Once more embarking, we gained Vivenza's southwestern side and there,
beheld vast swarms of laborers discharging from canoes, great loads of
earth; which they tossed upon the beach.

"It is true, then," said Media "that these freemen are engaged in
digging down other lands, and adding them to their own, piece-meal.
And this, they call extending their dominions agriculturally, and
peaceably."

"My lord, they pay a price for every canoe-load," said Mohi.

"Ay, old man, holding the spear in one hand, and striking the bargain
with the other."

"Yet charge it not upon all Vivenza," said Babbalanja. "Some of her
tribes are hostile to these things: and when their countryman fight
for land, are only warlike in opposing war."

"And therein, Babbalanja, is involved one of those anomalies in the
condition of Vivenza," said Media, "which I can hardly comprehend. How
comes it, that with so Many things to divide them, the valley-tribes
still keep their mystic league intact?"

"All plain, it is because the model, whence they derive their union,
is one of nature's planning. My lord, have you ever observed the
mysterious federation subsisting among the molluscs of the Tunicata
order,--in other words, a species of cuttle-fish, abounding at the
bottom of the lagoon?"