Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
With white armor, blazoned shield, and plume of ostrich-feathers from his helmet, he carried himself in so jaunty and joyous a fashion, with tossing pennon and curveting charger, that a shout of applause ran the full circle of the arena.
We saw the fresh prints of a very large elephant; and I have no doubt that by any sportsman, if he had but leisure to learn their haunts and watering-places, a good account might be made of them but one and all are wild in the extreme. Ostrich-feathers bedeck the frizzly polls of many men and women, but no one has ever heard of any having been killed or snared by huntsmen.
But of all those thousands he was the only one who looked behind him and observed it. The bride's attendants had by this time taken their station on the pontoon; here came another band of youths with panther skins on their shoulders; and now at last, at last a car came swaying along, drawn by eight coal-black oxen dressed with green ostrich-feathers and water-plants.
With these words the prince fell on his knees, and the women followed his example when they saw first a noble bull in whose shining skin the sun was reflected, and who bore between his horns a golden disk, above which stood white ostrich-feathers; and then, divided from the bull only by a few fan-bearers, the God himself, sometimes visible, but more often hidden from sight by great semi-circular screens of black and white ostrich-feathers, which were fixed on long poles, and with which the priests shaded the God.
Rich Babylonian carpets covered the floor and his chair was of gold, cushioned with purple. A tastefully-carved footstool supported his feet, his hands held a roll covered with hieroglyphics, and a boy stood behind him with a fan of ostrich-feathers to keep away the insects.
But Craney went on buying chandeliers and chess-boards and clocks and women's things, such as dresses and ostrich-feathers hats, and baby carriages, and parasols, and an allotment of assorted dinner-bells, and one side of a drug store. I don't know all there was in his cases, only I judged there wasn't any monotony. I says: "Maybe now you might be done." He came aboard and looked thoughtful.
It was all very hard for a rational being to understand and explain: but he meant to fathom it, all the same, to the very bottom to find out why, for example, in Uganda, whoever appears before the king must appear stark naked, while in England, whoever appears before the queen must wear a tailor's sword or a long silk train and a headdress of ostrich-feathers; why, in Morocco, when you enter a mosque, you must take off your shoes and catch a violent cold, in order to show your respect for Allah; while in Europe, on entering a similar religious building, you must uncover your head, no matter how draughty the place may be, since the deity who presides there appears to be indifferent to the danger of consumption or chest-diseases for his worshippers; why certain clothes or foods are prescribed in London or Paris for Sundays and Fridays, while certain others, just equally warm or digestible or the contrary, are perfectly lawful to all the world alike on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
In one place you might see minute ostrich-feathers, which seemed the waving plumes of the warriors filing into the fortress; in another, the glancing, fan-shaped banners of the Lilliputian host; and in another, the needle-shaped particles collected into bundles, resembling the plumes of the pine, might pass for a phalanx of spears.
They must wear the same jewels, the same flowers, the same costly silks and laces. Ostrich-feathers became the rage, and they were soon so scarce that fabulous prices were paid to import them for the use of the Frenchwomen. The trousseau of a young beauty became as important as her dowry. Mothers and husbands sighed, and at last ended by abusing the queen.
From the port of Mogador are exported the richest articles the country produces, viz., almonds, sweet and bitter gums, wool, olive-oil, seeds of various kinds, as cummin, gingelen, aniseed; sheep-skins, calf, and goat-skins, ostrich-feathers, and occasionally maize. The amount of exports in 1855 was: For British ports, £228,112 3s. 2d., for foreign ports, £55,965 13s. 1d.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking