MOZAMBIQUE TERRITORY (II) 49 
credibly tiny space between the bars of the traveling box; having 
nothing else to eat, he tried to satisfy his hunger by catching the 
birds. This, I found afterwards, is one of their bad habits in any 
case. 
There was no more trouble on board, but having made all sorts 
of sarcastic remarks to various members of the crew on the subject 
of allowing rats to run round the ship, I felt rather small. Know- 
ing that the laugh would be on me if I told the whole story, I 
contented myself by saying that there was no recurrence of the 
trouble, and that I was beginning to doubt if it really was a rat 
after all! 
