started alone and on foot, not being permitted to ride a pony hired by the traveller: he reported that there is a much better road for laden camels from the coast to the crest of the hills. Though unprotected, he met with no difficulty, and returned two days afterwards, having seen the baggage _en route_. During Lieutenant Speke's detention, the Somal battened on his provisions, seeing that his two servants were absent, and that no one guarded the bags. Half the rice had been changed at Las Kuray for an inferior description. The camel drivers refused their rations because all their friends (thirty in number) were not fed. The Sultan's son taught them to win the day by emptying and hiding the water-skins, by threatening to kill the servants if they fetched water, and by refusing to do work. During the discussion, which appears to have been lively, the eldest of the Sultan's four sons, Mohammed Aul, appeared from Las Kuray. He seems to have taken a friendly part, stopped the discussion, and sent away the young prince as a nuisance. Unfortunately, however, the latter reappeared immediately that the date bags were opened, and Mohammed Aul stayed only two days in Lieutenant Speke's neighbourhood. On the 28th November the Abban appeared. The Sultan then forced upon Lieutenant Speke his brother Hasan as a second Abban, although this proceeding is contrary to the custom of the country. The new burden, however, after vain attempts at extortion, soon disappeared, carrying away with him a gun. For tanning water-skins the Somal here always use, when they can procure it, a rugged bark with a smooth epidermis of a reddish tinge, a pleasant aromatic odour, and a strong astringent flavour. They call it Mohur: powdered and sprinkled dry on a wound, it acts as a styptic. Here was observed an aloe-formed plant, with a strong and woody thorn on the top. It is called Haskul or Hig; the fibres are beaten out with sticks or stones, rotted in water, and then made into cord. In other parts the young bark of the acacia is used; it is first charred on one side, then reduced to fibre by mastication, and lastly twisted into the semblance of a rope. From a little manuscript belonging to the Abban, Lieutenant Speke learned that about 440 years ago (A.D. 1413), one Darud bin Ismail, unable to live with his elder brother at Mecca, fled with a few followers to these shores. In those days the land was ruled, they say, by a Christian chief called Kin, whose Wazir, Wharrah, was the terror of all men. Darud collected around him, probably by proselytising, a strong party: he gradually increased his power, and ended by expelling the owners of the country, who fled to the N.W. as far as Abyssinia. Darud, by an Asyri damsel, had a son called Kabl Ullah, whose son Harti had, as progeny, Warsingali, Dulbahanta, and Mijjarthayn. These three divided the country into as many portions, which, though great territorial changes have taken place, to this day bear their respective owners' names. Of this I have to observe, that universal tradition represents the Somal to be a people of half-caste origin, African and Arabian; moreover, that they expelled the Gallas from the coast, until the latter took refuge in the hills of Harar. The Gallas are a people partly Moslem, partly Christian, and partly Pagan; this may account for the tradition above recorded. Most Somal, however, declare "Darud" to be a man of ignoble origin, and do not derive him from the Holy City. Some declare he was driven from Arabia for theft. Of course each tribe exaggerates its own nobility with as reckless a defiance of truth as their neighbours depreciate it. But I have made a rule always to doubt what semi-barbarians write. Writing is the great source of historical confusion, because falsehoods accumulate in books, persons are confounded, and fictions assume, as in the mythologic genealogies of India, Persia, Greece, and Rome, a regular and systematic form. On the other hand, oral tradition is more trustworthy; witness the annals and genealogies preserved in verse by the Bhats of Cutch, the Arab Nassab, and the Bards of Belochistan. _30th November_.--The Sultan took leave of Lieutenant Speke, and the latter prepared to march in company with the Abban, the interpreter, the Sultan's two sons, and a large party. By throwing the tent down and sitting in the sun he managed to effect a move. In the evening the camels started from Adhai up a gradual ascent along a strong path. The way was covered with bush, jungle, and trees. The frankincense, it is said, abounded; gum trees of various kinds were found; and the traveller remarked a single stunted sycamore growing out of a rock. I found the tree in all the upper regions of the Somali country, and abundant in the Harar Hills. After two miles' march the caravan halted at Habal Ishawalay, on the northern side of the mountains, within three miles of the crest. The halting-ground was tolerably level, and not distant from the waters of Adhai, the only spring in the vicinity. The travellers slept in a deserted Kraal, surrounded by a stout fence of Acacia thorns heaped up to keep out the leopards and hyenas. During the heat Lieutenant Speke sat under a tree. Here he remained three days; the first in order to bring up part of his baggage which had been left behind; the second to send on a portion to the next halting-place; and the third in consequence of the Abban's resolution to procure Ghee or clarified butter. The Sultan could not resist the opportunity of extorting something by a final visit--for a goat, killed and eaten by the camel-drivers contrary to Lieutenant Speke's orders, a dollar was demanded.

4th December_, 1854.--About dawn the caravan was loaded, and then
proceeded along a tolerably level pathway through a thick growth of thorn
trees towards a bluff hill. The steep was reached about 9 A.M., and the
camels toiled up the ascent by a stony way, dropping their loads for want
of ropes, and stumbling on their road. The summit, about 500 yards
distant, was reached in an hour. At Yafir, on the crest of the mountains,
the caravan halted two hours for refreshment. Lieutenant Speke describes
the spot in the enthusiastic language of all travellers who have visited
the Seaward Range of the Somali Hills. It appears, however, that it is
destitute of water. About noon the camels were again loaded, and the
caravan proceeded across the mountains by a winding road over level ground
for four miles. This point commanded an extensive view of the Southern
Plateau. In that direction the mountains drop in steps or terraces, and
are almost bare; as in other parts rough and flat topped piles of stones,
reminding the traveller of the Tartar Cairns, were observed. I remarked
the same in the Northern Somali country; and in both places the people
gave a similar account of them, namely, that they are the work of an
earlier race, probably the Gallas. Some of them are certainly tombs, for
human bones are turned up; in others empty chambers are discovered; and in
a few are found earthern and large copper pots. Lieutenant Speke on one
occasion saw an excavated mound propped up inside by pieces of timber, and
apparently built without inlet. It was opened about six years ago by a
Warsingali, in order to bury his wife, when a bar of metal (afterwards
proved by an Arab to be gold) and a gold ring, similar to what is worn by
women in the nose, were discovered. In other places the natives find, it
is said, women's bracelets, beads, and similar articles still used by the
Gallas.

After nightfall the caravan arrived at Mukur, a halting-place in the
southern declivity of the hills. Here Lieutenant Speke remarked that the
large watercourse in which he halted becomes a torrent during the rains,
carrying off the drainage towards the eastern coast. He had marched that
day seventeen miles, when the party made a Kraal with a few bushes. Water
was found within a mile in a rocky basin; it was fetid and full of
animalculae. Here appeared an old woman driving sheep and goats into Las
Kuray, a circumstance which shows that the country is by no means
dangerous.

After one day's halt at Mukur to refresh the camels, on the 6th December
Lieutenant Speke started at about 10 A.M. across the last spur of the
hills, and presently entered a depression dividing the hills from the
Plateau. Here the country was stony and white-coloured, with watercourses
full of rounded stones. The Jujube and Acacias were here observed to be on
a large scale, especially in the lowest ground. After five miles the
traveller halted at a shallow watercourse, and at about half a mile
distant found sweet but dirty water in a deep hole in the rock. The name
of this station was Karrah.

_8th December_.--Early in the morning the caravan moved on to Rhat, a
distance of eight miles: it arrived at about noon. The road lay through
the depression at the foot of the hills. In the patches of heather
Florikan was found. The Jujube-tree was very large. In the rains this
country is a grassy belt, running from west to east, along a deep and
narrow watercourse, called Rhat Tug, or the Fiumara of Rhat, which flows
eastward towards the ocean. At this season, having been "eaten up," the
land was almost entirely deserted; the Kraals lay desolate, the herdsmen
had driven off their cows to the hills, and the horses had been sent
towards the Mijjarthayn country. A few camels and donkeys were seen:
considering that their breeding is left to chance, the blood is not
contemptible. The sheep and goats are small, and their coats, as usual in
these hot countries, remain short. Lieutenant Speke was informed that,
owing to want of rain, and it being the breeding season, the inland and
Nomad Warsingali live entirely on flesh, one meal serving for three days.
This was a sad change of affairs from what took place six weeks before the
traveller's arrival, when there had been a fall of rain, and the people
spent their time revelling on milk, and sleeping all day under the shade
of the trees--the Somali idea of perfect happiness.

On the 9th December Lieutenant Speke, halting at Rhat, visited one of
"Kin's" cities, now ruined by time, and changed by the Somal having
converted it into a cemetery. The remains were of stone and mud, as usual
in this part of the world. The houses are built in an economical manner;
one straight wall, nearly 30 feet long, runs down the centre, and is
supported by a number of lateral chambers facing opposite ways, _e. g._

[2 Illustrations]

This appears to compose the village, and suggests a convent or a
monastery. To the west, and about fifty yards distant, are ruins of stone
and good white mortar, probably procured by burning the limestone rock.
The annexed ground plan will give an idea of these interesting remains,
which are said to be those of a Christian house of worship. In some parts
the walls are still 10 feet high, and they show an extent of civilisation
now completely beyond the Warsingali. It may be remarked of them that the
direction of the niche, as well as the disposition of the building, would
denote a Moslem mosque. At the same time it must be remembered that the
churches of the Eastern Christians are almost always made to front
Jerusalem, and the Gallas being a Moslem and Christian race, the sects
would borrow their architecture from each other. The people assert these
ruins to be those of Nazarenes. Yet in the Jid Ali valley of the
Dulbahantas Lieutenant Speke found similar remains, which the natives
declared to be one of their forefathers' mosques; the plan and the
direction were the same as those now described. Nothing, however, is
easier than to convert St. Sophia into the Aya Sufiyyah mosque. Moreover,
at Jid Ali, the traveller found it still the custom of the people to erect
a Mala, or cross of stone or wood covered with plaster, at the head and
foot of every tomb.

[Illustration]

The Dulbahantas, when asked about these crosses, said it was their custom,
derived from sire and grandsire. This again would argue that a Christian
people once inhabited these now benighted lands.

North of the building now described is a cemetery, in which the Somal
still bury their dead. Here Lieutenant Speke also observed crosses, but he
was prevented by the superstition of the people from examining them.

On an eminence S.W. of, and about seventy yards from the main building,
are the isolated remains of another erection, said by the people to be a
fort. The foundation is level with the ground, and shows two compartments
opening into each other.

DO EMPREGO DA IRONIA POR I RONIN UM SAMURAI NO DESEMPREGO PRECOCE POR IMPORTAÇÃO DE PÓLVORA E DE OUTRAS CHINESICES PELO DAI-NIPPON -A IRONIA É UMA FIGURA DE ESTILO POLÍTICO OU DE PENSAMENTO POLÍTICO OU MESMO DE FALTA DELE QUE LEVA OS MESSIAS E OUTROS AVATARES POLITICUS A SUGERIREM COUSA DIVERSA DAQUILO QUE A FRASE DO SALAZAR DE SERVIÇO EXPRIME ....ANALISEMOS A FINA IRONIA DA FRASE ,,,POLÍTICO CHOCADO COM OUTRO POLÍTICO QUE DE FORMA IRREVOGÁVEL LANÇOU O FUTURO DO SEU PARTIDO E ATÉ O PRESENTE PELA JANELA FORA OU ATÉ PELA GAVETA DENTRO PARA CONSEGUIR SOBREVIVER COMO FIGURINHA POLÍTICA MAIS UNS MESES OU MESMO UNS ANNUS HORRIBILIS DESDE QUE O BRUTUS ESPETOU O ANTERIOR LÍDER PARTIDÁRIO CURIOSAMENTE EM AMBOS OS CASOS UM QUATRO-OLHOS CABELUDO CHAME-SE ELE MONTEIRO OU SE VÁ POR UM NOME MAIS SEGURO NUMA UNIVERSIDADE QUALQUER ONDE NINGUÉM LHES DÁ CAVACO EXCEPTO OS MAIS FIÉIS DOS FIÉIS O QUE EM POLÍTICA TANTO PODE SER UM HESS QUALQUER OU UM HERMAN GOERING A PRECISAR DE PERDER PESO OU MESMO DER TRUE HEINRICH OR A LESSER RICH HIMMLERIANUS ....O ARSÉNICO TAL COMO A POLÍTICA ATÉ ENGORDA A FINA IRONIA ATÉ A TORNAR GROSSA .... E NESSE CENÁRIO APOCALÍPTICO DE 1755 OS ESPANHÓIS NUESTROS HERMANITOS LEVANTARAM AS TAXAS ALFANDEGÁRIAS E AFOGARAM A MISÉRIA EM TRIGO ANDALUZ E CASTELAÑO VENDIDO A BAIXOS PREÇOS AOS SOBREVIVENTES QUE CONSEGUIAM CHEGAR À RAIA ...A INGLATERRA NOSSA FIEL ALIADA ENVIA PARA O APOCALIPSE TECTÓNICO 300 MIL CRUZADOS E 200 MIL PATACAS PARA OBVIAR A FALTA DE TROCOS E AINDA 6000 BARRICAS DE CARNE BEM SALGADA E PARA UNTAR TUDO 4000 BARRICAS DE MANTEIGA BEM GORDINHA E 1200 SACAS ESPANHOLAS DE ARROZ E DEZ MIL QUINTAIS DE FARINHA PARA FAZER O PÃO QUE MATA A FOME A LISBOA ARRASADA POR DEUS E PELOS HOMENS E DEUS ARRASOU MUITO MAIS O GAJO TINHA MAIS PRÁTICA ...ERA UM DEUS MUITO IRÓNICO BENZODEUS

