"But then, sir," observed the girl as she sucked the honey out of the
stalk of an azure convolvulus flower and threw the remains at a butterfly
that sailed across the sunshine, "you know so little! You have come
from afar, from some barbarous and barren district. Here we undoubtedly
grow our boats, and though we know the Thither folk and such uncultivated
races make their craft by cumbrous methods of flat planks, yet we prefer
our own way, for one thing because it saves trouble," and as she murmured
that all-sufficient reason the gentle damsel nodded reflectively.

But one of her companions, more lively for the moment, tickled her with
a straw until she roused, and then said, "Let us take the stranger to the
boat garden now. The current will drift us round the bay, and we can come
back when it turns. If we wait we shall have to row in both directions,
or even walk," and again planetary slothfulness carried the day.

So down to the beach we strolled and launched one of the golden-hued
skiffs upon the pretty dancing wavelets just where they ran, lipped
with jewelled spray, on the shore, and then only had I a chance to
scrutinise their material. I patted that one we were upon inside
and out. I noted with a seaman's admiration its lightness, elasticity,
and supreme sleekness, its marvellous buoyancy and fairy-like "lines,"
and after some minutes' consideration it suddenly flashed across me that
it was all of gourd rind. And as if to supply confirmation, the flat
land we were approaching on the opposite side of the bay was covered by
the characteristic verdure of these plants with a touch here and there
of splendid yellow blossoms, but all of gigantic proportions.

"Ay," said a Martian damsel lying on the bottom, and taking and kissing
my hand as she spoke, in the simple-hearted way of her people, "I see
you have guessed how we make our boats. Is it the same in your distant