top of that great beast?"

"As you please, sar. Suppose you like get up before, he lift up his leg
for you to climb up. Suppose you like to get up behind, he not say
nothing. Suppose you wish go up his middle, you ab ladder."

"Well, then, Mr Interpreter, I shall feel very much obliged to you for
a ladder."

A ladder was brought. Prose, and Macallan, with his implements,
ascended to the howdah, fixed on the back of the enormous brute. The
remainder of the party being ready, they set off; accompanied by the
deputy, the interpreter, and several other handsomely attired natives,
who, out of compliment to the officers, had been ordered to attend them.
The country, like most parts of India near to the coast, consisted of
paddy or rice fields, under water, diversified with intersecting patches
of jungle and high trees. Occasionally they passed a deeper pool, where
the buffaloes, with only their horns and tips of their noses to be seen,
lay, with the whole of their enormous carcasses hid under the muddy
water, to defend themselves from the attacks of the mosquitoes, and the
powerful rays of the sun.

"Look at the buffaloes, Prose."

"Where, Seymour? I can't see any. I never saw a buffalo in my life.
It's like an ox, an't it?"

"It's very like a whale," replied Courtenay.

At this moment one of the herd, startled at the near approach of the
cavalcade, rose from the stagnant pool, where he had been lying, and
presented his immense carcass, covered with mud, to Prose's wondering
eyes.

"Lord, Molly, what a fish!" exclaimed Courtenay, with affected surprise,
alluding to an old standing naval joke.

"Now, is that a fish?" cried Prose, a little alarmed. "Well, I do
declare! I say, Mr Interpreter, what is that thing?"

"Call him buffalo, sar."

"Well, I do declare! I always thought that buffaloes were animals that
lived on shore."

"Nothing like travelling, Mr Prose," observed Courtenay; "you'll know a
buffalo, now, if ever you happen to hook one, when you are fishing out
of the fore-chains."

"And you'll remember a high-caste monkey, if ever you meet with one
again," added Seymour.

"That I shall, all the days of my life."

The country, as they proceeded inland, materially altered its features.
Forests of large trees and fragments of rocks met their view, instead of
the paddy-fields, which they had left behind; and Macallan now wished to
descend, that he might collect geological specimens. Explaining