194 ACCIDENT TO MY 



An unpleasant circumstance was communicated 

 to me very feelingly during the storm on this 

 occasion. The straw roof of Miriam's house was 

 a great resort of lizards, and their long serpentine 

 burrows in the thatch were so many irrigating 

 canals, all of which, for my sins, I suppose, accord- 

 ing to Abyssinian ideas of judgment, terminated 

 over my bed-place, and I found that unless some- 

 thing was done to remedy this evil, either by 

 altering my course of life, or by applying more 

 straw to the roof, I must drag out the remainder 

 of my life in a shower-bath. As to getting well 

 of an ague under such circumstances, even my 

 sanguine disposition gave up the idea, and Walder- 

 heros, whose fortune at court depended upon my 

 health being established, was shockingly excited 

 at this sad prospect of recovery, and was up and 

 looking into the matter immediately after the brief 

 thunder-storm had ceased. 



The lowness of the walls facilitated his examina- 

 tion, and stepping from the ground he essayed to 

 mount the roof, but the very next moment I saw his 

 black naked leg thrust quite through the frail stick 

 construction ; filling the whole place with decayed 

 thatch and dirt, besides threatening my ribs beneath 

 the hanging foot, with no gentle application of his 

 heel, as he convulsively, but vainly endeavoured 

 to extricate himself. Fortunately, a straw-band, 

 which in his agony he had seized and held on by 

 as a centre of support, broke with the violence of 