RESUMINDO COMO 


EXERCÍCIO DE ESTILO JORNALÍSTICO  


A IRONIA EM LINHA DUPLA OU SIMPLEX 



É FRACOTE MAS EM TERMOS



 DE TWITTER DEVE SER EXCELENTE

SENHORA, PARTEM TÃO TRISTES ...MEUS OLHOS POR VÓS MEU BEM ...TU QUE NEM SEQUER EXISTES...NA SOMBRA DOS OLHOS TRISTES ,,,NEM NOS OLHOS DE NINGUÉM,,,NO NADA SEMPRE RESISTES ....NAS SOMBRAS EM QUE PERSISTES ,,,SOZINHA SEM TER POR QUEM ...PEDES O NOME A ALGUÉM ....QUE FAÇA DE TI SENHORA ...E A VIDA LOGO MELHORA...E NO NADA TUDO FICA BEM.....NO ROMBO DOS DIAS TRISTES,,,,,PARTEM TRISTES OS TRASTES ,,,TU QUE ÉS NADA E PERSISTES...NO ERRO QUE REFORMASTE ...NUNCA TÃO TRISTES VISTES ...NAS GENTES QUE ENGANASTE...MEXIÂNICA NÚNICA MÚMICA...CHEGAM TÃO TRISTES OS TRISTES ...TÃO FORA DE ESPERAR BEM .....QUE NUNCA DOS TRISTES DESISTES....NU NO MUNDO COMO NINGUÉM.....AH A TENSÃO, REPOUSAVAS....E MAL TE MEXIAS....E EM COMA FOLGAVAS ......DAS BACANAIS E AZIAS ...A RELES CALAFATE DAVAS....O CORAÇÃO MARINHEIRO ....E A ELE TE SUJEITAVAS ....E LHE DAVAS O MUNDO INTEIRO...NO COMA FEBRIL SOFRESTE.....NO COMA EM QUE TE PERDESTE ...ONÍRICO CALAFATE CONHECESTE.....SOFRE EM TAL SUJEIÇÃO ...COMO SOCRATES PRESO ESTAVAS ...MAS DISSO NÃO TE LEMBRAVAS ....POIS SOFRIAS DO CORAÇÃO ..E NESSA INSUFICIÊNCIA ESCAPAVAS ...ÀS ATENÇÕES DAS ESCRAVAS ..E DA RELES GENTE DAS LAVRAS ,,,,E A ENXURRADAS DE PALAVRAS ...MEXIÂNICA EM CALAFATE DE FORÇA FORÇA CAMARADA VASCOS DAS GAMAS NOS ASCOS DAS CAMAS SUJAS E OUTRAS QUE TAIS MAIS SABUJAS

TÃO TRISTES SÃO TEUS DIAS


TRISTES COMO NUNCA VISTES


QUE A NÓS TRISTES NOS GUIAS

TRISTES A NÓS NOS ENQUISTES

TRISTES COMO NOS QUERIAS

TU QUE NO NADA EXISTES

TU QUE NO NADA PERSISTES

TU QUE EM NADA TE ESVAZIAS

O DEUS TATUADO NA CRUZ entrou a imperar Maximino, e no mesmo ano começou a fatal declinação e ruína do Império romano. Imperando Galério Maximiano em Roma, e conhecendo por muitas experiências que uma monarquia tão vasta não podia ser bem governada por um só homem (o que já tinha antevisto o mesmo Júlio César, seu fundador, quando lhe definiu certos limites), determinou dividi-la em duas partes e duas cabeças, como com efeito a dividiu em dois imperadores e dois impérios: um chamado ocidental, de que continuou a ser cabeça Roma , outro chamado oriental, de que começou a ser cabeça Constantinopla; e foram os dois novos imperadores, do ocidente Severo, e do oriente Maximino, ambos tiranos, mas com os nomes trocados; porque Maximino não só foi severo, senão o extremo da severidade e da sevícia. Por esta ocasião a águia, insígnia das bandeiras romanas, que até então tinha uma só cabeça, começou a aparecer com duas, como hoje a vemos, posto que é mais fácil copiar o pintado, que restaurar o verdadeiro. E como a divisão em todas as comunidades de homens e de coroas é indício fatal de declinação e ruína, assim o foi no império e águia romana a divisão daquelas duas cabeças. Já o profeta Daniel o tinha mostrado na mesma divisão, não das cabeças da águia, senão dos pés da estátua. Na estátua de Nabucodonosor, formada das quatro monarquias ou impérios, que sucessivamente haviam de florescer no Mundo, a cabeça de ouro significava o império dos assírios; o peito de prata, o império dos persas; o ventre de bronze, o império dos gregos; e o resto de ferro até os pés, o império dos romanos. E porque bastou que tocasse os mesmos pés uma pedra arrancada do monte sem mãos, para que caísse toda a estátua, e o mesmo império romano, e as outras monarquias, que nele por sucessão se continuavam, ficassem convertidas em pó?—Porque naqueles dois pés, divididos entre si, e cada pé dividido em cinco dedos, e cada dedo dividido em ferro e barro, teve o seu último complemento a divisão do império romano. E assim como nas duas cabeças da águia, em que começou a divisão do mesmo império, começou a sua declinação; assim na divisão dos dois pés da estátua, em que teve o último complemento a sua divisão, teve também o último fim a sua ruína. De sorte (reduzindo a conclusão aos termos da nossa metáfora) que a roda da Fortuna do império romano, na divisão das duas cabeças da águia, começou a voltar, e na divisão dos dois pés da estátua, acabou a volta. Agora havemos de ouvir a Plutarco, o famoso filósofo grego, que não é dos que convenceu Santa Catarina, porque floresceu muito antes; mas eu o quero convencer a ele, digno de se ouvir neste caso. Excitando Plutarco e disputando uma questão sobre a fortuna do império romano, diz assim: Fortuna persis et aissyriis desertis, cum leviter pervolasset Macedoniam et celeriter abjecisset Alexandrum. ægyptiosque, deinde et Syriam peragrando regna extulisset et sæpe conversa carthaginenses tulissett, postquam transmisso Tiberi ad palatium appropinquavit, alas deposuit, talaria exuit, ac infideli et versatili globo misso, Romam intravit mansura. Quer dizer: A Fortuna, depois de deixar os persas e assírios, depois de voar levemente pela Macedônia e rejeitar Alexandre e os que no Egito lhe sucederam, depois de andar pela Síria levantando e desfazendo reinos, e se deter, já próspera, já adversa, com os cartagineses, passando finalmente o Tibre, chegou ao capitólio romano, e ali arrancou dos ombros as asas maiores e descalçou dos pés as menores, ali se despojou e desarmou do globo, ou roda variável e inconstante, e ali, isto é, em Roma, fez o seu perpétuo assento, para nela perseverar e morar sempre firme e sem mudança. Isto é o que disse Plutarco, e isto o que criam os imperadores romanos, os quais sobre esta fé fundaram de ouro uma estátua da sua Fortuna e a colocaram no mesmo aposento onde eles dormiam, como que pudessem dormir seguros, pois a Fortuna lhe guardava o sono; e quando algum imperador morria, passava e era levada a mesma estátua ao sucessor, mostrando a vaidade e superstição dos que chegavam a alcançar a coroa romana, que podiam restar da Fortuna, como de patrimônio hereditário e próprio. Estava isto escrito nos seus Anais, como oráculo dos deuses; isto celebravam os seus poetas, os bucólicos com frautas pastoris à sombra das faias ; os heróicos com trombetas marciais em assombro das outras nações; e assim o cantou com elegante mentira o maior de todos, quando disse: Higo ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono, Imperium sine fine dedi (I). Agora pudera eu perguntar aos imperadores romanos, ou dormindo ou acordados, onde está aquela sua Fortuna de ouro, ou o ouro daquela Fortuna? Foi volta da mesma Fortuna, verdadeiramente lastimosa. Quando Alarico sitiou a Roma, viram-se os romanos tão apertados, que houveram de remir a dinheiro o levantar-se o sitio, e então entre o ouro e prata das outras estátuas dos seus deuses, foi também batido em moeda o ouro da sua Fortuna. Assim dormiam seguros os que se fiavam da fé de uma traidora e da vigilância de uma cega. Mas eu só quero confundir e envergonhar a Plutarco com as palavras da sua mesma lisonja. Diz que depôs a Fortuna ao pé do capitólio a roda. E quantas vezes a tornou a tomar e lhe deu tais voltas na Itália e dentro da mesma Roma, que meteu a que era cabeça do Mundo debaixo dos pés de Atila e Totila, inundada de godos e hunos, de suevos e alanos, e de tantos outros bárbaros? Diz do mesmo modo, que também depôs ali a Fortuna as asas. E quantas vezes as tornou a tomar e voou às Germanias, às Gálias e às Espanhas, que Roma imaginava pacificamente sujeitas com os presídios das suas legiões, contra as quais, porém, se levantaram então aquelas mesmas nações, como tão altivas e belicosas, não só restituindo-se cada uma ao que era seu, mas cortando às águias romanas as unhas com que lho tinham roubado? Diz mais, que em Roma fez a Fortuna o seu assento, para nela morar perpetuamente. E se no interior da mesma Roma recorrermos às cousas de maior duração, quais são os mármores; quantos anos, e quantos séculos há, que dos mesmos mármores levantados em obeliscos e arcos triunfais, se vêem só as miseráveis ruínas, ou meio sepultadas já ou cobertas de hera? Finalmente, aquele império sem fim, a que a fortuna não pôs metas ou limites alguns, nem à grandeza, nem ao tempo, diga-nos a mesma Fortuna onde está, e onde o tem escondido? Busque-se em todo o Mundo o império romano, e não se achará dele mais que o nome, e este não em Roma, senão muito longe dela. Acabaram-se as guerras e vitórias romanas, não só fechados, mas quebrados para sempre os ferrolhos das portas de Jano; acabaram-se os capitólios; acabaram-se os consulados; acabaram-se as ditaduras; acabaram-se para os generais as ovações e os triunfos; acabaram-se para os capitães famosos as estátuas e inscrições; acabaram-se para os soldados as coroas cívicas, murais e rostratas; acabaram-se enfim com o império os mesmos imperadores, e só vivem e reinam, ao revés da roda da Fortuna, os que eles quiseram acabar. Acabou Nero; e vivem e reinam Pedro e Paulo; acabou Trajano, e vive e reina Clemente; acabou Marco Aurélio, e vive e reina Policarpo; acabou Vespasiano, e vive e reina Apolinar; acabou Valeriano, e vive e reina Lourenço; acabou enfim Maximino, e vive e reina Catarina; ele, e os outros imperadores, porque se fiaram falsamente do império sem fim: Imperium sine fine dedi; e ela com os seus e com os outros mártires, porque reinam e hão de reinar por toda a eternidade com Cristo, no Reino que verdadeiramente não há de ter fim: Cujus regni non erit finis. Siquidem similis eris illi, cum videris eum sicuti est, esto et nunc similis ei, videns eum sicuti propter te factos est.Flet quoque, ut in speculo rugas conspexit aniles Tindaris, et secum cur sit bis rapta requirit. Que coisa é a formosura, senão uma caveira bem vestida, SÃO LIVROS QUE UMA VEZ LIDO NADA TÊM PARA RELERAcertaram, porém, os mesmos gentios na figura que lhe deram de mulher, pela inconstância; nas asas dos pés, pela velocidade com que se muda; e sobretudo em lhos porem sobre uma roda; porque nem no próspero, nem no adverso, e muito menos no próspero, teve jamais firmeza. Dos que a fizeram de ouro diremos depois; o que agora somente me parece dizer, é que os que a fingiram de vidro pela fragilidade, fingiram e encareceram pouco; porque ainda que a formassem de bronze, nunca lhe podiam segurar a inconstância da roda. Em uma das fábricas particulares e famosas do Templo, diz o texto sagrado, que fez Salomão dez bases de bronze, quadradas e iguais por todas as partes: Fecit decem bases aneas, quatuor cubitorum longitudinis, bases singulas et quatuor cubitorum latitudinis (3. Reg. VII-27). Diz mais (o que se o não dissera, não se imaginara) que estas dez bases se assentara cada uma sobre quatro rodas: Et quatuor rota per bases singulas (Ibid.—3o): acrescentando para maior clareza, que as rodas eram propriamente como as das carroças, com seus eixos, raios e tudo o mais fundido também no mesmo bronze: Tales autem rotæ erant quales solent in curru fieri; et axes earum, et radii, et canthi, et modioli, omniu fusilia (Ibid. —33). Toda esta miudeza foi necessário que se explicasse, para que se entendesse a obra, da qual se não fora o autor Salomão, quem haveria que ao menos não estranhasse tal modo de arquitetura? As bases são o fundamento e firmeza de toda a fábrica; a figura quadrada, entre todas as figuras a mais firme; o bronze, entre todos os metais o mais forte. Pelo contrário, as rodas com eixos, e todos os outros instrumentos de se moverem, são entre todas as cousas a menos constante, a menos estável, a menos firme. Pois porque assenta a sabedoria de Salomão toda a firmeza e fortaleza das suas bases sobre rodas? Assentadas as bases sobre rodas, ficam sendo as rodas bases das bases; e isto, que não faria, não digo eu Vitrúvio, (I) senão o arquiteto mais imperito, que o fizesse Salomão?!—Sim, e com tanta arte como mistério. Aquela obra era o chamado mar Éneo (2), fabricado antes de espelhos, e para espelho dos que nele se fossem ver e compor. Quis pois o mais sábio de todos os homens, que na mesma traça, disposição e ordem da fábrica, vissem e reconhecessem todos, que não há não pode haver neste Mundo coisa alguma tão sólida, tão forte, tão firme, nem ainda tão santa (qual aquela era), que, como se estivera fundada sobre rodas, não esteja sempre sujeita às voltas, declinações e mudanças de qualquer impulso, impressão ou movimento contrário. Tudo o que se diz da Fortuna, e seus poderes, é fingido e falso; só uma coisa há nela certa e verdadeira, que é a roda. E para que nos vamos chegando ao nosso caso, deixados os vidros e bronzes, que são nomes metafóricos, falemos agora com o próprio do homem, e de todas as coisas humanas, que é o barro. Mandou Deus Nosso Senhor ao profeta Jeremias, que fosse à oficina de um oleiro, e que depois de ver o que aquele homem fazia, lhe declararia o por que lá o mandava. Foi o profeta, e diz que achou o oleiro trabalhando sobre a sua roda: Et ecce ipse faciebat opus super rotam (Jerom. XVIII—3). E notando então com particular advertência o que fazia, viu que ao princípio estava formando um vaso muito polido, o qual, como se lhe descompusesse e desmanchasse entre as mãos, desfê-lo, e, como irado contra ele, tornou a amassar e pôr na roda o mesmo barro, e fez outro vaso muito diferente, como lhe veio à fantasia. Aqui falou então Deus ao profeta, e lhe disse desta maneira:—Assim como o oleiro tem nas suas mãos o barro, e dele faz uns vasos e desfaz outros; assim tenho eu nas minhas mãos o Mundo, e posso desfazer uns reinos e fazer outros ao meu arbítrio. E se ele com a ponta de um pé dá estas voltas a sua roda, julga tu, se o poderei fazer eu. Vai a Jerusalém, conta-lhe o que viste e dize-lhe que o primeiro vaso tão polido que o oleiro fazia, é o reino de Israel, tão amado e favorecido da minha providência, o qual com a sua rebeldia se me descompõe entre as mãos; e que ainda estou aparelhado para lhe perdoar e arrepender do que tenho determinado; mas que se ele se não quiser emendar, darei volta à roda, e do mesmo barro farei outro vaso. Jerusalém passará para Babilônia, e o reino, que aqui é de El-Rei Joaquim com liberdade, lá será de Nabucodonosor com perpétuo cativeiro. E assim foi. Oh que facilmente se engana o juízo humano nas apreensões de qualquer sucesso próspero? Por isso disse sábia e prudentissimamente o grande senador romano, Severino Boécio, que melhor e mais útil é ao homem a fortuna adversa, que a próspera: Plus reor hominibus adversam, quam prosperam prodesse fortunam (I). E dá a razão; porque a próspera mente e a adversa desengana: Illa enim semper specie felicitatis, cum videtur b1anda, mentitur; hæc semper vera est, cum se instabilem mutatione demonstrat. Illa fallit, hæc instruit. Quem se não quiser enganar com as lisonjas da Fortuna próspera, olhe para a roda. Nela, e do mesmo barro faz Deus reinos e desfaz reinos; desfaz Jerusaléns e acrescenta Babilônias; cativa os livres e restitui a liberdade aos cativos. Assim o fez a benignidade divina, dando outra volta à roda, e restituindo os cativos de Babilônia a liberdade, de que poucos já se lembravam, no fim de setenta anos: caso bem parecido ao nosso.

