. . . behold these really wondrous tortoises
-- none of your schoolboy mud-turtles -- but black as widowers
weeds, heavy as chests of plate, with vast shells medallioned
and orbed like shields, and dented and blistered like shields
that have breasted a battle -- shaggy too, here and there, with
dark green moss, and slimy with the spray of the sea. These mystic
creatures, suddenly translated by night from unutterable solitudes
to our peopled deck, affected me in a manner not easy to unfold.
They seemed newly crawled forth from beneath the foundations
of the world. Yea, they seemed the identical tortoises whereon
the Hindoo plants this total sphere.With a lantern I inspected
them more closely. Such worshipful venerableness of aspect! Such
furry greenness mantling the rude peelings and healing the fissures
of their shattered shells. I no more saw three tortoises. They
expanded -- became transfigured. I seemed to see three Roman
Coliseums in magnificent decay.
Ye oldest inhabitants of this or
any other isle, said I, pray give me the freedom of your three-walled
towns.
The great feeling inspired by these
creatures was that of age: -- dateless, indefinite endurance.
And, in fact, that any other creature can live and breathe as
long as the tortoise of the Encantadas, I will not readily believe.
Not a hint of their known capacity of sustaining life, while
going without food for an entire year, consider that impregnable
armour of their living mail. What other bodily being possesses
such a citadel wherein to resist the assaults of time?
--HERMAN MELVILLE
