THE LIZARDS, 37 



while it clung as they can cling, one sinewy mountaineer 

 after another bound his waistcloth more tightly round him, 

 and climbed the rope in silence, laughing in his sleeve at the 

 astonishment in store for the vigilant Mussulman garrison. 

 Like all races whose greatness is a memory, lizards are 

 sensual, passionate, and cruel. Sensual first : a lizard lives 

 to eat, and there never seems to be any time in its life when 

 it is not looking out for food. And passionate next. Two 

 sparrows will squabble and scuffle until they get so inex- 

 tricably mixed that, when they separate, it is quite an open 

 question whether they have got their own legs and wings, 

 or each other's ; and two ants will fight until they die in each 

 other's jaws, and a third comes up and carries off the whole 

 jumble for the food of the community ; but for an example 

 of devouring rage go to the big garden lizard, which the 

 children in India call a blood-sucker. See it standing in 

 the middle of the road, its whole face and throat crimson 

 with wrath and swollen to the bursting-point with pent-up 

 choler, its eyebrows raised, and its odious head bobbing up 

 and down in menace of vengeance. And the explanation of 

 the whole matter is that another smaller lizard snapped up 

 an ant on which it had set its heart. Nothing will appease 

 it now but to bite off the offender's tail. This will do the 



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