Lá, depois de setenta anos; cá, depois de sessenta, uns e outros profetizados: mas nem por isso cuide alguém, que para todas estas voltas da roda são necessários tantos espaços ou tantos vagares do tempo. As rodas do carro de Ezequiel, em que Deus se lhe mostrou governando todo este Mundo, eram cada uma composta de duas, uma roda atravessada e outra cruzada com ela pelo meio. Isso quer dizer: Rota in medio rotæ (Ezeq. X—10). E que rodas eram e são estas?—Uma é a roda da Fortuna, outra a roda do Tempo. Mas de taI maneira unidas e travadas entre si, e tão independentes uma do curso da outra, que para a roda do Fortuna dar uma volta inteira, não é necessário que a de também inteira o Tempo. As voltas da roda do Tempo são as mesmas que as do Sol. O Sol dá uma volta maior cada ano, e uma maior cada dia. Porém, para a Fortuna dar uma volta inteira aos maiores impérios não são necessários anos nem dias.

O maior império e monarquia que tinha havido no Mundo, era a dos assírios e caldeus. E quantas horas houve mister a roda da Fortuna para derribar esta e levantar sobre ela outra maior? Diga-o a Escritura Sagrada por boca de Daniel, que se achou presente: Eadem nocte intrfectus est Baltassar rex chaldæus, et Darius Medus successit in regnum (Dan. V—3º e 3^I): Na mesma noite fatal em que o rei com mil magnates da sua monarquia, convidados para um solene banquete, estavam brindando aos seus deuses, foi morto—diz Daniel—Baltazar, rei caldeu, e lhe sucedeu no império Dario medo. De sorte que tanto mais depressa deu volta a roda da Fortuna que a roda do Tempo, que, não tendo o Tempo em ausência do Sol andado um dia natural, nem meio dia, a Fortuna, morto Baltazar e sucedendo-lhe na coroa Dario, já tinha posto por terra a monarquia dos assírios e caldeus, e levantado até as nuvens a dos persas e medos.

Caiu a monarquia, mas não caiu a corte; porque ficaram em pé os famosos muros de Babilônia, com os seus jardins cultivados no ar, por isso chamados hortos pensiles; onde, porém, até as flores não escaparam de ficar tristemente murchas e secas, servindo a mãos estranhas, que as não tinham regado. E para que alguém não imagine da roda da Fortuna, que, não perdoando às coroas, ao menos dá quartel às pedras; passando do maior império da Ásia à melhor cidade da Europa, ouçamos em outra coisa não menos trágica, quão precipitada é a sua volta também em estas ruínas.

Fala Sêneca da antiga Lugduno (I), que anoitecendo cidade, amanheceu cinza, e escreve assim:Tot pulcherrima opera, quæ singula illustrare urbes singulas possent, una nox stravit. Et in tanta pace, quantum ne bello quidem timeri potest, accidit. Quis credat? Lugdunum, quod ostendebatur in Gallia, quæritur. Omnibus fortuna, quos publice affixit, quod passuri erant, timere permisit. Nulla res magna non aliquod habuit ruinæ suæ spatium. In hac una nox interfuit inter urbem maximum, et nullam. Denique diutius illam periisse, quam periit, narro (Sénec. Epist.). É lástima haver de afrontar com a tradução de qualquer outra língua a elegância destas palavras. "Aqueles famosos edifícios—diz Sêneca—que cada um deles pudera enobrecer e ilustrar uma cidade, todos igualou com a terra uma noite; e aconteceu na bela paz, o que nem da mais furiosa guerra se pudera temer. Quem tal crera? Aquela Lugduno, que se mostrava por maravilha na Gália, busca-se nela, e não se acha. A todos os que a Fortuna afligiu publicamente, permitiu que temessem o que haviam de padecer, e a nenhum coisa grande deixou de dar o tempo algum espaço à sua própria ruína. Só nesta, entre a cidade máxima e o nada, não houve mais que uma noite. Ainda acabou mais depressa do que eu o escrevo". Atequi a narração e ponderação do grande filósofo. E como para as maiores voltas e mudanças da roda da Fortuna não são necessários anos, nem dias inteiros, e da ametade de um dia sobejam ainda horas e essas as mais ocultas à vista; que segurança pode haver tão confiada, que entre os abraços mais lisonjeiros da felicidade não tema os seus reveses? E que reino ou república, que rei ou capitão prudente, que entre os maiores triunfos lhe não esteja sempre batendo às portas do coração aquela voz duvidosa: Ne forte?

TODOS SE TRATAVAM POR CAMARADA E POR TU ...NINGUÉM USAVA O SEÑOR DON OU USTED E DIZIAM SALUD EM VEZ DE BUEÑOS DIAS ...A small but significant instance of the way in which everything was now

I had thought it a town
where class distinctions and great differences of wealth hardly existed.
Certainly that was what it looked like. 'Smart' clothes were an
abnormality, nobody cringed or took tips, 

waiters and flower-women and bootblacks looked you in the eye and called you 'comrade'.
I had not grasped that this was mainly a mixture of hope and camouflage. The working class believed in a revolution that had been begun but never consolidated, and the bourgeoisie were scared and temporarily disguising themselves as workers. In the first months of revolution there must have been many thousands of people who deliberately put on overalls and shouted revolutionary slogans as a way of saving their skins. Now things were returning to normal. The smart restaurants and hotels were full of rich people wolfing expensive meals, while for the working-class population food-prices had jumped enormously without any corresponding rise in wages. Apart from the expensiveness of everything, there were recurrent shortages of this and that, which, of course, always hit the poor rather than the rich. The restaurants and hotels seemed to have little difficulty in getting whatever they wanted, but in the working-class quarters the queues for bread, olive oil, and other necessaries were hundreds of yards long. Previously in Barcelona I had been struck by the absence of beggars; now there were quantities of them. Outside the delicatessen shop at the top of the Ramblas gangs of barefooted children were always waiting to swarm round anyone who came out and clamour for scraps of food. The 'revolutionary' forms of speech were dropping out of use. Strangers seldom addressed you as _tú_ and _camarada_ nowadays; it was usually _señor_ and _usted_. _Buenos días_ was beginning to replace _salud_. The waiters were back in their boiled shirts and the shop-walkers were cringing in the familiar manner. My wife and I went into a hosiery shop on the Ramblas to buy some stockings. The shopman bowed and rubbed his hands as they do not do even in England nowadays, though they used to do it twenty or thirty years ago. In a furtive indirect way the practice of tipping was coming back. The workers' patrols had been ordered to dissolve and the pre-war police forces were back on the streets. One result of this was that the cabaret show and high-class brothels, many of which had been closed by the workers' patrols, had promptly reopened.*

A small but significant instance of the way in which everything was now
orientated in favour of the wealthier classes could be seen in the
tobacco shortage. For the mass of the people the shortage of tobacco was
so desperate that cigarettes filled with sliced liquorice-root were
being sold in the streets. I tried some of these once. (A lot of people
tried them once.) Franco held the Canaries, where all the Spanish
tobacco is grown; consequently the only stocks of tobacco left on the
Government side were those that had been in existence before the war.
These were running so low that the tobacconists' shops only opened once
a week; after waiting for a couple of hours in a queue you might, if you
were lucky, get a three-quarter-ounce packet of tobacco. Theoretically
the Government would not allow tobacco to be purchased from abroad,
because this meant reducing the gold-reserves, which had got to be kept
for arms and other necessities. Actually there was a steady supply of
smuggled foreign cigarettes of the more expensive kinds, Lucky Strikes
and so forth, which gave a grand opportunity for profiteering. You could
buy the smuggled cigarettes openly in the smart hotels and hardly less
openly in the streets, provided that you could pay ten pesetas (a
militiaman's daily wage) for a packet. The smuggling was for the benefit
of wealthy people, and was therefore connived at. If you had enough
money there was nothing that you could not get in any quantity, with the
possible exception of bread, which was rationed fairly strictly. This
open contrast of wealth and poverty would have been impossible a few
months earlier, when the working class still were or seemed to be in
control. But it would not be fair to attribute it solely to the shift of
political power. Partly it was a result of the safety of life in
Barcelona, where there was little to remind one of the war except an
occasional air-raid. Everyone who had been in Madrid said that it was
completely different there. In Madrid the common danger forced people of
almost all kinds into some sense of comradeship. A fat man eating quails
while children are begging for bread is a disgusting sight, but you are
less likely to see it when you are within sound of the guns

But let your song grow drunk with wine Where mystic unions vaguely shine In luminous and errant ways. Like veilèd eyes your song should BEE...SAMANTHA FOXTHE ARAB HOUSE WAS REBORN NO ROSES, NO HEADS, NO WINE NO PEEPING IN, NO SCORN NO PORKY PIG, NO EVIL VINE I REMEMBER I REMEMBER THE RISE OF THE WAHHABI EMPIRE DARK AND HIGH AGAINST THE SKY THEY CRUSH THE FLOWERS IN THE SHIRE AND THEY NOT LEND,THEY DONT BUY AND FARE THY WHEEL A WHILE WHILE THE SANDS RUN THE LAST MILE WHEN THE WINDS CAST A FAST SMILE THAT'S' NOT DEMOCRACY THAT SPRINGS AND ONLY DEAD MEN AND DEMONS SINGS WHEN ANGELS SPREAD THEIR WINGS THE WAHHABI EMPIRE IS RISING THEY DEARLY DISLIKE THE WEST AND THIS IS THE ARAB SPRING THE LASSIE YOU LOVE BEST

