GOLD COAST wa eS 
it first on the perch. Bee-eaters and kingfishers, and I suppose all 
other birds that tunnel into banks, run equally well backwards 
or forwards—a trait brought about, no doubt, by necessity. 
One evening Moses the houseboy came running to my hut in a 
panic and threw himself on the ground, writhing like a snake and 
groaning. It transpired that he had been stung on the big toe by a 
scorpion. I lanced the wound immediately, but in spite of a liberal 
dose of neat whiskey given to soothe his nerves, he howled like a 
child. It must have been very painful, but I think fear had as much 
to do with his behavior as the actual sting, for there was no swell- 
ing. After being taken to his hut he kept up such a continuous 
wail that I took him some more whiskey and found him in a 
frantic state. Sweat was streaming from his body, and he was 
shouting and sobbing and grasping his legs and body as if suffer- 
ing agonies. This was kept up for half the night, but to my sur- 
prise he arrived with the tea at the usual hour (6 a.m.) the follow- 
ing morning, and by then was perfectly normal. One never knows 
quite how much native beliefs and superstitions enter into such 
happenings, although I know full well that a scorpion’s sting is 
very unpleasant. 
The only exciting episode that happened to me, unless one in- 
cludes the capture of the Black-and-yellow Cobra, was one day 
when I was bathing alone. Usually Delys accompanied me, as 
she loved swimming and was adept at the crawl, which she had 
learnt on the bathing beaches of Western Australia. We had often 
seen natives bathing about a mile downstream but had noticed 
that it was always a communal affair—practically the whole vil- 
lage of both sexes going in at once. They bathed where it was 
shallow and made a lot of noise. The significance of this did not 
enter our heads at the time, and as I had occasionally seen fisher- 
men dive into the deep water to disentangle their nets from sub- 
merged branches, I never suspected that crocodiles ever frequented 
this small river. We had been bathing for a month or more when 
there was a storm in the distant hills which caused the river to rise 
considerably, and the water was now murky instead of clear. 
On the day in question I went to the river where my canoe was 
tied to the bank. After stripping I walked to the far end of the 
