The Days of a Man 1914 



time, and it was three feet high. As evidence of its 

 genuineness, the juggler handed me a leaf; this 

 showed a large healed scar of the bite of some cater- 

 pillar, a remarkable case of quick recovery from 

 insect injury! 



I assume that the cobra's fangs had been drawn, 

 and that three mango plants of different sizes were 

 concealed under the cloak. Or if you like you may 

 A marvel adopt some other theory. I am told by people who 

 Lduiit y h ave ta lked with "a man who has been there" that 

 the whole thing is illusion, the spectators being all 

 hypnotized, and that a camera shows no plant at all. 

 As another "man who has been there" I may observe 

 that mango leaves do not hypnotize easily. I am 

 furthermore reminded of the feeling of a puzzled 

 negro I once overheard remarking: "This .explaining 

 am no explainment." 



Upon the arrival of my ship I went back to the 

 market and bought a small, long-tailed Sumatra 

 monkey, a Cercopithecus, but far inferior in intelli- 

 gence to my original "Bob" from Borneo. 1 He also 

 proved unsocial and on the whole the least inter- 

 esting of the Simians of my acquaintance. Accord- 

 ingly, at Fremantle, the port of Perth, I tried to give 

 shaken off j^m tQ ^ u n i vers i tVj but he was not allowed to land, 



Australian law being very stringent in the interest of 

 sanitation. After leaving Fremantle I vainly pre- 

 sented him to a Sydney lady whose husband had lost 

 his "favorite monkey pet." Finally, I was able to 

 put him off on another passenger, my good friend, 

 Dr. S. J. Johnston, successor to Haswell at Sydney 

 University, who was permitted to register him as a 

 gift to the city Zoo. 



1 See Vol. I, Chapter xxi, page 514. 



n 564 a 



