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 is the case either here or on Earth with those left to the control of Nature and locality, or the effects of the natural competition, which is in its way perhaps as keen among plants and animals as among men. Martialists have the same delight in bright colours as Orientals, with far greater taste in selection and combination; and the favourite hues not only of their flowers, tame birds, fishes, and quadrupeds, but of plants in whose cultivation utility has been the primary object, contrast signally, as I have said, with the dull tints of the undomesticated flora and fauna, of which comparatively scanty remnants were visible here and there in this rich country.

Presently we came within sight of the river, over which was a single bridge, formed by what might be called a tube of metal built into strong walls on either bank. In fact, however, the sides were of open work, and only the roof and floor were solid. The river at this, its narrowest point, was perhaps a furlong in breadth, and it was not without instinctive uneasiness that I trusted to the security of a single piece of metal spanning, without even the strength afforded by the form of the arch, so great a space.

The first object we were to visit lay at some distance down the stream. As we approached the point, we passed a place where the river widened considerably. The main channel in the centre was kept clear and deep to afford an uninterrupted course for navigation; but on either side were rocks that broke the river into pools and shallows, such as here, no less than on Earth, form the favourite haunts or spawning places of the fish. In some of the lesser pools birds larger than the stork, bearing under the throat an expansible bag like that of