Next, gentle Yoomy’s. Its stem, a slender golden reed, like musical Pan’s; its bowl very merry with tassels. Lastly, old Mohi the chronicler’s. Its Death’s-head bowl forming its latter end, continually reminding him of his own. Its shank was an ostrich’s leg, some feathers still waving nigh the mouth-piece. “Here, Vee-Vee! fill me up again,” cried Media, through the blue vapors sweeping round his great gonfalon, like plumed Marshal Ney, waving his baton in the smoke of Waterloo; or thrice gallant Anglesea, crossing his wooden leg mid the reek and rack of the Apsley House banquet. Vee-Vee obeyed; and quickly, like a howitzer, the pipe-owl was reloaded to the muzzle, and King Media smoked on. “Ah! this is pleasant indeed,” he cried. “Look, it’s a calm on the waters, and a calm in our hearts, as we inhale these sedative odors.” “So calm,” said Babbalanja; “the very gods must be smoking now.” “And thus,” said Media, “we demi-gods hereafter shall cross-legged sit, and smoke out our eternities. Ah, what a glorious puff! Mortals, methinks these pipe-bowls of ours must be petrifactions of roses, so scented they seem. But, old Mohi, you have smoked this many a long year; doubtless, you know something about their material—the Froth-of-the-Sea they call it, I think—ere my handicraft subjects obtain it, to work into bowls. Tell us the tale.” “Delighted to do so, my lord,” replied Mohi, slowly disentangling his mouth-piece from the braids of his beard. “I have devoted much time and attention to the study of pipe-bowls, and groped among many learned authorities, to reconcile the clashing opinions concerning the origin of the so-called Farnoo, or Froth-of-the-Sea.” “Well, then, my old centenarian, give us the result of your investigations. But smoke away: a word and a puff go on.” “May it please you, then, my right worshipful lord, this Farnoo is an unctuous, argillaceous substance; in its natural state, soft, malleable, and easily worked as the cornelian-red clay from the famous pipe-quarries of the wild tribes to the North. But though mostly found buried in terra-firma, especially in the isles toward the East, this Farnoo, my lord, is sometimes thrown up by the ocean; in seasons of high sea, being plentifully found on the reefs. But, my lord, like amber, the precise nature and origin of this Farnoo are points widely mooted.” “Stop there!” cried Media; “our mouth-pieces are of amber; so, not a word more of the Froth-of-the-Sea, until something be said to clear up the mystery of amber. What is amber, old man?”