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 

 adopt some other theory. I am told by people who 

 nave talked 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- 

 Not to be ingly, at Fremantle, the port of Perth, I tried to give 

 shaken off ^im to the University, 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. 



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