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Then there were the pond-weeds, and other true water-plants, whose summer luxuriance nearly stopped the navigation of the canal, and whose pollen in July, collecting near the locks, lay there upon the water like a thick scum.
What she could see was mud, soft, oozy, watery mud, and from its festering chill, water-plants rose up, thick and cool and fleshy, very straight and turgid, thrusting out their leaves at right angles, and having dark lurid colours, dark green and blotches of black-purple and bronze.
She saw a glittering portal open, that led to a little garden, where all was brightness and dance music. Colored lamps surrounded little lakes, in which were water-plants of colored metal, from whose flowers jets of water spurted up. Beautiful weeping willows, real products of spring, hung their fresh branches over these lakes like a fresh, green, transparent, and yet screening veil.
Having gathered as much fruit as they required, they continued their voyage, and presently emerged into the pleasant sunshine in a large grassy lake, which was filled with lilies and beautiful water-plants, little yellow bladder-worts, with several other plants of which they knew not the names; especially one with a thick swollen stalk, curious leaves, and bright blue flowers.
So rapid is the vegetation, owing to the decomposition of the carbonic acid, that, even in winter, masses of confervae and lichens, mixed with deposited travertine, are constantly detached by the currents of water from the bank and float down the stream, which being a considerable river is never without many of these small islands on its surface; they are sometimes only a few inches in size, and composed merely of dark-green confervae or purple or yellow lichens, but they are sometimes even of some feet in diameter, and contain seeds and various species of common water-plants, which are usually more or less encrusted with marble.
These are, besides, formidable weapons, with which when enraged the animal can tear even boats in pieces; for, as you are aware, the hippopotamus is almost amphibious, and browses on water-plants, and lives in the great rivers of Africa, its native country.
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.
The surface was covered with water-plants, and numberless flocks of fowl of every description played about. To reach it he had to pass through very deep water which covered his saddle, though he was mounted on a tall horse; and one of his companions on a little pony was swamped altogether, his head and his gun alone being visible from time to time.
Ponds, overgrown with water-plants, lay about; wet meadow, and drier pastureland, open or dotted with palms and varied with tree jungle, stretched for many miles on every hand. There are some thirty thousand head of cattle on the ranch, besides herds of horses and droves of swine, and a few flocks of sheep and goats.
In a leading article of the 10th of January, 1852, after an account of the effects produced on water by radiation and the protection afforded to plants by the ice with which ponds are covered in winter, you go on to say that there are some circumstances under which water-plants suffer greatly, and from a singular cause, but one which when looked into is sufficiently simple and intelligible.
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