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Allan Quatermain-Part25_H.Rider Haggard(1856-1925)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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if he continued to pass Sorais' beauties in mentalreview, and,



what is more, I don't care.

CHAPTER XIII



ABOUT THE ZU-VENDI PEOPLE

And now the curtain is down for a few hours, and the actors in



this novel drama are plunged in dewy sleep. Perhaps we should

except Nyleptha, whom the reader may, if poetically inclined,



imagine lying in her bed of state encompassed by her maidens,

tiring women, guards, and all the other people and appurtenances



that surround a throne, and yet not able to slumber for thinking

of the strangers who had visited a country where no such strangers



had ever come before, and wondering, as she lay awake, who they

were and what their past has been, and if she was ugly compared



to the women of their native place. I, however, not being poetically

inclined, will take advantage of the lull to give some account



of the people among whom we found ourselves, compiled, needless

to state, from information which we subsequently collected.



The name of this country, to begin at the beginning, is Zu-Vendis,

from Zu, 'yellow', and Vendis, 'place or country'. Why it is



called the Yellow Country I have never been able to ascertain

accurately, nor do the inhabitants themselves know. Three reasons



are, however, given, each of which would suffice to account for

it. The first is that the name owes its origin to the great



quantity of gold that is found in the land. Indeed, in this

respect Zu-Vendis is a veritable Eldorado, the precious metal



being extraordinarilyplentiful. At present it is collected

from purely alluvial diggings, which we subsequently inspected,



and which are situated within a day's journey from Milosis, being

mostly found in pockets and in nuggets weighing from an ounce



up to six or seven pounds in weight. But other diggings of a

similar nature are known to exist, and I have besides seen great



veins of gold-bearing quartz. In Zu-Vendis gold is a much commoner

metal than silver, and thus it has curiously enough come to pass



that silver is the legal tender of the country.

The second reason given is, that at certain times of the year



the native grasses of the country, which are very sweet and good,

turn as yellow as ripe corn; and the third arises from a tradition



that the people were originally yellow skinned, but grew white

after living for many generations upon these high lands. Zu-Vendis



is a country about the size of France, is, roughlyspeaking,

oval in shape; and on every side cut off from the surrounding



territory by illimitable forests of impenetrable thorn, beyond

which are said to be hundreds of miles of morasses, deserts,



and great mountains. It is, in short, a huge, high tableland

rising up in the centre of the dark continent, much as in southern



Africa flat-topped mountains rise from the level of the surrounding

veldt. Milosis itself lies, according to my aneroid, at a level



of about nine thousand feet above the sea, but most of the land

is even higher, the greatest elevation of the open country being,



I believe, about eleven thousand feet. As a consequence the

climate is, comparativelyspeaking, a cold one, being very similar



to that of southern England, only brighter and not so rainy.

The land is, however, exceedinglyfertile, and grows all cereals



and temperate fruits and timber to perfection; and in the lower-lying

parts even produces a hardy variety of sugar-cane. Coal is found



in great abundance, and in many places crops out from the surface;

and so is pure marble, both black and white. The same may be



said of almost every metal except silver, which is scarce, and

only to be obtained from a range of mountains in the north.



Zu-Vendis comprises in her boundaries a great variety of scenery,

including two ranges of snow-clad mountains, one on the western



boundary beyond the impenetrable belt of thorn forest, and the

other piercing the country from north to south, and passing at



a distance of about eighty miles from Milosis, from which town

its higher peaks are distinctlyvisible. This range forms the



chief watershed of the land. There are also three large lakes

-- the biggest, namely that whereon we emerged, and which is



named Milosis after the city, covering some two hundred square

miles of country -- and numerous small ones, some of them salt.



The population of this favoured land is, comparativelyspeaking,

dense, numbering at a rough estimate from ten to twelve millions.






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