The Scarlet Fig: Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series

Appendix III In the Region Called Azania

from The Notebook of Vergil Magus

In the Region called Azania, seawards from the Region calle Agysimba (confuse it never with the Region called Abbysinia), Agysymba, where the monoceroids assemble to vote — one random of rhinoes to go slowly to the fertile valley called Of The Niger, a second random of rhinoes be off towards the teemy foothills of the Mountains of the Moon (where grow the gigant aloes, worth more than e’en those of Socotra, could they be but had more than once in an indiction): and so on, decreed by vote — further the rhinoid assembly did vote to ostracize and exile and to hold as Rogues (here a slight earthquake shook my house) a certain old he, a certain old she, and another certain old he; at each vote they struck the earth once. Say you, “They have no names,” say you? Not as you nor I, but they have every which one an odor, a smell, a certain scent so sharp that even those Landlopers who pass to and fro and dwell among their midst and sometimes hazard to ride upon their scaley backs to the squall discomfort of the traitor-birds: say they, such Landlopers, the smelch of them rhino be distinguishable clearly one from tother. let sic and such a stenk never come a-nigh us, did they vote as they assembled. As for foreign affairs, they did ban passage and grazage and accession for waterquells to ane rogue oliphaunt with one tattered ear and a shivered tush. But as for barring him from all the rivers and streams of water, the assembly considered (as always) that all rivers and streams of water were of such a nature that it be not for any band of beasts (even such a noble band of beasts as that of the council of the nose-horned) to consider it might ban accession: but that all might drink therefrom … even … and as alway the monoceroids went slowly on this … even the stinking crotty: Old Crotty Crackbone. Even he. And then each pachyderm struck the ground — once — twice — thrice — with a right fore-hoof, and with no more say or scene went each group its own separate way, eventually to part into singles. And on hearing this enormous three-fold thud … thud … thud … the oliphaunts, wise in wisdom, murmured, That was well. And sent word the way west. But the vasty hippotayne in the rushes of the reedy rivers and the shady coverts of the fen murmured, That was not well: for the hippotayne liketh not to concede equal, and when such concession is forced from him by the thrice-quivering earth, he groweth grom indeed and opes his massy mouth and roars. And the Landlopers, when they hear this, hasten thither with much calves of oxen and with great wastes of fruit in hope that they might find hippotayne still grom and obtain from him some counsel and some charm to fall upon the oliphaunt and slay him for the treasure of his mouth (dean no. 22–23).