guests, how could the demi-gods Media and Taji be
otherwise than at home?

The unwonted sprightliness of Donjalolo surprised us. But he was in
one of those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his
failures in efforts to amend his life. And the bootless issue of his
late mission to outer Mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry.
Nor had he lately shunned a wild wine, called Morando.

A slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated
freely.

Not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the Morando much. A nutty,
pungent flavor it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the
Philippine isles. And a marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving
the crystalization of the brain; leaving nothing but precious little
drops of good humor, beading round the bowl of the cranium.

Meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars,
and stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended
hangings of crimson tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the
pavement they rustled in the breeze from the grot.

Presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a
porphyry hue, deep-hollowed out of a tree. Outside, were innumerable
grotesque conceits; conspicuous among which, for a border, was an
endless string of the royal lizards circumnavigating the basin in
inverted chase of their tails.

Peculiar to the groves of Willamilla, the yellow lizard formed part
of the arms of Juam. And when Donjalolo's messenger went abroad, they
carried its effigy, as the emblem of their royal master; themselves
being known, as the Gentlemen of the Golden Lizard.

The porphyry-hued basin planted full in our midst, the attendants
forthwith filled the same with the living waters from the cascade; a
proceeding, for which some of the company were at a loss to account,
unless his highness, our host, with all the coolness of royalty,
purposed cooling himself still further, by taking a bath in presence
of his guests. A conjecture, most premature; for directly, the basin
being filled to within a few inches of the lizards, the attendants
fell to launching therein divers goodly sized trenchers, all laden
with choice viands:--wild boar meat; humps of grampuses; embrowned
bread-fruit, roasted in odoriferous fires of sandal wood, but
suffered to cool; gold fish, dressed with the fragrant juices
of berries; citron sauce; rolls of the baked paste of yams; juicy
bananas, steeped in a saccharine oil; marm