ANOTHER World. 
so much as the body of a bandicoot to defile it. Then 
I looked towards a little shallow pond, an inlet of sea 
water, filled at high tides, near where the vulture stood, 
and noticed that a large, black object was floating in it. 
When I turned my steps to see what it was, the vulture 
began to walk, first slowly, then faster and faster, like an 
old lady trying to catch an omnibus. Then it broke into 
a trot, and from that into a gallop, while its great wings 
beat the air, until it was lifted off the ground and sailed 
away over the cocoanut groves and the blue hills beyond. 
And what do you think had brought it there? It had 
come to “ prospect” the corpse of a porpoise. It had 
evidently found the concern unworkable, and resigned it 
to me without a grudge. I found it unworkable too, for 
it must have been dead some two or three days. Its sides 
had shrunk in, the merry little eyes were gone, and the 
long row of sharp teeth showed fiercely in the shrivelled 
snout. Alas, poor Yorick ! Perhaps I had seen him before 
and watched his sportive gambols round my boat. He 
would come up with a puff and heave himself half out of 
the water and dive again, waving an adieu with his tail to 
the inhabitants of the world of air. He had doubtless 
been a prince of his tribe, for he was a large porpoise, 
