{"id":"01KG8AKQ1AFETKCTABSZ0WJN4B","cid":"bafkreiarnaeqkmvdabfkdfpjg4mneg5hshyifbwftr6zdb265imnv4lj64","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4780,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.927Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":4695,"text":"The mission was crowned with success.\r\n\r\nSaid King Hello to the ministers, in confidence:—“The very thing, Dons,\r\nthe very thing I have wanted. My people are increasing too fast. They\r\nkeep up the succession too well. Tell your illustrious master it’s a\r\nbargain. The games! the games! by all means.”\r\n\r\nSo, throughout the island, by proclamation, they were forthwith\r\nestablished; succeeding to a charm.\r\n\r\nAnd the lord seigniors, Hello and Piko, finding their interests the\r\nsame, came together like bride and bridegroom; lived in the same\r\npalace; dined off the same cloth; cut from the same bread-fruit; drank\r\nfrom the same calabash; wore each other’s crowns; and often locking\r\narms with a charming frankness, paced up and down in their dominions,\r\ndiscussing the prospect of the next harvest of heads.\r\n\r\nIn his old-fashioned way, having related all this, with many other\r\nparticulars, Mohi was interrupted by Babbalanja, who inquired how the\r\npeople of Diranda relished the games, and how they fancied being coolly\r\nthinned out in that manner.\r\n\r\nTo which in substance the chronicler replied, that of the true object\r\nof the games, they had not the faintest conception; but hammered away\r\nat each other, and fought and died together, like jolly good fellows.\r\n\r\n“Right again, immortal old Bardianna!” cried Babbalanja.\r\n\r\n“And what has the sage to the point this time?” asked Media.\r\n\r\n“Why, my lord, in his chapter on “Cracked Crowns,” Bardianna, after\r\nmany profound ponderings, thus concludes: In this cracked sphere we\r\nlive in, then, cracked skulls would seem the inevitable allotments of\r\nmany. Nor will the splintering thereof cease, till this pugnacious\r\nanimal we treat of be deprived of his natural maces: videlicet, his\r\narms. And right well doth man love to bruise and batter all occiputs in\r\nhis vicinity.”\r\n\r\n“Seems to me, our old friend must have been on his stilts that time,”\r\ninterrupted Mohi.\r\n\r\n“No, Braid-Beard. But by way of apologizing for the unusual rigidity of\r\nhis style in that chapter, he says in a note, that it was written upon\r\na straight-backed settle, when he was ill of a lumbago, and a crick in\r\nthe neck.”\r\n\r\n“That incorrigible Azzageddi again,” said Media, “Proceed with your\r\nquotation, Babbalanja.”\r\n\r\n“Where was I, Braid-Beard?”\r\n\r\n“Battering occiputs at the last accounts,” said Mohi.\r\n\r\n“Ah, yes. And right well doth man love to bruise and batter all\r\nocciputs in his vicinity; he but follows his instincts; he is but one\r\nmember of a fighting world. Spiders, vixens, and tigers all war with a\r\nrelish; and on every side is heard the howls of hyenas, the throttlings\r\nof mastiffs, the din of belligerant beetles, the buzzing warfare of the\r\ninsect battalions: and the shrill cries of lady Tartars rending their\r\nlords. And all this existeth of necessity. To war it is, and other\r\ndepopulators, that we are beholden for elbow-room in Mardi and for all\r\nour parks an gardens, wherein we are wont to expatiate. Come on, then,\r\nplague, war, famine and viragos! Come on, I say, for who shall stay ye?\r\nCome on, and healthfulize the census! And more especially, oh War! do\r\nthou march forth with thy bludgeon! Cracked are, our crowns by nature,\r\nand henceforth forever, cracked shall they be by hard raps.”\r\n\r\n“And hopelessly cracked the skull, that hatched such a tirade of\r\nnonsense,” said Mohi.\r\n\r\n“And think you not, old Bardianna knew that?” asked Babbalanja. “He\r\nwrote an excellent chapter on that very subject.”\r\n\r\n“What, on the cracks in his own pate?”\r\n\r\n“Precisely. And expressly asserts, that to those identical cracks, was\r\nhe indebted for what little light he had in his brain.”\r\n\r\n“I yield, Babbalanja; your old Ponderer is older than I.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, ay, Braid-Beard; his crest was a tortoise; and this was the\r\nmotto:—‘I bite, but am not to be bitten.’”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBNSJG790G3F7NEF9RW","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKQ1APQYK4MX9DGQM4TGN","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.354Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:22.735Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}