292 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



got my unfortunate ribs into a more comfortable 

 state by standing up, I returned to where I had 

 left my servant, who was beginning to wonder what 

 had become of me. On asking him whether he had 

 seen anything, he informed me that he fancied he 

 had seen the head of an otter, or the head of some 

 beast, peeping out from between two pieces of stone. 

 Accordingly I determined to watch a bit, and though 

 I had had a pretty good dose of watching with the 

 seals in question, I lay down with my servant close 

 to me. 



It was a fine evening, and beginning to be inclined 

 to be a little dusk. A slight poke from my com- 

 panion told that something was on the move, and 

 there I saw coming along the shingle the father of 

 all the rats, such a rat as I never had seen before ; 

 then came another almost as big ; such long, grey, 

 half-starved, hungry-looking deyils I never saw, with 

 tails, of all tails I ever heard of on any rats, the 

 longest and the thickest ; they seemed too long and 

 too heavy for their lean bodies, and they trailed 

 them on the ground as if they had not the strength 

 left in them to carry them. In fact, they looked 

 more like small kangaroos on all fours than rats. 

 They were evidently on the look-out for something 



