i8o THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER, 



mouthed wherever they can find a little shade, it is away 

 in some distant corner, making discoveries amongst the 

 roots of the prickly-pear hedge, and late in the evening, 

 when the rest are in bed, it returns from a long expedition 

 in the fields. I only fear that its adventurous little spirit 

 will bring it to an untimely end some day in the den of a 

 jackal or a mungoose. 



This reminds me that, whether the inhabitants of the 



poultry-yard are themselves a frontier tribe or not, they 



are a cause of the presence of some most pestilent 



borderers. When I surprised 



^, 1-11 



the vagabond jackal one morn- 

 ing loitering about my premises 

 without visible means of sup- 

 port, could there be any mis- 

 take about its intentions? And 

 though the mungoose, about 

 which all the hens are making 

 such a cackling, trots innocently 

 away, bent on nothing in par- 

 ticular, was it equally objectless when the hen who had ten 

 chickens yesterday, and has only nine to-day, first noticed 

 its red nose and snaky eyes peering over a tuft of grass ? 



