rtialists 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 the pelican, were seeking for prey. They were watched and directed
by a master on the shore, and carried to a square tank, fixed on a
wheeled frame not unlike that of the ordinary carriage, which
accompanied him, each fish they took. I observed that the latter were
carefully seized, with the least possible violence or injury, placed
by a jerk head-downmost in the throat-bag, which, though when empty it
was scarcely perceptible, would contain prey of very considerable size
and weight, and as carefully disgorged into the tank. In one of the
most extensive pools, too deep for these birds, a couple of men had
spread a sort of net, not unlike those used on Earth, but formed of
twisted metal threads with very narrow meshes, enclosing the whole
pool, a space of perhaps some 400 square yards. In the centre of this
an electric lamp was let down into the water, some feet below the
surface. The fish crowded towards it, and a sudden shoc