A PLAGUE OF RATS 59 



rose hundreds of rofias, like the interior of some great temple, 

 a most peculiar and beautiful sight, the great fronds above us 

 quite shutting out the sunshine and making a green twilight 

 below them. 



If we had been disposed to copy the titles of some popular 

 evening entertainments, the nights preceding this Wednesday's 

 one might have been termed : " A Night with the Fleas," and 

 " A Night with the Mosquitoes," but this was emphatically 

 " A Night with the Rats." We saw and heard them racing 

 round the eaves of the house before we lay down, but as soon 

 as the light was put out they descended and began to rattle 

 about our pots and pans in search of food. We got up and 

 fired a pistol among them, and this appeared for a time to 

 scare them away ; but later on their attentions became so 

 personal that we were obliged to light a candle and keep it 

 burning on the floor all night. After this we had comparative 

 quiet, but before lighting the candle they had been scampering 

 over my companion in his hammock and over myself as I lay 

 on the floor. 



Thursday's journey, although shorter than that of most days, 

 was perhaps the most difficult of all, especially the morning 

 division of it hills steeper than ever, and, if possible, rougher 

 footpaths, so that we were often obliged to get down and walk, 

 making the journey very fatiguing. For nearly three hours we 

 were passing through dense forest, and in some places the path 

 was really frightful. I do not wonder that a small company 

 of soldiers brought up in the early years of the century by 

 Captain Le Sage laid themselves down in despair at the diffi- 

 culties of the roads they had to traverse. I found along the 

 roadside several varieties of those beautiful-leaved plants, 

 veined with scarlet and buff, which were so much cultivated 

 in England about that time. Ferns of all kinds were very 

 abundant, from the minutest species to the great tree-fern. 



Our afternoon's journey took us for some distance along a 

 beautiful river which foamed and roared over the rocks in its 

 course, and which we forded repeatedly. The path was most 

 picturesque, but very fatiguing ; in many places the track 

 could hardly be distinguished at all from the dense rank growth 

 of plants and long grass. We arrived at Beforona at one 

 o'clock and fully intended to have proceeded another stage, as 



