file:///F|/rah/L.%20Frank%20Baum/Baum,%20L%20Frank%20-%20Oz%2010%20-%20Rinkitink%20In%20Oz.txt
Pingaree. It was a beautiful palace, built entirely of
snow-white marble and capped by domes of burnished
gold, for the King was exceedingly wealthy. All along
the coast of Pingaree were found the largest and finest
pearls in the whole world.
These pearls grew within the shells of big oysters,
and the people raked the oysters from their watery
beds, sought out the milky pearls and carried them
dutifully to their King. Therefore, once every year His
Majesty was able to send six of his boats, with sixty
rowers and many sacks of the valuable pearls, to the
Kingdom of Rinkitink, where there was a city called
Gilgad, in which King Rinkitink's palace stood on a
rocky headland and served, with its high towers, as a
lighthouse to guide sailors to the harbor. In Gilgad
the pearls from Pingaree were purchased by the King's
treasurer, and the boats went back to the island laden
with stores of rich merchandise and such supplies of
food as the people and the royal family of Pingaree
needed.
The Pingaree people never visited any other land but
that of Rinkitink, and so there were few other lands
that knew there was such an island. To the southwest
was an island called the Isle of Phreex, where the
inhabitants had no use for pearls. And far north of
Pingaree -- six days' journey by boat, it was said --
were twin islands named Regos and Coregos, inhabited by
a fierce and warlike people.
Many years before this story really begins, ten big
boatloads of those fierce warriors of Regos and Coregos
visited Pingaree, landing suddenly upon the north end
of the island. There they began to plunder and conquer,
as was their custom, but the people of Pingaree,
although neither so big nor so strong as their foes,
were able to defeat them and drive them all back to the
sea, where a great storm overtook the raiders from
Regos and Coregos and destroyed them and their boats,
not a single warrior returning to his own country.
This defeat of the enemy seemed the more wonderful
because the pearl-fishers of Pingaree were mild and
peaceful in disposition and seldom quarreled even among
themselves. Their only weapons were their oyster rakes;
yet the fact remains that they drove their fierce
enemies from Regos and Coregos from their shores.
King Kitticut was only a boy when this remarkable
battle was fought, and now his hair was gray; but he
remembered the day well and, during the years that
followed, his one constant fear was of another invasion
of his enemies. He feared they might send a more
numerous army to his island, both for conquest and
revenge, in which case there could be little hope of
successfully opposing them.
This anxiety on the part of King Kitticut led him to
keep a sharp lookout for strange boats, one of his men
patrolling the beach constantly, but he was too wise to
allow any fear to make him or his subjects unhappy. He
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