{"id":"01KG8AKR6XHD1S6T3GBCTJ6SWK","cid":"bafkreifql6x4vbsbhuesbr35mp2dt65otg63nbjauvlwbs53kvm3yvyevu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8831,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":8768,"text":"                How we long to sift,\r\n                That yellow drift!\r\n            Rivers! Rivers! cease your going!\r\n                Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide!\r\n            ’Till we’ve gained the golden flowing;\r\n                And in the golden haven ride!\r\n\r\n\r\n“Quick, quick, my lord,” cried Yoomy, “let us follow them; and from the\r\ngolden waters where she lies, our Yillah may emerge.”\r\n\r\n“No, no,” said Babbalanja,—“no Yillah there!—from yonder promised-land,\r\nfewer seekers will return, than go. Under a gilded guise, happiness is\r\nstill their instinctive aim. But vain, Yoomy, to snatch at Happiness.\r\nOf that we may not pluck and eat. It is the fruit of our own toilsome\r\nplanting; slow it grows, nourished by many teats, and all our earnest\r\ntendings. Yet ere it ripen, frosts may nip;—and then, we plant again;\r\nand yet again. Deep, Yoomy, deep, true treasure lies; deeper than all\r\nMardi’s gold, rooted to Mardi’s axis. But unlike gold, it lurks in\r\nevery soil,—all Mardi over. With golden pills and potions is sickness\r\nwarded off?—the shrunken veins of age, dilated with new wine of youth?\r\nWill gold the heart-ache cure? turn toward us hearts estranged? will\r\ngold, on solid centers empires fix? ’Tis toil world-wasted to toil in\r\nmines. Were all the isles gold globes, set in a quicksilver sea, all\r\nMardi were then a desert. Gold is the only poverty; of all glittering\r\nills the direst. And that man might not impoverish himself thereby, Oro\r\nhath hidden it, with all other banes,—saltpeter and explosives, deep in\r\nmountain bowels, and river-beds. But man still will mine for it; and\r\nmining, dig his doom.— Yoomy, Yoomy!—she we seek, lurks not in the\r\nGolden Hills!”\r\n\r\n“Lo, a vision!” cried Yoomy, his hands wildly passed across his eyes.\r\n“A vast and silent bay, belted by silent villages:—gaunt dogs howling\r\nover grassy thresholds at stark corpses of old age and infancy; gray\r\nhairs mingling with sweet flaxen curls; fields, with turned furrows,\r\nchoked with briers; arbor-floors strown over with hatchet-helves,\r\nrotting in the iron; a thousand paths, marked with foot-prints, all\r\ninland leading, none villageward; and strown with traces, as of a\r\nflying host. On: over forest—hill, and dale—and lo! the golden region!\r\nAfter the glittering spoil, by strange river-margins, and beneath\r\nimpending cliffs, thousands delve in quicksands; and, sudden, sink in\r\ngraves of their own making: with gold dust mingling their own ashes.\r\nStill deeper, in more solid ground, other thousands slave; and pile\r\ntheir earth so high, they gasp for air, and die; their comrades\r\nmounting on them, and delving still, and dying—grave pile on grave!\r\nHere, one haggard hunter murders another in his pit; and murdering,\r\nhimself is murdered by a third. Shrieks and groans! cries and curses!\r\nIt seems a golden Hell! With many camels, a sleek stranger comes—\r\npauses before the shining heaps, and shows _his_ treasures: yams and\r\nbread-fruit. ‘Give, give,’ the famished hunters cry—, ‘a thousand\r\nshekels for a yam!—a prince’s ransom for a meal!—Oh, stranger! on our\r\nknees we worship thee:—take, take our gold; but let us live!’ Yams are\r\nthrown them and they fight. Then he who toiled not, dug not, slaved\r\nnot, straight loads his caravans with gold; regains the beach, and\r\nswift embarks for home. ‘Home! home!’ the hunters cry, with bursting\r\neyes. ‘With this bright gold, could we but join our waiting wives, who\r\nwring their hands on distant shores, all then were well. But we can not\r\nfly; our prows lie rotting on the beach. Ah! home! thou only\r\nhappiness!—better thy silver earnings than all these golden findings.\r\nOh, bitter end to all our hopes—we die in golden graves.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVBFJ75DKSYY1C4XWV9V","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKMFRM2Y1W99TEEWFF40A","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.557Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.607Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}