UMA CULTURA QUE NÃO RECONHECE

A LEGITIMIDADE DO JURO 

MAS RECONHECE VALORES MONETÁRIOS

É UMA CULTURA QUE NECESSITA 

DE SE TORNAR ESTÁTICA 

POIS A INFLAÇÃO É MORTAL NUMA 

CULTURA DESTAS 

TRÊS TIPOS DE BENS TEM O ESTADO 

ISLÂMICO

OS ESSENCIAIS CASA COMIDA E BALAS

HOUSE FOOD AND 

DON'T SPARE THE AMMO 

OS DE PRESTÍGIO 

SEX SLAVES AND VIRGINS FROM HEAVEN

E OBVIAMENTE ADMITO-O 

SAND DOLLARS 

When I found that this mustang was clerking in a fruit establishment (he had the establishment along with him in a basket,) at two cents a day, and that he had no palace at home where he lived, I lost some of my enthusiasm concerning the happiness of living in Italy. p319.jpg (20K) This naturally suggests to me a thought about wages here. Lieutenants in the army get about a dollar a day, and common soldiers a couple of cents. I only know one clerk--he gets four dollars a month. Printers get six dollars and a half a month, but I have heard of a foreman who gets thirteen. To be growing suddenly and violently rich, as this man is, naturally makes him a bloated aristocrat. The airs he puts on are insufferable. And, speaking of wages, reminds me of prices of merchandise. In Paris you pay twelve dollars a dozen for Jouvin's best kid gloves; gloves of about as good quality sell here at three or four dollars a dozen. You pay five and six dollars apiece for fine linen shirts in Paris; here and in Leghorn you pay two and a half. In Marseilles you pay forty dollars for a first-class dress coat made by a good tailor, but in Leghorn you can get a full dress suit for the same money. Here you get handsome business suits at from ten to twenty dollars, and in Leghorn you can get an overcoat for fifteen dollars that would cost you seventy in New York. Fine kid boots are worth eight dollars in Marseilles and four dollars here. Lyons velvets rank higher in America than those of Genoa. Yet the bulk of Lyons velvets you buy in the States are made in Genoa and imported into Lyons, where they receive the Lyons stamp and are then exported to America. You can buy enough velvet in Genoa for twenty-five dollars to make a five hundred dollar cloak in New York--so the ladies tell me. Of course these things bring me back, by a natural and easy transition, to the ASCENT OF VESUVIUS--CONTINUED. And thus the wonderful Blue Grotto is suggested to me. It is situated on the Island of Capri, twenty-two miles from Naples. p320.jpg (40K) We chartered a little steamer and went out there. Of course, the police boarded us and put us through a health examination, and inquired into our politics, before they would let us land. The airs these little insect Governments put on are in the last degree ridiculous. They even put a policeman on board of our boat to keep an eye on us as long as we were in the Capri dominions. They thought we wanted to steal the grotto, I suppose. It was worth stealing. The entrance to the cave is four feet high and four feet wide, and is in the face of a lofty perpendicular cliff--the sea-wall. You enter in small boats--and a tight squeeze it is, too. You can not go in at all when the tide is up. Once within, you find yourself in an arched cavern about one hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and twenty wide, and about seventy high. How deep it is no man knows. It goes down to the bottom of the ocean. p321.jpg (37K) The waters of this placid subterranean lake are the brightest, loveliest blue that can be imagined. They are as transparent as plate glass, and their coloring would shame the richest sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could be more ravishing, no lustre more superb. Throw a stone into the water, and the myriad of tiny bubbles that are created flash out a brilliant glare like blue theatrical fires. Dip an oar, and its blade turns to splendid frosted silver, tinted with blue. Let a man jump in, and instantly he is cased in an armor more gorgeous than ever kingly Crusader wore. Then we went to Ischia, but I had already been to that island and tired myself to death "resting" a couple of days and studying human villainy, with the landlord of the Grande Sentinelle for a model. So we went to Procida, and from thence to Pozzuoli, where St. Paul landed after he sailed from Samos. I landed at precisely the same spot where St. Paul landed, and so did Dan and the others. It was a remarkable coincidence. St. Paul preached to these people seven days before he started to Rome. Nero's Baths, the ruins of Baiae, the Temple of Serapis; Cumae, where the Cumaen Sybil interpreted the oracles, the Lake Agnano, with its ancient submerged city still visible far down in its depths--these and a hundred other points of interest we examined with critical imbecility, but the Grotto of the Dog claimed our chief attention, because we had heard and read so much about it. Every body has written about the Grotto del Cane and its poisonous vapors, from Pliny down to Smith, and every tourist has held a dog over its floor by the legs to test the capabilities of the place. The dog dies in a minute and a half--a chicken instantly. As a general thing, strangers who crawl in there to sleep do not get up until they are called. And then they don't either. The stranger that ventures to sleep there takes a permanent contract. I longed to see this grotto. I resolved to take a dog and hold him myself; suffocate him a little, and time him; suffocate him some more and then finish him. We reached the grotto at about three in the afternoon, and proceeded at once to make the experiments. But now, an important difficulty presented itself. We had no dog. ASCENT OF VESUVIUS--CONTINUED. At the Hermitage we were about fifteen or eighteen hundred feet above the sea, and thus far a portion of the ascent had been pretty abrupt. For the next two miles the road was a mixture--sometimes the ascent was abrupt and sometimes it was not: but one characteristic it possessed all the time, without failure--without modification--it was all uncompromisingly and unspeakably infamous. It was a rough, narrow trail, and led over an old lava flow--a black ocean which was tumbled into a thousand fantastic shapes--a wild chaos of ruin, desolation, and barrenness--a wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature mountains rent asunder--of gnarled and knotted, wrinkled and twisted masses of blackness that mimicked branching roots, great vines, trunks of trees, all interlaced and mingled together: and all these weird shapes, all this turbulent panorama, all this stormy, far-stretching waste of blackness, with its thrilling suggestiveness of life, of action, of boiling, surging, furious motion, was petrified!--all stricken dead and cold in the instant of its maddest rioting!--fettered, paralyzed, and left to glower at heaven in impotent rage for evermore! Finally we stood in a level, narrow valley (a valley that had been created by the terrific march of some old time irruption) and on either hand towered the two steep peaks of Vesuvius. The one we had to climb--the one that contains the active volcano--seemed about eight hundred or one thousand feet high, and looked almost too straight-up-and-down for any man to climb, and certainly no mule could climb it with a man on his back. Four of these native pirates will carry you to the top in a sedan chair, if you wish it, but suppose they were to slip and let you fall,--is it likely that you would ever stop rolling? Not this side of eternity, perhaps. We left the mules, sharpened our finger-nails, and began the ascent I have been writing about so long, at twenty minutes to six in the morning. The path led straight up a rugged sweep of loose chunks of pumice-stone, and for about every two steps forward we took, we slid back one. It was so excessively steep that we had to stop, every fifty or sixty steps, and rest a moment. To see our comrades, we had to look very nearly straight up at those above us, and very nearly straight down at those below. We stood on the summit at last--it had taken an hour and fifteen minutes to make the trip. What we saw there was simply a circular crater--a circular ditch, if you please--about two hundred feet deep, and four or five hundred feet wide, whose inner wall was about half a mile in circumference. In the centre of the great circus ring thus formed, was a torn and ragged upheaval a hundred feet high, all snowed over with a sulphur crust of many and many a brilliant and beautiful color, and the ditch inclosed this like the moat of a castle, or surrounded it as a little river does a little island, if the simile is better. The sulphur coating of that island was gaudy in the extreme--all mingled together in the richest confusion were red, blue, brown, black, yellow, white--I do not know that there was a color, or shade of a color, or combination of colors, unrepresented--and when the sun burst through the morning mists and fired this tinted magnificence, it topped imperial Vesuvius like a jeweled crown! The crater itself--the ditch--was not so variegated in coloring, but yet, in its softness, richness, and unpretentious elegance, it was more charming, more fascinating to the eye. There was nothing "loud" about its well-bred and well-creased look. Beautiful? One could stand and look down upon it for a week without getting tired of it. It had the semblance of a pleasant meadow, whose slender grasses and whose velvety mosses were frosted with a shining dust, and tinted with palest green that deepened gradually to the darkest hue of the orange leaf, and deepened yet again into gravest brown, then faded into orange, then into brightest gold, and culminated in the delicate pink of a new-blown rose. Where portions of the meadow had sunk, and where other portions had been broken up like an ice-floe, the cavernous openings of the one, and the ragged upturned edges exposed by the other, were hung with a lace-work of soft-tinted crystals of sulphur that changed their deformities into quaint shapes and figures that were full of grace and beauty. The walls of the ditch were brilliant with yellow banks of sulphur and with lava and pumice-stone of many colors. No fire was visible any where, but gusts of sulphurous steam issued silently and invisibly from a thousand little cracks and fissures in the crater, and were wafted to our noses with every breeze. But so long as we kept our nostrils buried in our handkerchiefs, there was small danger of suffocation. Some of the boys thrust long slips of paper down into holes and set them on fire, and so achieved the glory of lighting their cigars by the flames of Vesuvius, and others cooked eggs over fissures in the rocks and were happy. The view from the summit would have been superb but for the fact that the sun could only pierce the mists at long intervals. Thus the glimpses we had of the grand panorama below were only fitful and unsatisfactory.

Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mud-turtle. My first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If any Bedouins had approached us, then, from that point of the compass, they would have paid dearly for their rashness. We all remarked that, afterwards. There would have been scenes of riot and bloodshed there that no pen could describe. I know that, because each man told what he would have done, individually; and such a medley of strange and unheard-of inventions of cruelty you could not conceive of. One man said he had calmly made up his mind to perish where he stood, if need be, but never yield an inch; he was going to wait, with deadly patience, till he could count the stripes upon the first Bedouin's jacket, and then count them and let him have it. Another was going to sit still till the first lance reached within an inch of his breast, and then dodge it and seize it. I forbear to tell what he was going to do to that Bedouin that owned it. It makes my blood run cold to think of it. Another was going to scalp such Bedouins as fell to his share, and take his bald-headed sons of the desert home with him alive for trophies. But the wild-eyed pilgrim rhapsodist was silent. His orbs gleamed with a deadly light, but his lips moved not. Anxiety grew, and he was questioned. If he had got a Bedouin, what would he have done with him—shot him? He smiled a smile of grim contempt and shook his head. Would he have stabbed him? Another shake. Would he have quartered him—flayed him? More shakes. Oh! horror what would he have done?
"Eat him!"
Such was the awful sentence that thundered from his lips. What was grammar to a desperado like that? I was glad in my heart that I had been spared these scenes of malignant carnage. No Bedouins attacked our terrible rear. And none attacked the front. The new-comers were only a reinforcement of cadaverous Arabs, in shirts and bare legs, sent far ahead of us to brandish rusty guns, and shout and brag, and carry on like lunatics, and thus scare away all bands of marauding Bedouins that might lurk about our path. What a shame it is that armed white Christians must travel under guard of vermin like this as a protection against the prowling vagabonds of the desert—those sanguinary outlaws who are always going to do something desperate, but never do it. I may as well mention here that on our whole trip we saw no Bedouins, and had no more use for an Arab guard than we could have had for patent leather boots and white kid gloves. The Bedouins that attacked the other parties of pilgrims so fiercely were provided for the occasion by the Arab guards of those parties, and shipped from Jerusalem for temporary service as Bedouins. They met together in full view of the pilgrims, after the battle, and took lunch, divided the bucksheesh extorted in the season of danger, and then accompanied the cavalcade home to the city! The nuisance of an Arab guard is one which is created by the Sheiks and the Bedouins together, for mutual profit, it is said, and no doubt there is a good deal of truth in it.
We visited the fountain the prophet Elisha sweetened (it is sweet yet,) where he remained some time and was fed by the ravens.
Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin. When Joshua marched around it seven times, some three thousand years ago, and blew it down with his trumpet, he did the work so well and so completely that he hardly left enough of the city to cast a shadow. The curse pronounced against the rebuilding of it, has never been removed. One King, holding the curse in light estimation, made the attempt, but was stricken sorely for his presumption. Its site will always remain unoccupied; and yet it is one of the very best locations for a town we have seen in all Palestine.
At two in the morning they routed us out of bed—another piece of unwarranted cruelty—another stupid effort of our dragoman to get ahead of a rival. It was not two hours to the Jordan. However, we were dressed and under way before any one thought of looking to see what time it was, and so we drowsed on through the chill night air and dreamed of camp fires, warm beds, and other comfortable things.
There was no conversation. People do not talk when they are cold, and wretched, and sleepy. We nodded in the saddle, at times, and woke up with a start to find that the procession had disappeared in the gloom. Then there was energy and attention to business until its dusky outlines came in sight again. Occasionally the order was passed in a low voice down the line: "Close up—close up! Bedouins lurk here, every where!" What an exquisite shudder it sent shivering along one's spine!
We reached the famous river before four o'clock, and the night was so black that we could have ridden into it without seeing it. Some of us were in an unhappy frame of mind. We waited and waited for daylight, but it did not come. Finally we went away in the dark and slept an hour on the ground, in the bushes, and caught cold. It was a costly nap, on that account, but otherwise it was a paying investment because it brought unconsciousness of the dreary minutes and put us in a somewhat fitter mood for a first glimpse of the sacred river.
With the first suspicion of dawn, every pilgrim took off his clothes and waded into the dark torrent, singing:

"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wistful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie."

