and there a flamingo.

A lumbering Adjutant-crane brought up the rear, flying as though
each slow stroke would be his last.

"Respect the aged! Brahmins of the River--respect the aged!"

The Adjutant half turned his head, sheered a little in the
direction of the voice, and landed stiffly on the sand-bar below
the bridge. Then you saw what a ruffianly brute he really was.
His back view was immensely respectable, for he stood nearly six
feet high, and looked rather like a very proper bald-headed
parson. In front it was different, for his Ally Sloper-like head
and neck had not a feather to them, and there was a horrible
raw-skin pouch on his neck under his chin--a hold-all for the
things his pick-axe beak might steal. His legs were long and
thin and skinny, but he moved them delicately, and looked at
them with pride as he preened down his ashy-gray tail-feathers,
glanced over the smooth of his shoulder, and stiffened into
"Stand at attention."

A mangy little Jackal, who had been yapping hungrily on a low
bluff, cocked up his ears and tail, and scuttered across the
shallows to join the Adjutant.

He was the lowest of his caste--not that the best of jackals are
good for much, but this one was peculiarly low, being half a
beggar, half a criminal--a cleaner-up of village rubbish-heaps,
desperately timid or wildly bold, everlastingly hungry, and full
of cunning that never did him any good.