WATER-SNAKES FISH-EAGLE. 
387 
agreeable, though causing no sickness. Indeed, the 
native sailors considered the smell to be healthy. 
Our boat was full of cockroaches, climbing about at 
all hours ; musquito also abounded. Our crew were 
sometimes put into a flutter by seeing a harmless 
water-snake making for the boat with head erected 
out of the water. These creatures steer along so 
direct that they seem to see nothing before them ; but 
the natives imagined that they were purposely mak- 
ing for the boat to get on board ! The shores were 
often lined with thousands of black and white geese, 
or the solitary fish - eagle might be seen standing 
apart. He is a bird of remarkable beauty; his gen- 
eral colour is black, but his head is white, and the 
shoulder-tips and feathered thighs are a glossy red. 
Although highly favourable for cultivation by 
means of irrigation, not a single field or village is to 
be seen as you glide down the splendid, almost lake- 
like stream some 400 yards wide. Either side is a 
flat dry country of alluvial soil, covered with natural 
bowers of climbers connecting the trees. The banks 
reminded me of the beautiful Garden Eeach on the 
Hoogiy at Calcutta. One evening, in the distance, I 
thought a range of swelling hills was visible, but their 
outline seemed suddenly to change into a cloud ! 
This mystery was soon explained : the forms I had 
seen were myriads of finches covering part of the 
horizon : the creatures were migrating, and resembled 
swarms of bees in the air, quite darkening the sky. 
A day or two afterwards, one night on deck, I was 
startled by a sound as if wind blew through a forest, 
and was about to beat upon our boat ; but we had 
only disturbed the birds, which in their flight had 