But they did not sing long. The water was so fearfully cold that they were obliged to stop singing and scamper out again. Then they stood on the bank shivering, and so chagrined and so grieved, that they merited holiest compassion. Because another dream, another cherished hope, had failed. They had promised themselves all along that they would cross the Jordan where the Israelites crossed it when they entered Canaan from their long pilgrimage in the desert. They would cross where the twelve stones were placed in memory of that great event. While they did it they would picture to themselves that vast army of pilgrims marching through the cloven waters, bearing the hallowed ark of the covenant and shouting hosannahs, and singing songs of thanksgiving and praise. Each had promised himself that he would be the first to cross. They were at the goal of their hopes at last, but the current was too swift, the water was too cold!
It was then that Jack did them a service. With that engaging recklessness of consequences which is natural to youth, and so proper and so seemly, as well, he went and led the way across the Jordan, and all was happiness again. Every individual waded over, then, and stood upon the further bank. The water was not quite breast deep, any where. If it had been more, we could hardly have accomplished the feat, for the strong current would have swept us down the stream, and we would have been exhausted and drowned before reaching a place where we could make a landing. The main object compassed, the drooping, miserable party sat down to wait for the sun again, for all wanted to see the water as well as feel it. But it was too cold a pastime. Some cans were filled from the holy river, some canes cut from its banks, and then we mounted and rode reluctantly away to keep from freezing to death. So we saw the Jordan very dimly. The thickets of bushes that bordered its banks threw their shadows across its shallow, turbulent waters ("stormy," the hymn makes them, which is rather a complimentary stretch of fancy,) and we could not judge of the width of the stream by the eye. We knew by our wading experience, however, that many streets in America are double as wide as the Jordan.
Daylight came, soon after we got under way, and in the course of an hour or two we reached the Dead Sea. Nothing grows in the flat, burning desert around it but weeds and the Dead Sea apple the poets say is beautiful to the eye, but crumbles to ashes and dust when you break it. Such as we found were not handsome, but they were bitter to the taste. They yielded no dust. It was because they were not ripe, perhaps.

Yet the school of Turkish politics was so ignoble that not even the best could graduate from it unaffected. Hussein when young had been honest, outspoken . . . and he learned not merely to suppress his speech, but to use speech to conceal his honest purpose. The art, over-indulged, became a vice from which he could not free himself. In old age ambiguity covered his every communication. Lake a cloud it hid his decision of character, his worldly wisdom, his cheerful strength. Many denied HIM such qualities: but history gave proof.

One instance of his worldly wisdom was the upbringing of his sons. The
Sultan had made them live in Constantinople to receive a Turkish
education. Sherif Hussein saw to it that the education was general and
good. When they came back to the Hejaz as young effendis in European
clothes with Turkish manners, the father ordered them into Arab dress;
and, to rub up their Arabic, gave them Meccan companions and sent them
out into the wilds, with the Camel Corps, to patrol the pilgrim roads.

The young men thought it might be an amusing trip, but were dashed when
their father forbade them special food, bedding, or soft-padded
saddles. He would not let them back to Mecca, but kept them out for
months in all seasons guarding the roads by day and by night, handling
every variety of man, and learning fresh methods of riding and
fighting. Soon they hardened, and became self-reliant, with that blend
of native intelligence and vigour which so often comes in a crossed
stock. Their formidable family group was admired and efficient, but
curiously isolated in their world. They were natives of no country,
lovers of no private plot of ground. They had no real confidants or
ministers; and no one of them seemed open to another, or to the father,
of whom they stood in awe.

The debate after supper was an animated one. In my character as a
Syrian I made sympathetic reference to the Arab leaders who had been
executed in Damascus by Jemal Pasha. They took me up sharply: the
published papers had disclosed that these men were in touch with
foreign Governments, and ready to accept French or British suzerainty
as the price of help. This was a crime against Arab nationality, and
Jemal had only executed the implied sentence. Feisal smiled, almost
winked, at me. 'You see,' he explained, 'we are now of necessity tied
to the British. We are delighted to be their friends, grateful for
their help, expectant of our future profit. But we are not British
subjects. We would be more at ease if they were not such
disproportionate allies.'

I told a story of Abdulla el Raashid, on the way up to Hamra. He had
groaned to me of the British sailors coming ashore each day at Rabegh.
'Soon they will stay nights, and then they will live here always, and
take the country.' To cheer him I had spoken of millions of Englishmen
now ashore in France, and of the French not afraid.

Whereat he had turned on me scornfully, asking if I meant to compare
France with the land of Hejazi?

Feisal mused a little and said, I am not a Hejazi by upbringing; and
yet, by God, I am jealous for it. And though I know the British do not
want it, yet what can I say, when they took the Sudan, also not wanting
it? They hunger for desolate lands, to build them up; and so, perhaps,
one day Arabia will seem to them precious. Your good and my good,
perhaps they are different, and either forced good or forced evil will
make a people cry with pain. Does the ore admire the flame which
transforms it? There is no reason for offence, but a people too weak
are clamant over their little own. Our race will have a cripple's
temper till it has found its feet.'

The ragged, lousy tribesmen who had eaten with us astonished me by
their familiar understanding of intense political nationality, an
abstract idea they could hardly have caught from the educated classes
of the Hejaz towns, from those Hindus, Javanese, Bokhariots, Sudanese,
Turks, out of sympathy with Arab ideals, and indeed just then suffering
A little from the force of local sentiment, springing too high after
its sudden escape from Turkish control. Sherif Hussein had had the
worldly wisdom to base his precepts on the instinctive belief of the
Arabs that they were of the salt of the earth and self-sufficient.
Then, enabled by his alliance with us to back his doctrine by arms and
money, he was assured of success.

Of course, this success was not level throughout. The great body of
Sherifs, eight hundred or nine hundred of them, understood his
nationalist doctrine and were his missionaries, successful missionaries
thanks to the revered descent from the Prophet, which gave them the
power to hold men's minds, and to direct their courses into the willing
quietness of eventual obedience.

The tribes had followed the smoke of their racial fanaticism. The towns
might sigh for the cloying inactivity of Ottoman rule: the tribes were
convinced that they had made a free and Arab Government, and that each
of them was It. They were independent and would enjoy themselves--a
conviction and resolution which might have led to anarchy, if they had
not made more stringent the family tie, and the bonds of
kin-responsibility. But this entailed a negation of central power. The
Sherif might have legal sovereignty abroad, if he hiked the high-sounding
toy; but home affairs were to be customary. The problem of the
foreign theorists--Is Damascus to rule the Hejaz, or can Hejaz rule
Damascus?' did not trouble them at all, for they would not have it set.
The Semites' idea of nationality was the independence of clans and
villages, and their ideal of national union was episodic combined
resistance to an intruder. Constructive policies, an organized state,
an extended empire, were not so much beyond their sight as hateful in
it. They were fighting to get rid of Empire, not to win it.

The feeling of the Syrians and Mesopotamians in these Arab armies was
indirect. They believed that by fighting in the local ranks, even here
in Hejaz, they were vindicating the general rights of all Arabs to
national existence; and without envisaging one State, or even a
confederation of States, they were definitely looking northward,
wishing to add an autonomous Damascus and Bagdad to the Arab family.
They were weak in material resources, and even after success would be,
since their world was agricultural and pastoral, without minerals, and
could never be strong in modern armaments. Were it otherwise, we should
have had to pause before evoking in the strategic centre of the Middle
East new national movements of such abounding vigour.

Of religious fanaticism there was little trace. 

The Sherif refused in
round terms to give a religious twist to his rebellion.

 His fighting creed was nationality. 

The tribes knew that the Turks were Moslems, and
thought that the Germans were probably true friends of Islam. 

They knew that the British were Christians, and that the British were their
allies. In the circumstances, their religion would not have been of
much help to them, and they had put it aside. 'Christian fights
Christian, so why should not Mohammedans do the same? 

What we want is a
Government which speaks our own language of Arabic and will let us live
in peace.

 Also we hate those Turks.'

PORNO POEMA NA PORTA DOS FUNDOS PROFUNDOS QUE A TERRA TREMA NO VULVÁRIO QUE É BERÇÁRIO ORIGINÁRIO É UM POUCO ORDINÁRIO?PORNO POEMA NA ZINCADA NAU CATRINETA ONDE TAL É A FOME QUE ATÉ SE COME A NETA É UM PORNO POEMA MANETA EM QUE A TERRA TREME ATÉ QUE PROMETEU SE NÃO METEU QUE O META COM A CANHOTA OU SE É IDIOTA QUE DÊ A MÃO MAS NÃO PROMETA DIREITO DE PERNADA BEM DADA A PERNETA

e no abril SENIL a terra tremeu ó TESEU..... PROMETEU COM A ESQUERDA METEU COM A DIREITA E ...PROMETEU ATÉ DEU E QUE A TERRA TREMA NO TEU PORNO POEMA ,,,NA LISTA M TEM MANAS COM MAMAS E NO TAU TAU GREGO TU TE IRMANAS Ó CABRAL BRUTAL DAS ARRIFANAS ....NUNCA TENTARÁS A ESQUERDA É PERFEITO NÃO LHE DÁ MUITO JEITO JÁ COM A DIREITA VEM CÁ MEU BEM A DIREITA LHE ASSENTA BEM TAMBÉM OU DIREITO NA DIREITA SE ASSENTA BEM NINGUÉM ? TODO O MUNDO ACHA NORMAL QUE NA DIREITA SE FAÇA A MASTURMAÇÃO PERFEITA ESCORREITA ...FAZER PUNHETA SOCIALISTA NA GAVETA ATÉ PODE SER PORRETA ....É QUESTÃO DE APRENDER ..A FODER SEM FEDER

Vinho Rrn Kkkkkk

•  vinho? tem nome de cachaça não?

  
  
• 

  Vinho Rrn Kkkkk msm nome que o seu
• Álvaro Sêguro da Costa ué eu não sou pedido em restaurante moço

  
  

  Álvaro Sêguro da Costa em boteco aqui não se pede um copo de seguro nem uma caneca de costa nem um canjirão de álvaro né ....seu canibal... afinal seu vôvô comeu o meu ...e se fodeu o meu era judeu ...esta é repetida no estado islâmico não decapite vinho ...
• 
  

