GEESE 209 



Two miles from my home there stood an old 

 mud-built house, thatched with rushes, and shaded 

 by a few ancient half-dead trees. Here lived a 

 very old woman with her two unmarried daughters, 

 both withered and grey as their mother ; indeed, 

 in appearance, they were three amiable sister 

 witches, all very very old. The high ground on 

 which the house stood sloped down to an extensive 

 reed- and rush-grown marsh, the source of an im- 

 portant stream ; it was a paradise of wild fowl, 

 swan, roseate spoonbill, herons white and herons 

 grey, ducks of half a dozen species, snipe and 

 painted snipe, and stilt, plover and godwit ; the 

 glossy ibis, and the great crested blue ibis with a 

 powerful voice. All these interested, I might say 

 fascinated, me less than the tame geese that spent 

 most of their time in or on the borders of the marsh 

 in the company of the wild birds. The three old 

 women were so fond of their geese that they would 

 not part with one for love or money ; the most 

 they would ever do would be to present an egg, in 

 the laying season, to some visitor as a special mark 

 of esteem. 



It was a grand spectacle, when the entire flock, 

 numbering upwards of a thousand, stood up on 

 the marsh and raised their necks on a person's 



