Last, and nearest, I noticed, a bare yard to my left, where a low branch shaded the moss a little in advance of the trees around it, a ground-nest of beaten moss, of the size of a hand-bowl, and in it three small black puppy-like creatures, curled close, and sleeping in the shaded warmth of the morning. Surely there was little change in the new world from the world behind me! Here I watched for many hours, as the sun rose slowly. Once a huge bird crossed the sky, coming from the lower hills and disappearing at last over the distant heights of snow. It was many times larger than those which I had seen previously. It flew with strong steady strokes, but was too distant for more detailed observation. Then I noticed a dark object moving slowly up the slope toward me, and grazing as it came. Its body was of a dull blue colour, and was of the size of a sheep, or somewhat larger, but as round as an orange. It walked on two legs only, and there was no sign of forelimbs. But for the absence of any head I might have imagined it to be some kind of chicken, and looked round for the apparition of a monstrous hen. There was a face set in the front of the round body, consisting of two eyes which surveyed the world with a twinkling and mischievous humour, and a mouth, of which the upper lip was elongated, like an elephant’s trunk, but to somewhat different purpose, and proportionately longer. Hard and thin and snake-like, it had the under side serrated with sharp bony ridges. With this trunk it felt doubtfully over the surface of the herbage on which it fed. Then, finding a patch that grew to its liking, it pushed its trunk into the close growth, which appeared to resist its passage, with a rasping, tearing sound, till it was curled round the selected tuft, and then it pulled, and the sharp edges cut and tore the fibrous growth from the resisting roots, till the trunk turned inwards, to push its sheaf into the gap of the wide slit mouth, that was scarcely large enough to receive it, till the trunk had pressed and packed it in. And like a thrush that has won his worm after much pulling, the mischievous eyes twinkled with a humorous satisfaction. Care or fear, it seemed, it had none, nor any thought of enmity, as it came with leisurely steps and jovial roving eyes towards the edge of the wood where we were lying. I passed the information to my Leader’s mind, but received no instructions to do more than observe it. Closer it came, peering beneath the branches, its trunk moving so near to me that in a sudden panic I gripped the axe to strike, if it should attempt to molest me. But it only gazed with eyes in which curiosity appeared to be overcome by amusement at my comic aspect. Indeed, it was this derisive glance which first made me realise at all adequately the appearance I must present in my tattered clothes to these creatures whose bodies were so much more easily cared for, and sufficient for their environment.