The Pond Was Well Stocked With Fine Fish, Which Come
Every Morning To Be Fed At The Sound Of A Wooden Gong Which Is
Hung Near For The Purpose.
On striking it a number of fish
immediately came out of the masses of weed with which the pond
abounds, and followed us along the margin expecting food.
At the
same time some deer came out of as adjacent wood, which, from
being seldom shot at and regularly fed, are almost tame. The
jungle and woods which surrounded the park appearing to abound in
birds, I went to shoot a few, and was rewarded by getting several
specimens of the fine new kingfisher, Halcyon fulgidus, and the
curious and handsome ground thrush, Zoothera andromeda. The
former belies its name by not frequenting water or feeding on
fish. It lives constantly in low damp thickets picking up ground
insects, centipedes, and small mollusca. Altogether I was much
pleased with my visit to this place, and it gave me a higher
opinion than I had before entertained of the taste of these
people, although the style of the buildings and of the sculpture
is very much inferior to those of the magnificent ruins in Java.
I must now say a few words about the character, manners, and
customs of these interesting people.
The aborigines of Lombock are termed Sassaks. They are a Malay
race hardly differing in appearance from the people of Malacca or
Borneo. They are Mahometans and form the bulk of the population.
The ruling classes, on the other hand, are natives of the
adjacent island of Bali, and are of the Brahminical religion.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 237 of 419
Words from 64627 to 64899
of 114260
