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He knew by sight the bur-reed of mountain ponds, with its round, prickly balls strung like big beads on the stiff, erect stalks; the little water-lobelia, with tiny purple blossoms, springing from the waters of lake and pond.
Another wide valley lay ahead of us, through which the road wound steeply, past women gathering the purple olives from the turf beneath the trees, past laden orange-trees, and sprawls of prickly pears, and fields of sprouting beans. And then we came to two yellow gate-posts, on one of which was the date 1063, whilst the other bore this inscription: "VITÆ IN INTROITV ÆDIS SANCTÆ EXUS."
In a few minutes he heard a shout from behind him, and then a number of shouts and then these died away into a plaintive murmur of voices, and next he was alone in the greatest darkness he had ever known. He put on his boots and walked onwards. He had no idea where the road lay, and every moment he stumbled into a patch of heather or prickly furze.
They now kept among the sand-hills so as to avoid the villages near the river, in case a party should be sent out from Metemmeh in pursuit of them. Edgar had difficulty in keeping up with the rest, for the hot sand burned his naked feet, and he had to avoid the prickly grass through which his companions walked unconcernedly.
He is quite as shrewd and clever as Granny Fox herself, and when he told her that the only time the strange creature everybody was talking about was seen was at sun-up, he guessed by the very way she sniffed and pretended not to believe it at all that she would visit Prickly Porky's hill the next morning.
And among them, and as far as the eye could reach, up into the gorge between the hills, picturesque white garden-houses showed through rifts in the half-tropical foliage, or over hedges of prickly pear and oleander. Fig-trees, a hundred years old, made faded grey blotches amongst the vivid greenery; the pink bloom of apricot was stainless against stained-yellow walls.
Anyhow, the loss of an arm or two matters little, for others grow in their place. Another cousin of the Starfish is the Sea-urchin, a round prickly creature rather like the burr of the sweet-chestnut tree. This mass of prickles is not a vegetable; he is very much alive. Nature has given many plants and animals these prickles, like fixed bayonets, for a defence against their enemies.
They think Mount Peter Botte is the highest mountain in the world, and if you show one of them a picture of Milan Cathedral he will swell up with satisfaction and say that the idea of that jungle of spires was stolen from the forest of peg-tops and toothpicks that makes the roofs of Curepipe look so fine and prickly. "There is not much trade in books.
This freedom often amounts to impudence; and they frequent the tops of bazaars, in order to steal all they can lay their hands upon below. The only way to keep them off, is to cover the roof with a prickly shrub, the thorns of which stick to the flesh like fishhooks. The above mentioned traveller watched one, which he calls a bandar, and which took his station opposite to a sweetmeat shop.
Prickly pears grew among them, and there were no less than six kippersol trees scattered here and there among the broken kopjes. In the rocks there were hundreds of homes for the conies, and from the crevices wild asparagus hung down. She ran to the river, bathed in the clear cold water, and tossed it over her head. She sang aloud.
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