we amused ourselves for the next two
hours in observing the different animals, of which such numbers were
to be seen at every turn, domesticated and trained for one or other of
the many methods in which the brutes can serve the convenience, the
sustenance, or the luxury of man. Animal food is eaten on Mars; but
the flesh of birds and fish is much more largely employed than that of
quadrupeds, and eggs and milk enter into the cuisine far more
extensively than either. In fact, flesh and fish are used much as they
seem to have been in the earlier period of Greek civilisation, as
relish and supplement to fruits, vegetables, and farinaceous dishes,
rather than as the principal element of food. As their training and
their extreme tameness indicate, domestic creatures, even those
destined only to serve as food or to furnish clothing, are treated not
indeed with tenderness, but with gentleness, and without either the
neglect or the cruelty which so revolt humane men in witnessing the
treatment of Terrestrial animals by those who have personal charge of
them. To describe any considerable number of the hundred forms I saw
during this short period would be impossible. I have drawings, or
rather pictures, of most, taken by the light-painting process, which I
hope herewith to remit to Earth, and which at least serve to give a
general idea of the points in which the Martial chiefly differs from
the Terrestrial fauna. Those animals whose coats furnish a textile
fibre more resemble reindeer and goats than sheep; their wool is
softer, longer, and less curly, free also from the greasiness of the
sheep.

It seemed to me that an extreme quaintness characterised the domestic
creatures kept for special purposes. This was not the effect of mere
novelty, for animals like the _amba_ and birds like the _esve_,
trained to the performance of services congenial to their natural
habits, however dissimilar to Terrestrial species, had not the same
air of singularity, or rather of monstrosity. But in the creatures
bred to furnish wool, feathers, or the like, some single feature was
always exaggerated into disproportionate dimensions. Thus the
_elnerve_ is loaded with long plumes, sometimes twice the length of
the body, and curled upward at the extremity, so that it can neither
fly nor run; and though its plumage is exquisitely beautiful, the
creature itself is simply ludicrous. It bears the same popular repute
for sagacity as the goose of European far