As their training and
their extreme tameness indicate, domestic creatures, even those
destined only to serve as food or to furnish clothing, are treated not
indeed with tenderness, but with gentleness, and without either the
neglect or the cruelty which so revolt humane men in witnessing the
treatment of Terrestrial animals by those who have personal charge of
them. To describe any considerable number of the hundred forms I saw
during this short period would be impossible. I have drawings, or
rather pictures, of most, taken by the light-painting process, which I
hope herewith to remit to Earth, and which at least serve to give a
general idea of the points in which the Martial chiefly differs from
the Terrestrial fauna. Those animals whose coats furnish a textile
fibre more resemble reindeer and goats than sheep; their wool is
softer, longer, and less curly, free also from the greasiness of the
sheep.
It seemed to me that an extreme quaintness characterised the domestic
creatures kept for special purposes. This was not the effect of mere
novelty, for animals like the _amba_ and birds like the _esve_,
trained to the performance of services congenial to their natural
habits, however dissimilar to Terrestrial species, had not the same
air of singularity, or rather of monstrosity.
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