It appeared
to be manufactured of cloth woven from grass-fibre, which stretched and
yielded to every motion of the body, and, being bound top and bottom to
the bearing pole, gave a grateful support to the head and neck.
Scarcely had I settled myself when, accompanying their steps with a
monotonous song, the bearers started at a swinging trot. For half an
hour or so I lay still, reflecting on the very remarkable experiences
that we were going through, and wondering if any of my eminently
respectable fossil friends down at Cambridge would believe me if I were
to be miraculously set at the familiar dinner-table for the purpose
of relating them. I do not want to convey any disrespectful notion or
slight when I call those good and learned men fossils, but my experience
is that people are apt to fossilise even at a University if they follow
the same paths too persistently. I was getting fossilised myself, but
of late my stock of ideas has been very much enlarged. Well, I lay and
reflected, and wondered what on earth would be the end of it all, till
at last I ceased to wonder, and went to sleep.
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