A fine idea to describe a flotilla of sail boats, as liquid sculptures, and note too that passing flock of egrets whose appearance is likened to a ripple of applause. 

On the river egrets break upon the skyline in a blinding ripple of applause, disturbed by a flotilla of white-sailed feluccas show sails twist and billow like fluid sculptures. 

Source: Justin Marozzi, The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus (London: John Murray, 2009), p. 158

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