LUTA INGLÓRIA Junho de 1917. Masso a passo, inevitavelmente, caminhamos para -*• um desastre interno. A última crise política solucionou-se a favor dos inimigos da guerra. Um ministério partidário nesta conjuntura não pode governar em Portugal. É o mais desastroso erro político para a vida nacional. Primeiro defeito saltando aos olhos: a organi- zação do ministério. Alguns daqueles nomes nem os mesmos partidários julgam neste momento com arcaboiço para investidura tamanha. O Presidente do Ministério tem a atenção focada sobre tão alto escopo, que não enxerga as misérias cá de baixo. Nem o suspeita, estou em crer. Do contrário não se julgava com abastança para substituir a pou- quidade governativa dalguns dos seus colegas. Ao menos os nomes desses ministros deveriam conciliar o maior número de simpatias públicas. Desde logo se oferecia meflos corpo ao ataque. 44 Memórias da Grande Guerra Não aconteceu tal, e compondo-se o . ministério com alguns nomes excelentes, outros ali há dos que mais irritam uma boa parte da opinião. E assente, por hipótese, a necessidade dum ministério partidário, dado que ao partido demo- crático caiba governar neste momento, iremos de- sacreditar com o organismo político que mais defendeu a guerra a própria obra da nossa parti- cipação. — É o mais forte, — dirão. Nós vamos mais longe. É a grande força organizada da Repú- blica; constitui, por assim dizer, a sua coluna vertebral. Atirar-lhe golpes é, alem de prejudicar aquela alta missão, atacar a própria estabilidade do regimen, no seu eixo vital. Exagero? ^Onde o governo capaz de solucionar pelo menos os pro- blemas de urgência? O equilíbrio na vida econó- mica nacional desfez-se de há muito e não há quem tenha a força de promulgar as medidas ra- dicais que o refaçam. Resultado: já em Maio este governo houve de vencer um conflito muito grave e novo no género: os assaltos em massa aos es- tabelecimentos de víveres, qualquer coisa como a revolução da fome, mas com plano e organização secretas. Desmandos, violências, mortes, suspensão de garantias. O governo teve de empregar a for- ça; e esse facto acarretoU-lhe fortes antipatias nas classes populares. Mais um desastre a somar-se a uma longa série deles, pouco a pouco acumulados. Nós pregamos no Parlamento a necessidade Luta Inglória 45 de estabelecer entre governantes e governados a mais estreita solidariedade. Um dos meios a em- pregar seria a propaganda. O governo chegou a reconhecer essa necessidade, mas tarde. Pois nem mesmo assim teve força de a utilizar. A projectada revista que eu e João da Rocha fôramos chama- dos a dirigir, nunca chegou a aparecer. Em parte por incúria do governo e maiormente porque os factos começam a pesar mais que a vontade dos homens. Como pode, pois, um governo partidário, seja qual fôr, estabelecer agora essa solidarie- dade com a nação?! Agora que deixaram desorientar a opinião pública?! — As forças que se opõem ao governo. não teem valor. Não tem cada uma de per si, para uma acção definitiva. Mas unidas, sabe-se lá? Entrem em li- nha de conta com um povo cançado, faminto e por demais desorientado. Dentro do partido democrático w e particular- mente no seu grupo parlamentar, muitos homens começam a ver" o perigo. Nós pertencemos a esse número. De princípio hesitamos em dizê-lo clara- mente na reunião do governo com os parlamen- tares. A prosápia partidária, as hegemonias cria- das, a passividade de muitos hão de lhe opor-se. Depois, aparecem logo a insinuar-se: indisciplina, traição, ambições. Mas a consciência do dever afronta a idea das possíveis suspeitas que hão de 46 Memórias da Grande Guerra lançar sobre nós dentro do próprio partido. E pouco a pouco o pensamento ganha forma. Nas- ceu na própria Câmara dos Deputados duma conversa entre mim, José Ferreira da Silva e An- tónio da Fonseca. Assistia um amigo comum — o jornalista Herculano Nunes, redactor da Câmara dos Deputados, que, entrevendo a mesma verda- de, apoiava as nossas intenções. Aí assentamos em que se devia entregar ao chefe do governo um documento enunciando em poucas mas firmes palavras as nossas reclamações e propósitos. Sabíamos pelas conversas dos Passos Perdi- dos que muitos outros deputados dentro do par-' tido eram da mesma opinião: João de Deus Ra- mos, Ramada Curto, João de Barros, Artur Leitão, Francisco Trancoso, Sousa Rosa, Alberto Xavier, João Camoesas, Lúcio de Azevedo, etc, etc. Houve uma reunião em casa da António da Fonseca, a que assistiram alguns deles, e aí ficou assente entregar ao Dr. Afonso Costa uma. men- sagem expondo e fundamentando claramente as nossas disposições e assinada por todos aqueles deputados. Excluir-se iam apenas, ê de propósito, os nomes dos dois marechais que na ocasião dis- cordavam da conduta governamental, mas que podiam dar ao nosso movimento, com a sua chan- cela, um carácter de scisão partidária, falsa idea, que sistematicamente importava arredar. Eram eles o Dr. António Macieira e António Maria da Silva. Luta Inglória 47 A mensagem, que chegou a estar assinada por vinte e tantos nomes, rezava assim: Ex. mo Sr. Presidente do Ministério: Os deputados signatários, reconhecendo a gra- ve situação política e económica, traduzida pelas queixas, reclamações e inquietações da opinião e da imprensa, convencidos da necessidade de obter a confiança e a cooperação da maioria do país, para atender às urgentes preocupações do mo- mento e assentar as bases do ressurgimento na- cional, cuja aspiração é para todas as angústias presentes o alento e a força; certos de que só no respeito da verdade e da livre opinião pode a de- mocracia portuguesa encontrar as soluções úteis aos interesses nacionais; vêem comunicar a v. ex. a que estão no decidido propósito de apoiar o seguinte programa político: Constituição imediata de um governo nacional em que ''sejam representadas, quanto possível, as correntes partidárias e as classes produtoras, de modo a asse- gurar às medidas governativas o apoio da- queles a quem compete a sua realização. Esclarecimento público por parte do go- verno, de um modo sistemático e quanta possível completo, das questões nacionais, como base indispensável da colaboração 48 Memórias da Grande Guerra de todos e justa condição dos necessá- rios sacrifícios. Estudo e revisão dos problemas actuais, particularmente no que respeita ao esforço militar português e às garantias ou com- pensações internacionais correspondentes, em harmonia com a necessidade impres- cindível de assegurar a vida financeira do país e de promover, desde já e mesmo à custa de imediatos sacrifícios financeiros, o seu desenvolvimento material e moral. Ao fazer a v. ex. a esta comunicação, julgam os deputados signatários cumprir o que neste mo- mento é o seu mais imperioso dever; e tão evi- dente que supõem adquirida, para os fins supe- riores que se propuseram, a cooperação de todos os que, como v. ex. a , inspiram os seus actos no interesse supremo da Pátria e da República. Lisboa, 15 de Junho de 1917. Como este documento tinha um ar de comi- nação delicada, na previsão extrema dum conflito aberto no próprio Parlamento, resultando numa divisão de opiniões, um dos deputados signatários encarregara-se de sondar os unionistas sobre a possibilidade de se formar aquele governo nacio- nal com a sua cooperação. Não era nosso desejo atingir aquele fim por tão violento meio, mas, se o conflito das opiniões lavrasse até aquela assem- O Cristo de Neuve-Chapelle Memórias da Grande Guerra Luta Inglória 49 bleia, e que outrem o aproveitasse para uma mo- ção de desconfiança, redundando na queda ines- perada do governo, melhor seria prevenir a tempo os inconvenientes que uma crise súbita poderia acarretar... E o António da Fonseca conversou longamente com o sr. José Barbosa nos corredo- res da Câmara. As impressões colhidas, ao que parece, não eram boas. O snr. Dr. Afonso Costa, por certo informado dos nossos intentos, antecipou-se e provocou a questão em reunião do grupo parlamentar, deci- dido a fazê-la abortar. No dia seguinte àquele em que o choque se esboçara eu, que tinha em meu poder a mensagem, resolvi entregá-la em plena reunião do grupo par- lamentar, e isso mesmo comunicara a alguns dos signatários. Ali, antes de abrir a sessão, recebi uma carta do António da Fonseca, pedindo-me,' por motivos que depois explicaria, sustasse o meu propósito. Como o documento me não pertencia exclusiva- mente, acedi, contrariado. Esclareceu depois a con- veniência de que êle comportasse outras assinatu- ras dalguns deputados, que ainda o não tinham feiío por estarem ao tempo fora de Lisboa. Assim a luta veio a travar-se, mas com outro aspecto. Adivinhados os nossos intentos, e tornada , imperativa na consciência de muitos a primeira resolução, cada um, tratou de pôr o problema a seu modo. E ao abrir a sessão do grupo, João de 50 Memórias da Grande Guerra Deus Ramos, um dos deputados, em cujo espírito aquele pensamento mais se radicara, tomou a idea da formação dum ministério nacional e lançou-a corajosamente nesta moção que largamente de- fendeu: «A maioria parlamentar, reunida em sessão extraordiná- ria para apreciar a situação política; Ponderando as graves dificuldades com que o actual go- verno está lutando, e lutará cada vez mais, para manter com segurança e inalterável regularidade ó bom nome português na frente da batalha, e, sobretudo, para conservar interna- mente a nação em sacrificada e serena espectativa; Considerando que muitas dessas dificuldades poderiam desaparecer, ou diminuir de importância e gravidade, se o go- verno, em vez de ser partidário — embora fazendo política nacional — fosse um governo caracterizadamente nacional, em que tivessem representação todos os partidos republicanos e ainda outros elementos extra-partidários, de reconhecido valor económico e social, que acatem a bandeira da República; Reconhecendo a necessidade duma urgente solução que dê absoluta garantia de tranquilidade ao país, e de que os actuais ministros das finanças, da guerra e dos estrangeiros possam ter assegurada a sua acção governativa enquanto du- rar o conflito internacional; Resolve nomear uma comissão, composta de dois sena- dores e três deputados, para tratar com as minorias parlamen- tares e as oposições partidárias a formação dum governo na- cional. > Depois eu, Ramada Curto, Alberto Xavier, Francisco Trancoso e António da Fonseca falámos todos, uns defendendo a moção, outros declarando ideas, forçadas por ela....spanha... Rolamos pela planície imensa e calcinada. Tarde de Castela-a- Velha. O sol caiu. A planura ensombrada engasta-se no fundo arco do poente, violeta e rosa-pálido. Para aiêm, ao norte, o espaço é turvo e ardente; lavram nuvens de fogo, rolos de fumo: letibra um incêndio na savana. E na dramática paisagem, longe, no céu alto, só Vénus brilha, — sigla heráldica em campo azul e lilaz, encimando a terra de Portugal. Manhã clara, estamos nas Delícias. Descança- mos na cidade, — Madrid monumental, opulenta e esfaimada, torva de ódios, — seio de estátua, de- vorado por um cancro. Ao sol de Agosto, exala encanto e violência. Uma corrida aos Museus. Depois partir, partir de novo. À despedida tenho o Feliz de Carvalho, cônsul, que sempre me acompanhou, e os rapa- zes da embaixada, gentilíssiinos. Lá sigo.E cá dentro, na visão dos painéis, o 60 v Memórias da Grande Guerra coração da Espanha arde: o Greco delira, no seu pesadelo místico, em labaredas de tinta soturna; Velasquez, clássico e realista, bruxo adivinhando os tempos, pinta com o sangue e a lama da vida; Goya, de olhos em braza, desnuda sobre coxins violetas, a pinceladas de luxúria, o corpo maravi- lhoso da Maja; e Pradilla ergue, a manchas trá- gicas, à luz das tochas, a meio da sombra, do vento e da planície, e entre os fidalgos olhos deso- lados, o fantasma de Joana, la Loca, em frente ho féretro do amante.' Acima, acima. . . Galgamos a noite e o espaço. Amanhecemos sobre os Cantábricos, e, a rolar desfiladeiros, paramos em San Sebastian. Grande festa do Oceano, risos da gente e da espuma, com romeiros de toda a nação. Ao alto, o monte Iguel- do, último assento â% anfiteatro das cordilheiras e no extremo das duas pátrias, olhando a prumo o Mar de Biscaia, em vertigens de abismo. E estamos na França. Amigos, o contraste arripia. Esta gente sangra. Em Hendaia recebe- -nos a primeira parada de faces pálidas, cavadas de emoção. Um pouco acima estamos em Biarritz. Praia de mutilados e cruzes de guerra. As mães e as amantes trouxeram para ali os seus grandes doen- tes. ...E até o Mar está mais sério. Voamos de novo através da noite; e de ma- nhã saltamos na gare d'Orsay. O Melo Barreto Em Viagem 61 espera-me. E nas poucas horas, forradas ao seu grande labor da comissão económica, é o mais fraterno e solícito dos camaradas. Deambulamos » as ruas, à cata de emoções. Paris pode mudar no aspecto. Mas na essência múltipla e profunda é sempre igual a si mesma. Obra de génio dum povo, encarnação máxima de beleza e espírito, as mudanças do tempo podem decrescer ou avivar-lhe a chama; não lha extin- guem. Trouxe-lhe a guerra esta vantagem: as lá- grimas lavaram-lhe tanto a pintura da face que a alma ficou a nú. O aspecto, sim. Mutilados, doentes, cruzes de guerra, um aparato internacio- nal de fardas, e luto, muito luto: uma cidade em crepes. Em espírito é a mesma. A grande cidade sofre. E sofre, porque ama. Ama sempre. Demais Paris proclamou de há muito os Direitos do Homem e os Direitos do Amor. E como ama, assim, orgu- lhosa de amar, nós outros lá de baixo estranha- mos, porque na Península inda não arrancamos esses Direitos à viciação católica. Vi o beijo das epidermes; mas vi também o beijo das almas. Uma tarde, cortando o Jardim das Tulherias, aproximei-me do Théatre de Ver- dure. Ao mesmo tempo chegava num carro longo, ligeiro e alto, como o das crianças, impelido a mãos, um grande ferido de guerra, com a Cruz e a Legião, marcando a farda. Vinha deitado, o corpo envolto, entremostrando o peito e a face. 62 Memórias da Grande Guerra Devagarinho... devagarinho... Como vem tão branco e macerado!... Prende-o de certo à vida a esperança de Lázaro no sepuicro: só um piedoso milagre pode ressuscitá-lo. O carro chega; e logo a multidão que assiste ao espectáculo se afasta a abrir-lhe lugar. Os homens descobfem-se. Um si- lêncio religioso em volta. E depois, uma mulher que o acompanha, alta e formosa, senta-se ao la- do; ficam ali. E, longo tempo, o olhar dela, um olhar que estreita, oscula e embala, fita-se nele, sem despregar, como se esperasse, por milagre de amor, uma influição transcendente, a sarar-lhe o grande mal. Museus fechados. Um pedaço do Louvre e ou- tro' do Luxemburgo, apenas visíveis. Mas vamos daí a Notre-Dame. A catedral é, a seu modo, em pensamento pro- fundo e exuberância polimorfa, a imagem de Pa- ris. Negra e enorme, vista de frente pela fachada alterosa, — que em baixo se cava no triplo envasa- mento dos portais, logo arrendada acima pelo fri- so dos nichos; e após levanta meio corpo; e se alça de novo na galeria das arcadas subtis, para se coroar das duas pesadas torres, — a ciclópica mole apavora e deprime, despenhando-nos, sú- bito, pelo contraste da relação visível, na condição misérrima do grão de areia. Ruiu toda a arquitectura anterior da vida, e esmaga-nos, tamanha a sua imponência, aquele brusco alçado refulge, sob a torrente do sol, no meio dia das cores, a mina das pedrarias, — rubis, turquezas, esmeraldas, engastadas em fogo e crúos; logo acima, contra a paleta frouxa das rosáceas, o jorro da luz arcoíriza-se nas mil tintas esmaiadas da ante-manhã e do ocaso, — róseo, safíreo, rúbido, aviolado; té que nos altos da abóbada e dentre os intercolúnios, um luaceiro místico se côa, — esteira de as"as níveas, confinando as gelosias cimeiras com os áditos do Céu..

Tudo quanto expresso estava na mensagem 
se expôs e defendeu com desassombro. 

Disse eu então, e não o esquecerei, ser convic- 
ção minha que aquele governo, continuando no 
-poder e dentro da mesma política, terminaria com 
uma revolução, pois, a acrescentar a todas as di- 
ficuldades anteriores e vícios ingénitos do gover- 
no, o sr. Dr. Afonso Gosta, chefe dum partido 
radical, sem a coragem de enfiar pelo caminho 
que esse título lhe impunha, esquivando-se a de- 
liberar as medidas financeiras imprescindíveis, 
como o lançamento de impostos sobre os lucros 
de guerra, fazia entre as classes conservadoras e 
as populares uma política de equívoco, toda de 
puro dano, porque poupava os inimigos irredutí- 
veis e distanciava-se dos únicos capazes de lhe 
dar apoio. Noutro sentido era acanhada a sua po- 
lítica financeira: fechando-se a todas as despesas 
sem imediata e restrita aplicação à guerra, desde- 
nhava as medidas capazes de nos apetrechar ma- 
terial e moralmente para colher os frutos do nosso 
esforço, acabada a luta europeia. 

