I?2 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



cacophony, proclaim the fact to the world, after the manner 

 of '"Any"? 



Further, I have physiognomical objections to frogs. The 

 aspect of them is an outrage. Every line of their gape- 

 mouthed shallow-pated visages bears witness of general 

 debasement, and an inordinate love of victuals. The little 

 leopard-spotted water-frog is more tolerable ; but I am 

 speaking of the gross overgrown bull- frog. After months 

 of bleaching while it lay torpid, I suppose, in the ground 

 it comes out to greet the monsoon all of one uniform 

 gamboge yellow, and riots in the daytime. Then, when 

 lusty health has restored it to a dark green hue, with a 

 gaudy yellow line running down its back-bone, it leads an 

 amphibious life, lurking among the rushes on the margin 

 of some pool, and at the sound of your footstep taking a 

 " header " into the water, with its legs, like the tail of a 

 comet, behind it ; or, perchance, having tumbled, during 

 some ill-fated spree, into a deep well, it expiates the crime 

 of its appearance by a long life of solitary confinement, 

 with no hope of release. The livelong day it is doomed 

 to float at the surface of the water, vacantly gazing at 

 heaven, with supplicating palms outstretched and fat thighs 

 helqlessly pendulous in the clear liquid ; but sudden death 



