household and the court.

Scarcely less intelligent, and certainly more entertaining, than these
were the dogs of our company,-? brutes of diverse temperament,
experience, and behavior. There were the captain's two, Trumpet and Jip,
who, by virtue of their reflected rank and authority, held places of
privilege and pickings under the table, and were jealous and overbearing
as became a captain's favorites, snubbing and bullying their more
accomplished and versatile guests, the circus dogs, with skipper-like
growls and snarls and snaps. And there was our own true Bessy,--a
Newfoundland, great and good,--discreet, reposeful, dignified,
fastidious, not to be cajoled into confidences and familiarities with
strange dogs, whether official or professional. Very human was her
gentle countenance, and very loyal, I doubt not, her sense of
responsibility, as she followed anxiously my boy and me, interpreting
with her heart the thoughts she read in our faces, and responding with
her sympathetic eyes.

In the afternoon, when we dined on deck, the land was plainly visible;
and now, as with a favoring tide we glided toward the beautiful Meinam
("Mother of Waters"), the air grew brighter, and the picture lived and
moved; trees _grew_ on the banks, more and more verdure, monkeys swung
from bough to bough, birds flashed and piped among the thickets.

Though the reddish-brown water over the "banks" is very shallow at low
tide, craft of moderate burden, with the aid of a pilot, cast anchor
commonly in the very heart of the capital, in from ten to twelve fathoms
of water.

The world has few rivers so deep, commodious, and safe as the Meinam;