Para a formação do ministério nacional pieco- 
nizávamos a entrada de representantes não só dos 
partidos republicanos, como das classes operárias, 
indo eu até pronuneiar-me pela entrada no minis- 
tério dum católico, dtfs que se afirmavam neutros 
em matéria política. Um governo assim teria a 
confiança da nação e ainda, quando os unionistas 
teimassem no seu alheamento, com a representa- 



52 Memórias da Grande Guerra 

ção restante êle tornava, só por si, impossível 
qualquer tentativa revolucionária. Eram necessá- 
rias pesadas concessões? Tudo era preferível à in- 
tranquilidade e à perspectiva dum desastre interno. 

Mais ou menos todos defendemos estas opi- 
niões. 

O snr. Dr. Afonso Costa ouviu-nos até ao 
fim de boca cerrada e viseira sombria. E ora o vereis 
que se ergue e se lança ao ataque, tomando uma a 
uma as suas melhores armas, lento, calmo, arro- 
gante, até despedir sobre nós o raio fulminatório. 

Descobrira o ponto vulnerável: uma démarche, 
de nossa iniciativa, para a formação do governo na- 
cional, representava um cheque no governo e no 
partido e eram a sua confissão pública de incapaci- 
dade e desautoração suprema, dadas as responsabili- 
dades gravíssimas assumidas no problema da guerra. 
E com o seu esplêndido poder dialéctico, a danosa 
prática do foro (àquela hora já os jurados haviam 
de estar seguros) e a educação de esgrimista, in- 
sistiu no ponto fraco, deu-lhe proporções capazes 
de esconder tudo o mais, levou-o, por hipótese, 
até às piores consequências, e, chegado ao ponto 
culminante em que o auditório se deslumbra e o 
inimigo jorra sangue, ataca-nos então de frente, 
apoda-nos de descrentes, indisciplinados, a doença 
do partido, e de tal forma empolga a assemblea 
que os próprios rebeldes de há pouco deixam 
cair as armas e já lhe pagam, humílimos, tributo 
de apoio e aplauso. Um confessa-se vencido e 



Luta Inglória 53 

convencido, outro entrega-se com armas e baga- 
gens, e até o Ramada Curto, que pronunciara nas 
vésperas um discurso formidável conclui afirman- 
do-lhe que o conflito tivera uma vantagem, — 
mostrar mais % uma vez e duma maneira irrefragá- 
vel a sua superioridade sobre todos os outros. Era 
verdade. Tinham sido vencidos os liliputianos. 

Tentei ainda resistir: que ele versara apenas 
um lado da questão, que se o meio não era o me* 
lhor, era o propósito excelente, levantei os epíte- 
tos depreciativos... Mas que importava agora? 
Acutilava sozinho em meio da debandada final. 
Era forçoso curvar-me. Nenhum de nós tinha pul- 
so para a funda de David; nem do coração da 
arraia brotava o arrojo dos fundibulários. Toda a 
gente mesmo se erguia fatigada. Findara o torneio. 

E era de ver o vencedor radiando alegria triun- 
fante. Abraços, cumprimentos, risos. E, ao cortar 
a sala, ei-lo, pára na minha frente, poisa-me a 
mão no ombro e sai-lhe, na efusão da vitória, a 
modos de balanço final: 

— Este é o mais ingénuo. . . 

Juizo profundo, que, excluindo, é lato e tenta, 
com as molas próprias, compor a engrenagem da 
máquina inteira. 

Eu volto: 

— Agradeço-lhe do coração: não podia di- 
zer-me palavra mais lisongeira.' 

Em verdade vos digo: alguma razão lhe dou. 

Oxalá êle não venha também a dar-ma. 



EM VIAGEM 



Agosto de 1917. 

Restes últimos seis meses voltei a ser estudante. 
*~ ' - Como, desde a formatura, há mais de sete 
anos, não exerço a profissão, posto assim ao abri- 
go da lei que isenta todos os médicos, em condi- 
ções tais, do serviço militar, refaço nos hospitais 
a minha educação médica.' Pois que sou voluntá- 
rio, valorizo a oferta e justifico a lei. 

Também o meu recente fracasso, esfolhando- 
-me as ilusões sobre o proveito de lutar, desviou- 
-me do ring politico. Vencido, mas não con- 
vencido, continuo, todavia, na minha atitude de 
protesto. O meu desejo agora é partir quanto an- 
tes. Além de que, como todos quantos rompem o 
círculo dos logros convencionais e vêem cá para 
fora dizer, como o garoto da lenda, que o rei vai 
nú, começo a convencer-me que sou de mais, 
assediam-me com suspeitas, oferecimentos equívo- 
cos e olhares desconfiados. 



Em Viagem 55 

Uf! No dia em que partir teremos todos um 
suspiro de alívio. 

Sim! eu permaneço na minha. Ainda agora os 
acontecimentos de julho, a greve da construção 
civil com todo o seu violento aparato, me levam 
a crer que estou na razão. O governo divorcia-se 
do povo, ou pelo menos duma parte dele. E tudo 
por estreiteza de visão. E por falta da verdadeira 
coragem. 

Parto. Chegou o dia. E na véspera vou despe- 
dir-me do ministro da guerra. Encontro-o no seu 
gabinete, à hora previamente marcada para me 
receber. 

O snr. Norton de Matos está na sua cadeira e 
finca sobre os joelhos as palmas das mãos, com o 
geito afadigado, que, até no repouso, guardam os 
homens activos. Uma grande sombra de cuidado 
arruga-lhe a fronte e os olhos. 

Digo-lhe o meu desejo de que a sua elevada 
missão possa alcançar o termo vitorioso, sem gran- 
des esforços. Cala-se. Tem um momo de quem 
duvida, e logo me diz claramente o seu receio, 
acabando à laia de comentário: 

— Não; isto não se leva com panos quentes. 

A seu vêr, requeria-se uma política mais deci- 
dida e radical. E a sombra, feita 'de cansaço e 
preocupação, alastra dos sulcos da fronte a toda a 
cara. 

Despeço-me. Apertamos as mãos. 

À saída vou também dizer adeus ao Tejo, que 



56 x . v Memórias da Grande Guerra » 

\ 

f>si"aif vai na frente. Engolfo a vista, ao largo, sobre 
o vasto estuário do Rio, todo a turqueza azul e 
espumas irizadas. . 

Belo rio! Bela terra!... Mas por que demónio, 
desde sempre, mal um homem alevanta ombros 
fortes sobre a turba-multa dos derreados, logo a 
matilha dos ódios arreganha colmilhos à sua volta? 

Sim! os seus ombros são válidos e isso ama- 
chuca os homúnculos de espinhela caída. 

Aquela sombra, que eu lhe vi no rosto, anu- 
via-me também por dentro. 

E começo a recompor, traço a traço, a sua 
obra e figura. 

O seu vulto, só por si, exala esforço contido. 
Meão, entroncado, a gorja curta c. larga, o gesto 
brusco, e, na máscara dura, os. olhos graves e quási 
tristes das aves de presa. Sobre isto uma correcta 
distinção; monóculo. 

Todo êle é um imperativo de energia máscula. 
Não descansa. Trabalha no seu" gabinete pela noite 
dentro até altas horas; ao começar a manhã, volta, 
indomável, à faina. 

Homem para agir, é-lhe penoso falar. Mas» 
quando fala, na própria rudeza da frase, excluindo 
todo o artifício, palpa-se a sinceridade. Se o ata- 
cam, assemelha-se a um grande pedreiro irado, 
que interromperam na obra: argumenta com as 
mesmas pedras que tem na mão, ou brande os 
punhos fechados no rasgo sacudido de quem 
abate um camartelo. Então, lembra certas estátuas 



4/ 




Uma cara das trincheiras 
(o alferes miliciano Carneiro Franco) 



Memórias da Grande Gierra 



\ 



Em Viagem 57 



de Rodin, cuja figura vaga e áspera a custo ar- 
ranca na massa do mármore. 

Arrebatado, excede-se nas virtudes, até os seus 
defeitos. 

E, sendo, em meio lamecha e torvo, como o 
nosso, por demais agreste para aliciar simpatias, 
inevitavelmente fere e irrita na sua passagem. 
Quem tiver alma de o compreender assim, em blo- 
co, admira-o e estima-o; de contrário, detesta-o. 
Cercam-no ódios terríveis e caluniam-no, claro. 

Todavia este homem fêz isto: lançou na França 
um exército, — o núcleo máximo de energias que 
alguém podia arrancar à nossa anemia moral. 

E os senhores, que o deiráem, afirmavam em 
coro que a nossa cooperação na Europa era in- 
teiramente inviável, por absoluta carência de tudo, 
desde os oficiais ao mais simples material de guer- 
ra. Procurando afundá-lo, não fizeram senão er- 
guê-lo. 

Dizem então agora: teve excelentes coopera- 
dores a auxiliá-lo. Teve alguns, é certo. Mas os 
que lhe opuseram a resistência passiva e a propa- 
ganda dissolvente, digam lá, não eram em maior 
número? 

— Esse corpo expedicionário tem defeitos de 
organização. 

Pudera! Pasma até que não seja mais. Pois os 
senhores procuraram fazer disto uma torre de Ba- 
bel e queriam que êle regesse lá dentro um or- 
feon? 



58 • Memórias da Grande Guerra 

Não; confessem: julgavam que as portas dos 
altos destinos nos estavam trancadas para sem- 
pre e eram inabaláveis. E quando o viram seguir, 
disposto a entrar, desataram a rir, arvorando a im- 
potência própria em dogma universal. 

Êle veio; meteu-ihe os ombros; e forçou-as. 
Depois ficou de sentinela, à entrada. 

E como de lá, do palácio aberto, vem uma luz 
de glória, mas de risco e morte, quantos o que- 
rem derrubar para saltar por cir«a e fechá-las de 
novo!... 

Lá fica ainda, mas com o rosto velado pela in- 
quietação. Vê-se melhor assim, à luz própria. 

No claro-escuro do tempo, que passa e o en- 
volve, lateja-lhe esforço, o vulto doloroso, — ca- 
riátide do grande edifício da guerra, a que êle pôs 
os braços válidos e a quadratura possante dos om- 
bros. Pôde ser — quem o sabe? — que os erros de 
todos e os crimes de muitos, socavando os cabou- 
cos, aluam sobre êle as pesadas muralhas. Mesmo 
assim ficará intacto sob os escombros. 

Embora os ventos do ódio se desencandeiem, 

a sua vontade foi tão ardente que não lhe apagam 

o nome. 

* 



Adeus, adeus, terra de Portugal! Farrapos de 
panorama, relâmpagos de beleza, entreluzindo 
pela janela do comboio. 



Em Viagem 59 

Adeus, Almourol, castelo encantado, escarpa 
de mistério e lenda, ilha de sonho na doçura do 
Rio . . . Constância de bruços entre o Tejo e o Zê- 
zere, nascendo do beijo das águas . . . Altp-Alen- 
tejo, planície de sobreiros, a perder de vista, ver- 
de-glauco de Mar... E tu, adeus, castelo de 
Marvão, sentinela da raia, ruina do tempo, mais 
cheia de alma, porque estás ao alto e no extremo, 
como os olhos na face. Adeus . . . 

Lá fica a terra natal! Digam que é pieguice... 
embora... mas isto dói cá DEntro. 

Pershing at the Front The General came in a new tin hat To the shell-torn front where the war was at; With a faithful Aide at his good right hand He made his way toward No Man’s Land, And a tough Top Sergeant there they found, And a Captain, too, to show them round. Threading the ditch, their heads bent low, Toward the lines of the watchful foe They came through the murk and the powder stench Till the Sergeant whispered, “Third-line trench!” And the Captain whispered, “Third-line trench!” And the Aide repeated, “Third-line trench!” And Pershing answered- not in French- “Yes, I see it. Third-line trench.” Again they marched with wary tread, Following on where the Sergeant led Through the wet and the muck as well, Till they came to another parallel. They halted there in the mud and drench, And the Sergeant whispered, “Second-line trench!” And the Captain whispered, “Second-line trench!” And the Aide repeated, “Second-line trench!” And Pershing nodded: “Second-line trench!” Yet on they went through mire like pitch Till they came to a fine and spacious ditch Well camouflaged from planes and Zeps Where soldiers stood on firing steps And a Major sat on a wooden bench; And the Sergeant whispered, “First-line trench!” And the Captain whispered, “First-line trench!” And the Aide repeated, “First-line trench!” And Pershing whispered, “Yes, I see. How far off is the enemy?” And the faithful Aide he asked, asked he, “How far off is the enemy?” And the Captain breathed in a softer key, “How far off is the enemy?” The silence lay in heaps and piles And the Sergeant whispered, “Just three miles.” And the Captain whispered, “Just three miles.” And the Aide repeated, “Just three miles.” “Just three miles!” the General swore, “What in the heck are we whispering for?” And the faithful Aide the message bore, “What in the heck are we whispering for?” And the Captain said in a gentle roar, “What in the heck are we whispering for?” “Whispering for?” the echo rolled; And the Sergeant whispered, “I have a cold. Strictly Germ-proof The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up; They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised;— It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized. They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease; They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees; They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap. In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears; They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears; They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand And elected it a member of the Fumigated Band. There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play; They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day; And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup— The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup. The Legend Of The First Cam-u-el: An Arabian Apologue Across the sands of Syria, Or possibly Algeria, Or some benighted neighborhood of barrenness and drouth, There came the Prophet Samu-u-el Upon the Only Cam-u-el – A bumpy, grumpy Quadruped of discontented mouth. The atmosphere was glutinous; The Cam-u-el was mutinous; He dumped the pack from off his back; with Horrid grunts and squeals He made the desert hideous; With strategy perfidious He tied his neck in curlicues, he kicked his paddy heals. Then quoth the gentle Sam-u-el, “You rogue, I ought to lam you well! Though zealously I’ve shielded you from every grief and woe, It seems, to voice a platitude, You haven’t any gratitude. I’d like to hear what cause you have for doing thus and so!” To him replied the Cam-u-el, “I beg your pardon, Sam-u-el, I know that I’m a Reprobate, I know that I’m a Freak; But, oh! This utter loneliness! My too-distinguished Onliness! Were there but other Cam-u-els I wouldn’t be unique.” The Prophet beamed beguilingly. “Aha,” he answered, smilingly, “You feel the need of company? I clearly under- stand. We’ll speedily create for you The corresponding made for you – Ho! Presto, change-o, dinglebat!” – he waved a potent hand, And lo! From out Vacuity A second Incongruity, To wit, a Lady Cam-u-el was born through magic art. Her structure anatomical, Her form and face were comical; She was, in short, a Cam-u-el, the other’s counter- part. As Spaniards gaze on Aragon, Upon that Female Paragon So gazed the Prophet’s Cam-u-el, that primal Desert Ship. A connoisseur meticulous, He found her that ridiculous He grinned from ear to auricle until he split his lip! Because of his temerity That Cam-u-el’s posterity Must wear divided upper lips through all their solemn lives! A prodigy astonishing Reproachfully admonishing Those wicked, heartless married men who ridicule their wives.

