THE RATS 



July. 



DUST gives place to mud, 

 and scorching winds to 

 cool damp breezes, and the 

 ground begins to blush with 

 green, and giant frogs come 

 out of their graves in the 

 ground, bleached to a fine 

 brimstone yellow, and celebrate 

 their obscene saturnalia in the 

 flooded fields, when the paddy-bird stalks solemn among 

 the puddles, and the crow, expelled with opprobrium from 

 the verandah, sits on the dripping bough, with a dank 

 " droukit " look, each feather of its bedraggled tail leading 



an independent, schismatical existence, then the tribes that 



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