The shiners, pouts, and perch also, and indeed all the fishes which inhabit this pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, and firmer-fleshed than those in the river and most other ponds, as the
water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished from them.
I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said, that if we did not find
water this day we must perish miserably.
'I am going in search of the
Water of Life, because my father is ill, and like to die: can you help me?
On each side of the lower surface, or foot, there is a broad membrane, which appears sometimes to act as a ventilator, in causing a current of
water to flow over the dorsal branchiae or lungs.
It is easy to observe from this description that he hath no resemblance of a horse, and indeed nothing could give occasion to the name but some likeness in his ears, and his neighing and snorting like a horse when he is provoked or raises his head out of
water. His hide is so hard that a musket fired close to him can only make a slight impression, and the best tempered lances pushed forcibly against him are either blunted or shivered, unless the assailant has the skill to make his thrust at certain parts which are more tender.
I heard answering shouts from the people in the
water about me.
Cries and yells of warning and anger were flying over the quiet
water, and somewhere a conch shell was being blown with great success.
They look so snug and so homelike, and at eventide when every thing seems to slumber, and the music of the vesper bells comes stealing over the
water, one almost believes that nowhere else than on the lake of Como can there be found such a paradise of tranquil repose.
"Did you ever taste
water from a stagnant pool full of tadpoles?" Bradley asked.
No one can make an affidavit to the contrary, and therefore I still say nothing against the supposition: indeed, were geologists to assert that the whole continent of America had in like manner been formed by the simultaneous explosion of a train of Etnas laid under the
water all the way from the North Pole to the parallel of Cape Horn, I am the last man in the world to contradict them.
The
water in front of the canoe was hardly ruffled by its passage and no sound betrayed the collision, when the light fabric shot on the gravelly beach for nearly half its length, Natty receding a step or two from its bow, in order to facilitate the landing.
Soon, however, they realized the truth: that the current of the river had reversed and the
water was now flowing in the opposite direction-- toward the mountains.