Project Gutenberg's The Voyage of Captain Popanilla, by Benjamin Disraeli

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Voyage of Captain Popanilla

Author: Benjamin Disraeli

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7816]
Posting Date: July 23, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN POPANILLA ***

Produced by K. Kay Shearin

THE VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN POPANILLA

By Benjamin Disraeli

This narrative of an imaginary voyage was first published in 1827.

CHAPTER 1

There is an island in the Indian Ocean, so unfortunate as not yet to
have been visited either by Discovery Ships or Missionary Societies. It
is a place where all those things are constantly found which men most
desire to see, and with the sight of which they are seldom favoured. It
abounds in flowers, and fruit, and sunshine. Lofty mountains, covered
with green and mighty forests, except where the red rocks catch the
fierce beams of the blazing sun, bowery valleys, broad lakes, gigantic
trees, and gushing rivers bursting from rocky gorges, are crowned with
a purple and ever cloudless sky. Summer, in its most unctuous state and
most mellow majesty, is here perpetual. So intense and overpowering, in
the daytime, is the rich union of heat and perfume, that living animal
or creature is never visible; and were you and I to pluck, before
sunset, the huge fruit from yonder teeming tree, we might fancy
ourselves for the moment the future sinners of another Eden. Yet a
solitude it is not.

The island is surrounded by a calm and blue lagoon, formed by a ridge of
coral rocks, which break the swell of the ocean, and prevent the noxious
spray from banishing the rich shrubs which grow even to the water's
edge. It is a few minutes before sunset, that the first intimation of
animal existence in this seeming solitude is given, by the appearance of
mermaids; who, floating on the rosy sea, congregate about these rocks.
They sound a loud but melodious chorus from their sea-shells, and a
faint and distant chorus soon answers from the island. The mermaidens
immediately repeat their salutations, and are greeted with a nearer
and a louder answer. As the re