"Indeed?" cried Babbalanja. "Then, my lord Media, it may be earnestly
inquired, whether the gentle laws of the tribes before the flood, were
not sought to be embalmed and perpetuated between transparent and
sweet scented tablets of amber."

"That, now, is not so unlikely," said Mohi; "for old King Rondo the
Round once set about getting him a coffin-lid of amber; much desiring
a famous mass of it owned by the ancestors of Donjalolo of Juam. But
no navies could buy it. So Rondo had himself urned in a crystal."

"And that immortalized Rondo, no doubt," said Babbalanja. "Ha! ha!
pity he fared not like the fat porpoise frozen and tombed in an
iceberg; its icy shroud drifting south, soon melted away, and down,
out of sight, sunk the dead."

"Well, so much for amber," cried Media. "Now, Mohi, go on about
Farnoo."

"Know, then, my lord, that Farnoo is more like ambergris than amber."

"Is it? then, pray, tell us something on that head. You know all about
ambergris, too, I suppose."

"Every thing about all things, my lord. Ambergris is found both on
land and at sea. But especially, are lumps of it picked up on the
spicy coasts of Jovanna; indeed, all over the atolls and reefs in the
eastern quarter of Mardi."

"But what is this ambergris? Braid-Beard," said Babbalanja.