A few split bamboos are fastened into the ground, in a circle, and these ropes are then coiled round, in and out, between the stakes; this makes a huge circular vat-shaped repository, open at both ends; it is then lifted up and put on a platform coated with mud, and protected from rats and vermin by the pillars being placed on smooth, inverted earthen pots.

The coils of straw are now plastered outside and in with a mixture of mud, chaff, and cowdung, and allowed to dry; when dried the hut is filled with grain, and securely roofed and thatched.

Those in our line kept tearing up huge tufts of it, thrashing out the mud and dirt from the roots against their forelegs, and with a grunt of satisfaction, making it slowly disappear in their cavernous mouths.

Quicksands and beds of tenacious mud impede one at every step.

Lindsay left the Katherine station, and proceeded to Blue Mud Bay.

The creek maintained its southern course, until, on the 8th of March, it ran out into a mud plain and a salt lake.

Blue Mud Bay.

At Marton the father worked for a Mr. Mewburn, living in a small cottage built of mud, called in the district a clay biggin.

[Illustration: The U-rano-sco-pus hides a-mong The mud, and an-gles with its tongue.]

But now behold another grub-hunter, which, distasting mud, has discovered an unworked mine in the trunks of trees.

The advantage of this is that when the bird lets down its head into the water, like a bucket into a well, the point of the bill does not stick in the mud, but lies flat on it, upside down.

The bareness of her limbs may perhaps shock our notions of propriety at first, for, being a mud-wader of necessity, like the stork and the heron, she girds her garments about her very tightly indeed; but this only sets off her wonderfully erect and athletic figure, while her well-set head looks all the nicer that it has no covering except her own neatly-bound hair.

"Who has not had those troubled nights, when the storm rages within, when the soul, miserably oppressed with shameful desires, floats in the mud of a swamp?" MICHELET (L'Amour).

"Wot's comin', Miss Rob," said she, "is the buggy 'longin' to Mister Michaels, at de Springs, an' his ole mud-colored hoss is haulin' it.

Reckin' he don' know dat ole mud-color hoss.

Her arrival was not noticed by any one except the mud-colored horse, who gazed at her inquiringly; and looking through the bars, without opening the gate, Peggy had a good view of the gentlemen.

Once she stopped and turned, and saw that the buggy, with the mud-colored horse, was being driven away, and that Master Junius was coming along the road to the house.

Oliver stood up, swallowed, and wiped mud off his hands.

"It is a mortifying thing sometimes to me, when I have been painting all day very hard and begin to be pleased with what I have done, on showing it to Mr. Allston, with the expectation of praise, and not only of praise but a score of 'excellents,' 'well dones,' and 'admirables'; I say it is mortifying to hear him after a long silence say: 'Very bad, sir; that is not flesh, it is mud, sir; it is painted with brick dust and clay.

The bullets hissed and split the water, and the rowers tried to get out of their reach, but all their efforts were in vain; the treacherous mud had caught the boat, and some one must peril life and limb to shove that boat into the water.

Not Sir Walter Raleigh spreading his cloak at the feet of his sovereign mistress lest they should take a speck of mud could have shown more loyalty, more devotion, than did Gentleman Jim sweeping for bare life, as Miss Bruce and her maid approached the crossing he had hired for the occasion.

Yesterday we got the mud shoveled out of the cellar and found Peter, the spaniel that Mr. Ladley left when he "went away".

As his carriage whirled by, it was held the duty of all others in carriages to stop, descend into the mud, and bow themselves.

"That they do wander from one place to another is evident, as I am assured that they have been found in ponds in Richmond Park, which had been previously cleaned out and mudded, and into which no water could run except from the springs which supplied it.

Therefore my son i' th' ooze is bedded, and I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded, And with him there lie mudded.