The examination of these works of course occupied us for a long time, and obliged us to traverse several miles of ground.  More than once I had suggested to Eveena that we should leave our work unfinished, and on every opportunity had insisted that she should rest.  I had been too keenly interested in the latter part of the explanation given me, to detect the fatigue she anxiously sought to conceal; but when we left the works, I was more annoyed than surprised to find that the walk down-hill to our carriage was too much for her.  The vexation I felt with myself gave, after the manner of men, some sharpness to the tone of my remonstrance with her.

“I bade you, and you promised, to tell me as soon as you felt tired; and you have let me almost tire you to death!  Your obedience, however strict in theory, reminds me in practice of that promised by women on Earth in their marriage-vow—­and never paid or remembered afterwards.”

She did not answer; and finding that her strength was utterly exhausted, I carried her down the remainder of the hill and placed her in the carriage.  During our return neither of us spoke.  Ascribing her silence to habit or fatigue, perhaps to displeasure, and busied in recalling what I had seen and heard, I did not care to “make conversation,” as I certainly should have done had I guessed what impression my taciturnity made on my companion’s mind.  I was heartily glad for her sake when we regained the gate of her father’s garden.  Committing the carriage to the charge of an amba, I half led, half carried Eveena along the avenue, overhung with the grand conical bells—­gold, crimson, scarlet, green, white, or striped or variegated with some or all these colours—­of the glorious leveloo, the Martial convolvulus.  Its light clinging stems and foliage hid the astyra’s arched branches overhead, and formed a screen on either side.  From its bells flew at our approach a whole flock of the tiny and beautiful caree, which take the chief part in rendering to the flora of Mars such services as the flowers of Earth receive from bees and butterflies.  They feed on the nectar, farina, syrup, and other secretions, sweet or bitter, in which the artificial flowers of Mars are peculiarly abundant, and make their nests in the calyx or among the petals.  These lovely little birds—­about the size of a hornet, but perfect birds in miniature, with wings as large as those of the largest Levantine papilio, and feathery down equally fine and soft—­are perhaps the most shy and timid of all creatures familiar with the presence of Martial humanity.  The varied colours of their plumage, combined and intermingled in marvellously minute patterns, are all of those subdued or dead tints agreeable to the taste of Japanese artists, and perhaps to no other.  They signally contrast the vivid and splendid colouring of objects created or developed by human genius and patience, from the exquisite decorations and jewel-like masses