below! Lavatar! behold those lips,--like mystic scrolls! Those eyes,--
like panthers' caves at the base of Popocatepetl!

"By my right hand, Saturnina," cried Babbalanja, "but thou wert made
in the image of thy Maker! Yet, have I beheld men, to the eye as
commanding as thou; and surmounted by heads globe-like as thine, who
never had thy caliber. We must measure brains, not heads, my lord; else,
the sperm whale, with his tun of an occiput, would transcend us all."

Near by, were arched ways, leading to subterranean places, whence
issued a savory steam, and an extraordinary clattering of calabashes,
and smacking of lips, as if something were being eaten down there by
the fattest of fat fellows, with the heartiest of appetites, and the
most irresistible of relishes. It was a quaffing, guzzling, gobbling
noise. Peeping down, we beheld a company, breasted up against a board,
groaning under numerous viands. In the middle of all, was a mighty
great gourd, yellow as gold, and jolly round like a pumpkin in
October, and so big it must have grown in the sun. Thence flowed a
tide of red wine. And before it, stood plenty of paunches being filled
therewith like portly stone jars at a fountain. Melancholy to tell,
before that fine flood of old wine, and among those portly old topers,
was a lean man; who occasionally ducked in his bill. He looked like an
ibis standing in the Nile at flood tide, among a tongue-lapping herd
of hippopotami.

They were jolly as the jolliest; and laughed so uproariously, that
their hemispheres all quivered and shook, like vast provinces in an
earthquake. Ha! ha! ha! how they laughed, and they roared. A deaf man
might have heard them; and no milk could have soured within a forty-
two-pounder ball shot of that place.

Now, the smell of good things is no very bad thing in itself. It is
the savor of good things beyond; proof positive of a glorious good meal.
So snuffing up those zephyrs from Araby the blest, those boisterous
gales, blowing from out the mouths of baked boars, stuffed with bread-
fruit, bananas, and sage, we would fain have gone down and partaken.

But this could not be; for we were told that those worthies below,
were a club in secret conclave; very busy in settling certain weighty
state affairs upon a solid basis, They were all chiefs of immense
capacity:--how many gallons, there was no finding out.

Be sure, now, a most riotous noise came up from those catacombs, which
seemed full of th