I may say here, however, that the Pongo augured the fertility or otherwise of each succeeding year from the number of the blooms on the Holy Flower.

If these were many the season would prove very fruitful; if few, less so; while if, as sometimes happened, the plant failed to flower, draught and famine were always said to follow.

Truly those were glorious blossoms, standing as high as a man, with their back sheaths of vivid white barred with black, their great pouches of burnished gold and their wide wings also of gold.
Then in the centre of each pouch appeared the ink-mark that did indeed exactly resemble the head of a monkey.

But if this orchid astonished me, its effect upon Stephen, with whom this class of flower was a mania, may be imagined.

Really he went almost mad.