Habits of the Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus is strong
And huge of head and broad of bustle;
The limbs on which he rolls along
Are big with hippopotomuscle.

He does not greatly care for sweets
Like ice cream, apple pie, or custard,
But takes to flavor what he eats
A little hippopotomustard.

The hippopotamus is true
To his principles, and just;
He always tries his best to do
The things one hippopotomust.

He never rides in trucks or trams,
In taxicabs or omnibuses,
And so keeps out of traffic jams
And other hippopotomusses.

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Habits-of-the-Hippopotamus#sthash.SCOa1ZsV.dpuf

 

Habits of the Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus is strong
And huge of head and broad of bustle;
The limbs on which he rolls along
Are big with hippopotomuscle.

He does not greatly care for sweets
Like ice cream, apple pie, or custard,
But takes to flavor what he eats
A little hippopotomustard.

The hippopotamus is true
To his principles, and just;
He always tries his best to do
The things one hippopotomust.

He never rides in trucks or trams,
In taxicabs or omnibuses,
And so keeps out of traffic jams
And other hippopotomusses.

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Habits-of-the-Hippopotamus#sthash.SCOa1ZsV.dpuf

 

The Phlebotomous Flea

A Flea who felt phlebotomous
Assailed a Hippopotamus;
The Hippo, he
Sat on the Flea,
And, goodness gracious! what a muss!

Heritage

This is the land that we love; here our fathers found refuge,
Here are the grooves of their plows and the mounds of their graves;
These are the hills that they knew and the forests and water,
Glorious rivers and seas of rejuvenant waves.

This is our heritage, this that our fathers bequeathed us,
Ours in our time, but in trust for the ages to be;
Wasting or husbanding, building, destroying, or shielding,
Faithful or faithless — possessors and stewards are we.

What of our stewardship? What do we leave to our children?
Crystalline, health-giving fountains, or gutters of shame?
Fields that are fertile, or barrens exhausted of vigor?
Burgeoning woodlands, or solitudes blasted by flame?

Madly we squander the bounty and beauty around us
Wrecking, not using, the treasure and splendor of earth;
Only is grief unavailing for glory departed —
Only in want do we count what the glory is worth.

Habits of the Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus is strong
And huge of head and broad of bustle;
The limbs on which he rolls along
Are big with hippopotomuscle.

He does not greatly care for sweets
Like ice cream, apple pie, or custard,
But takes to flavor what he eats
A little hippopotomustard.

The hippopotamus is true
To his principles, and just;
He always tries his best to do
The things one hippopotomust.

He never rides in trucks or trams,
In taxicabs or omnibuses,
And so keeps out of traffic jams
And other hippopotomusses.

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Habits-of-the-Hippopotamus#sthash.SCOa1ZsV.dpuf

Habits of the Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus is strong
And huge of head and broad of bustle;
The limbs on which he rolls along
Are big with hippopotomuscle.

He does not greatly care for sweets
Like ice cream, apple pie, or custard,
But takes to flavor what he eats
A little hippopotomustard.

The hippopotamus is true
To his principles, and just;
He always tries his best to do
The things one hippopotomust.

He never rides in trucks or trams,
In taxicabs or omnibuses,
And so keeps out of traffic jams
And other hippopotomusses.

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Habits-of-the-Hippopotamus#sthash.SCOa1ZsV.dpuf

Habits of the Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus is strong
And huge of head and broad of bustle;
The limbs on which he rolls along
Are big with hippopotomuscle.

He does not greatly care for sweets
Like ice cream, apple pie, or custard,
But takes to flavor what he eats
A little hippopotomustard.

The hippopotamus is true
To his principles, and just;
He always tries his best to do
The things one hippopotomust.

He never rides in trucks or trams,
In taxicabs or omnibuses,
And so keeps out of traffic jams
And other hippopotomusses.

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/Habits-of-the-Hippopotamus#sthash.SCOa1ZsV.dpuf

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way. Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender — them home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

Then a hand was laid on my shoulder and I 
shrank together with a crash. It was the policeman. 
He scanned me austerely and said : 

"Where did you get that overcoat?" 

Although I had not been doing any harm, I had 
all the sense of being caught — caught in something 
disreputable. The officer's accusing eye and unbe- 
lie\ang aspect heightened this effect. I told what 
had befallen me at the house in as straightforward a 
way as I could, but I was ashamed of the tale, and 
looked it, without doubt, for I knew and felt how 
improbable it must necessarily sound to anybody, 
particularly a policeman. Manifestly he did not 
believe me. He made me tell it all over again, then 
he questioned me: 

"You don't know the woman?" 

"No, I don't know her." 

"Haven't the least idea who she is: 

"Not the least." 

"You didn't tell her your name?" 

"No." 

"She didn't ask for it?" 

"No." 

"You just asked her to lend you the overcoat, 
and she let you take it?" 

"She put it on me herself." 

"And didn't look frightened?" 

"Frightened? Of course not." 

' * Not even surprised ? ' ' 

156 



DOWN THE RHONE 

"Not in the slightest degree." 

He paused. Presently he said: 

*'My friend, I don't believe a word of it. Don't 
you see, yourself, it's a tale that won't wash? Do 
you believe it?" 

*'Yes. I know it's true." 

"Weren't you surprised?" 

"Clear through to the marrow!" 

He had been edging me along back tu the house. 
He had a deep design; he sprung it on me now. 
Said he: 

"Stop where you are. I'll mighty soon find out!" 

He walked to the door and up the steps, keeping 
a furtive eye out toward me and ready to jump for 
me if I ran. Then he pretended to pull the bell, and 
instantly faced about to observe the effect on me. 
But there wasn't any; I walked toward him instead 
of running away. That unsettled him. He came 
down the steps, evidently perplexed, and said : 

"Well, I can't make it out. It may be all right, 
but it's too many for me. I don't like your looks 
and I won't have such characters around. Go along, 
now, and look sharp. If I catch you prowling around 
here again I'll run you m." 

I found Smith at the Water Color dinner that 
night, and asked him if it were merely my face that 
had enabled me to borrow the overcoat from a 
stranger, but he was surprised and said : 

"No! WTiat an idea — and what intolerable con- 
ceit ! She is my housekeeper, and remembered your 
drawling voice from overhearing it a moment that 
night four or five years ago in my house ; so she knew 

157 



MARK TWAIN 

where to send the police if you didn't bring the coat 
back!" 

After all those years I was sitting here, now, at 
midnight in the peasant hotel, in my night clothes, 
and honoring womankind in my thoughts; for here 
was another woman, with the noble and delicate 
intuitions of her sex, trusting me, a total stranger, 
with all her modest wealth. She entered the room. 
just then, and stood beaming upon me a moment with 
her s\N'eet matronly eyes — then took away the jewelry. 

Tuesday, September 22d. — Breakfast in open air. 
Extra canvas was now to be added to the boat's 
hood to keep the passengers and valises better pro- 
tected during rainstorms. I passed through the vil- 
lagette and started to walk over the wooded hill, the 
boat to find us on the river bank somewhere below, 
by and by. I soon got lost among the high bushes 
and turnip gardens. Plenty of paths, but none went 
to river. Reflection. Decision — that the path most 
traveled ^s-as the one leading in the right direction. 
It was a poor conclusion. I got lost again ; this time 
worse than before. But a peasant of above eighty 
(as she said, and certainly she was very old and 
wrinkled and gray and bent) found me presently and 
undertook to guide me safely. She was vigorous, 
physically, prompt and decided of movement, and 
altogether soldierlike; and she had a hawk's eye 
and beak, and a g>'psy's complexion. She said that 
from her girlhood up to not so very many years ago 
she had done a man's work on a woman's pay on 
the big keel boats that carry stone do^Ti the river, 
and was as good a man as the best, in the matter 

158 



DOWN THE RHONE 

of handling stone. Said she had seen the great 
Napoleon when she was a little child. Her face was 
so \\Tinklcd and dark and so eaglclike that she re- 
minded mc of old Indians one sees out on the Great 
Plains — the outside signs of age, but in the eye an 
indestructible spirit. She had a couple of laden 
baskets with her which I had found heavy after 
three minutes* carrying, when she was finding the 
way for me, but they seemed nothing to her. She 
impressed one rather as a man than as a woman; 
and so, when she spoke of her child that was drowned, 
and her voice broke a little and her lip quivered, it 
surprised me; I was not expecting it. "Grandchild?" 
No — it was her own child. "Indeed? When?" So 
then it came out that it was sixty years ago. It 
seemed strange that she should mind it so long. But 
that was the woman of it, no doubt. She had a frag- 
ment of newspaper — religious — with rude holy wood- 
cuts in it and doubtful episodes in the lives of medi- 
aeval saints and anchorites — and she could read these 
instructive matters in fine print without glasses ; also, 
her eyes were as good at long distances. She led 
hither and thither among the paths and finally 
brought me out overlooking the river. There was a 
steep sandy frontage there, where there had recently 
been a small landslide, and the faint new path ran 
straight across it for forty feet, like a slight snow 
track along the slant of a very steep roof. I halted 
and declined. I had no mind to try the crumbly 
path and creep and quake along it with the boiling 
river — and maybe some rocks — under my eluow 
thirty feet below. Such places turn my stomach. 

The man walking ahead of her was white, too-coat, pants, surgical mask at present dangling below his chin, tight ugly cap around his hair.

20 MINUTES "Thank God you finally made it!" Lola cried, "Ian's been pissing
himself!"
"Shut up! Drop dead!" Petronella rasped, and slapped the papers
out of Lola's hand as she offered them. "I don't give a fart who we have
on the show, not if it's the stinking King of England! I sure as hell am
not going out looking like this!"
"You won't have to, baby," Terry soothed, Inspecting the
discolored tresses. Lola, on the point of weeping, went down on hands
and knees to reclaim the scattered papers. "Lord, though, why didn't
you have it done at Guido's same as usual?"
"This happened at Guido's."
"What?" Terry was horrified. He insisted on everyone he handled
having their hair washed, styled, cut at Guido's, because it was the only
place in New York where they guaranteed their shampoos were done
with imported rainwater. They shipped it specially from Chile.
"Silver nitrate," Petronella sighed. "I contacted Guido at home and
blew my stack, and he checked up and called back almost weeping.
Seems they've been rain-making down there-remember I had a
rainmaker on the show last year? Guido thinks it reacted with the
setting lotion."
Marlon brought a choice of wigs. Terry seized one, and a brush and
comb and aerosol of lacquer. He brutally sabotaged Guido's efforts
into a tight layer close to the scalp and set about re-creating the same
style on the wig.
"Going to take long?" Petronella demanded.
"Couple of minutes," Terry said. He forbore to add that anything
Guide's best stylist could do, he could copy, only in a tenth of the time.
Everyone knew how good he was.
"Thank God. Lola, you bitch, where are my briefings?"
"Here!" the girl snuffled. Petronella flicked through the pages.
"Oh, yes, I remember. Jacob Bamberley-"
"He likes to be called Jack!" Lola cut in."Stuff what he likes. I run this show. Terry baby, we got the man
who sent all that poisoned shit to Africa. Know what I'm going to make
him do? I'm going to make him eat a bowlful of it right at the start of the
show, then come back to him at the end so people can see what it's
done to him."
Turning to the next briefing, she added thoughtfully, "And I shall
definitely call him Jacob."
This was a Globe Relief operation on behalf of Globe Relief. When
it became clear that Kaika's accusations weren't just propaganda, it
had been a matter of panic stations all around. It was no use stressing
the true fact that Globe was the largest aid organization on the planet
and invariably the soonest on the scene of a disaster. Simply because it
was American-based and American-funded, it was tarred with the
Vietnam brush. There was almost certain to be a UN inquiry shortly.
Accordingly State had made it very clear that unless Globe came up
promptly with a full defense the organization would have to be thrown
to the wolves. Inestimable trouble had already been caused by black
militants instantly prepared to believe in chemical genocide.
The obvious steps had naturally been taken. Samples of the
Nutripon still in store had been analyzed and given a clean bill. Now
suspicion had turned on the yeasts and fungi in the hydroponics plant:
could a rogue, akin say to the ergot mold of rye, have infected one
batch of the stuff with a natural psychedelic poison? It would have
helped if they'd had a sample from Noshri to study, but apparently it
had all been consumed or burned during the riots. So it was going to be
a slow job