76 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AXD SPORT. 



only an old female servant present, she delayed for 

 live minutes at the gate in order to gratify her curi- 

 osity by taking furtive glances at the foreign devil. 

 We had a tame otter with us, which raised a great 

 disturbance one day by penetrating into the apart- 

 ments of the ladies, who immediately began scream- 

 ing ; and the married sons looked very suspiciously 

 at the occurrence, as if they imagined it was a scheme 

 on our part for opening up communications. A large 

 shaggy old Siberian dog which I had also excited 

 much curiosity, and the children used to speak of 

 it with bated breath as the " man - eating foreign 

 dog." Much trouble did Wolf cause me by his fond- 

 ness for chasing bullocks, though otherwise harm- 

 less ; and ancient women would ask, reprovingly, 

 what I meant by bringing a wild animal of that sort 

 to frighten the people of the Flowery Land. Women, 

 on seeing it, used to exclaim, "Eiya/ lofoo/" "Oh 

 dear ! a tiger ! " and once, when it had got some way 

 in front, I found a small village turning out to attack 

 it with spears and gingalls. Thus its desperate charac- 

 ter, though very useful, was quite undeserved. When 

 I first got it, Wolf was a fine, ferocious animal ; but 

 years and heat had destroyed its spirit, and only the 

 lingering weakness for buffaloes remained as an indi- 

 cation of its former fire. 



When other exercise was inexpedient, we warmed 

 ourselves by forking grass into the fire of the brick- 

 kiln beside the house. There was a wonderful little 



