152 THE TKOTTING RHINO 



inch of exposed skin in the delusion that it would 

 drive them away. The night was as dark as pitch ; 

 I could not see the end of my rifle— could scarcely 

 see my hand before my face. Had a herd of 

 rhinos visited the hole I could only have shot at 

 the noise. And there we sat, stiff and silent, with 

 ears alert and eyes staring into the surrounding 

 blackness until they ached. The only real excite- 

 ment of the night came when the corner of my 

 end of the platform gave way and dumped me 

 on my back in the mud below somewhat to my 

 amazement, and to the terror of the old man, whom 

 I could hear in the darkness above muttering 

 Malay, of which I only understood the anguished 

 tone. Perhaps, really, he was cursing me; which 

 was wasted effort, too, for I had left little undone 

 in that direction myself. 



No rhino came, of course; equally, of course, 

 no sitting up on platforms should ever be done on 

 a starless night. However, it was an experience, 

 and an interesting one, for unless you have sat 

 with awakened ears all night in the jungle you 

 can never know of the myriads of creeping, crawl- 

 ing things the earth supports. Returning in the 

 morning to the kampong I saw and killed a reddish 

 snake, about the size of my finger and nearly four 

 feet long, as it ran on the top of the coarse grass 

 at a level . with my shoulder. It is a rather 



