The borders of the lakes and ponds teemed with corals, delicate seaweeds, and lovely shells.  Innumerable fishes of gay and brilliant hues darted and burned in the water like broken rainbows.

Reptiles are not very common, at least, in the cultivated zone; but we saw a few snakes, tortoises, and lizards, all brightly and harmoniously marked.  One of the snakes was phosphorescent, and one of the lizards could sit up like a dog, or fly in the air like a swallow.  The variety and beauty of the birds, as well as the charm of their song, exceed all description.  Most of them have iridescent feathers, several are wingless, and one at least has teeth.  The insects are a match for the birds in point of beauty, if not also in size and musical qualities.  Many of them are luminescent, and omit steady or flashing lights of every tint all through the night.

There are few large quadrupeds in the country, and so far as we could learn none of these are predaceous.  We saw an animal resembling a deer on one hand, and a tapir on the other, as well as a kind of toed horse or hipparion, and a number of domestic pets all strange to us.

The people, according to their tradition, came originally from a temperate land far across the ocean to the south-east, which is now a dark and frozen desert.  They are a remarkably fine race, probably of mixed descent, for they found Womla inhabited, and their complexions vary from a dazzling blonde to an olive-green brunette.  They are nearly all very handsome, both in face and figure, and I should say that many of them more than realise our ideals of beauty.  As a rule, the countenances of the men are open, frank, and noble; those of the women are sweet, smiling, and serene.  Free of care and trouble, or unaffected by it, mere existence is a pleasure to them, and not a few appear to live in a kind of rapture, such as I have seen in the eyes of a young artist on the earth while regarding a beautiful woman or a glorious landscape.  Their attitudes and movements are full of dignity and grace.  In fact, during my walks abroad, I frequently found myself admiring their natural groups, and fancying myself in ancient Greece, as depicted by our modern painters.  Their style of beauty is not unlike that of the old Hellenes, but I doubt whether the delicacy and bloom of their skins has ever been matched on our planet except, perhaps, in a few favoured persons.

From some experiments made by Gazen, it would appear that while their senses of sight and touch are keener, their senses of hearing and also of heat are rather blunter than ours.

Partly owing to the genial climate, their love of beauty, and their easy existence, their dress is of a simple and graceful order.  Many of their light robes and shining veils are woven from silky fibres which grow on the trees, and tinged with beautiful dyes.  Bright, witty, and ingenious, as well as guileless, chaste, and happy, I can only compare them to grown-up children—­but the children of a god-like race.  Thanks to the purity of their blood, and the gentleness of their dispositions, together with their favourable circumstances, they live almost exempt from disease, or pain, or crime, and finally die in peace at the good old age of a hundred or a hundred and fifty years.