It was a morning and a scene to make a man's heart rise
high in his breast, and cry out, as his eyes turned from the
level-sanded desert floor, through sunlit space, to the vaulted
roof, "After all, the world is a good house to live in."
Slowly the strong yellow sunlight poured over the plain, the bank
and the river, gilding every ripple; and, as the light grew,
hundreds of delicate shapes--the forms of the ibis and flamingo
and crane, and other river-fowl--became visible, crowding down the
dark banks, with flapping of white and crimson wings, and
stretching of legs, and opening of beaks, rustling down, shaking
their feathers, to bathe and drink of the Blue River.
Wonderful light, and miraculous, gleaming, cloud-filled sky, and
wonderful birds preening their plumage and calling to each other,
and wonderful breeze-swept water, bluer than the bluest depths of
the Indian Ocean.
It was still so early that, in the whole stretch of rollicking,
tumbling, buoyant waters between bank and bank, only one piece of
river-craft could be seen. This pushed onward, cleaving through the
little billows in the teeth of the morning breeze. It was a tiny
naphtha launch--a horrid, fussy, smoking little thing, cutting
through breeze and water, and diffusing a scent of oil and greased
iron in the pure and radiant air.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141