Tales of Three Hemispheres

Tales of Three Hemispheres, by
Lord Dunsany

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Title: Tales of Three Hemispheres
Author: Lord Dunsany
Release Date: March 4, 2004 [EBook #11440]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THREE HEMISPHERES ***

Produced by Tom Harris, text provided by Litrix Reading Room.

TALES OF THREE HEMISPHERES
Lord Dunsany

CONTENTS
The Last Dream Of Bwona Khubla How the Office of Postman Fell
Vacant In Otford-under-the-Wold The Prayer Of Boob Aheera East
And West A Pretty Quarrel How The Gods Avenged Meoul Ki Ning
The Gift Of The Gods The Sack Of Emeralds The Old Brown Coat An
Archive Of The Older Mysteries A City Of Wonder Beyond the Fields
We Know Publisher's Note First Tale: Idle Days on the Yann Second
Tale: A Shop In Go-By Street Third Tale: The Avenger Of Perdóndaris
[Note that the tale "Idle Days on the Yann" also appears in the
collection "A Dreamer's Tales".]

THE LAST DREAM OF BWONA KHUBLA
From steaming lowlands down by the equator, where monstrous
orchids blow, where beetles big as mice sit on the tent-ropes, and
fireflies glide about by night like little moving stars, the travelers went
three days through forests of cactus till they came to the open plains
where the oryx are.
And glad they were when they came to the water-hole, where only one
white man had gone before, which the natives know as the camp of
Bwona Khubla, and found the water there.
It lies three days from the nearest other water, and when Bwona Khubla
had gone there three years ago, what with malaria with which he was
shaking all over, and what with disgust at finding the water-hole dry, he
had decided to die there, and in that part of the world such decisions are
always fatal. In any case he was overdue to die, but hitherto his
amazing resolution, and that terrible strength of character that so
astounded his porters, had kept him alive and moved his safari on.
He had had a name no doubt, some common name such as hangs as
likely as not over scores of shops in London; but that had gone long
ago, and nothing identified his memory now to distinguish it from the
memories of all the other dead but "Bwona Khubla," the name the

Kikuyus gave him.
There is not doubt that he was a fearful man, a man that was dreaded
still for his personal force when his arm was no longer able to lift the
kiboko, when all his men knew he was dying, and to this day though he
is dead.
Though his temper was embittered by malaria and the equatorial sun,
nothing impaired his will, which remained a compulsive force to the
very last, impressing itself upon all, and after the last, from what the
Kikuyus say. The country must have had powerful laws that drove
Bwona Khubla out, whatever country it was.
On the morning of the day that they were to come to the camp of
Bwona Khubla all the porters came to the travelers' tents asking for
dow. Dow is the white man's medicine, that cures all evils; the nastier it
tastes, the better it is. They wanted down this morning to keep away
devils, for they were near the place where Bwona Khubla died.
The travelers gave them quinine.
By sunset the came to Campini Bwona Khubla and found water there.
Had they not found water many of them must have died, yet none felt
any gratitude to the place, it seemed too ominous, too full of doom, too
much harassed almost by unseen, irresistible things.
And all the natives came again for dow as soon as the tents were
pitched, to protect them from the last dreams of Bwona Khubla, which
they say had stayed behind when the last safari left taking Bwona
Khubla's body back to the edge of civilization to show to the white men
there that they had not killed him, for the white men might not know
that they durst not kill Bwona Khubla.
And the travelers gave them more quinine, so much being bad for the
nerves, and that night by the camp-fires there was no pleasant talk; all
talking at once of meat they had eaten and cattle that each one owned,
but a gloomy silence hung by every fire and the little canvas shelters.
They told the white men that Bwona Khubla's city,