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"And have your people," I asked, "many more such wonderfully intelligent and useful creatures tamed to your service, besides the ambau, the tyree, and these letter-carriers?" "Oh yes!" she answered. "Nearly all our domestic animals will do anything they are told which lies within their power.
When I released her, there appeared to my surprise at her call, no human intruder, but one of the ambau, bearing on a tray a goblet, which, as he placed it on a table beside us, I perceived to contain a liquid rather different from any yet offered me.
"Ambau," he said, but apparently without the slightest interest in their proceedings. Indeed, the regularity and entire freedom from alarm or vigilance which characterised their movements, convinced me that both these and the birds we passed were domesticated creatures, whose natural instincts had been turned to such account by human training.
Then, turning to Eveena, Enva spoke for the rest "We should have treated you less ill if we could at all have understood you. We understand you just as little now. Clasfempta is man after all, bridling his own temper as a strong man rules a large household of women or a herd of ambau.
Eunané's blunder about the carcarâ was not explained by any subsequent errors of the ambau or carvee, which always selected the ripe fruit with faultless skill, leaving the immature untouched, and throwing aside in small heaps to manure the ground the few that had been allowed to grow too ripe for use.
The very ambau recognise the mistress or the favourite, as dogs the master of their Earthly home. The ladies were at first shy and silent, Eunané only giving me more than a monosyllabic answer to my remarks, and even Eunané never speaking save in reply to me. A trivial incident, however, broke through this reserve, and afforded me a first taste of the petty domestic vexations in store for me.
The ladies then retired, Esmo, his son, and the official remaining, when two ambau brought in a tray of refreshments. The official tasted each article offered to him, evidently more as a matter of form than of pleasure.
My books and sketches, as well as the portfolios of popular prints which I had selected to assist me in describing the life and scenery of our world, were, with my wardrobe and other properties, arranged on my shelves by the ambau, under the direction of Kevimâ, the young gentleman who had superintended their removal and conveyance to his father's house.
As these stations are nearly always placed in towns or villages, or in well-peopled country neighbourhoods, food is supplied by the nearest confectioner to each traveller individually, and a single person, assisted by the ambau, is able to manage the largest of them. The last two or three days of our journey were bitterly cold, and not a little trying.
Before sunset we were joined by a young man, who, first approaching my host with a respectful inclination of the head, stood before him till apparently desired by a few quiet words to speak; when he addressed the head of the family in some short sentences, and then, at a sign from him, turned to two of the squirrel-like animals, "ambau," which followed him.
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