MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



BATH KODOK. 

 ( The Frog Bock. ) 



The above is a rock which, at low tide, bears a remarkable like- 

 ness to a frog squatting. It is situated, with some other and 

 larger rocks, in the old Straits of Singapore, between Changi and 

 the eastern end of Pulau tJbin, near the latter. The local account 

 of its origin is that, when mosquitos were as big as fowls, frogs 

 were large in proportion, and that the living original of the rock 

 in question in those days ventured a swim across the Straits, but 

 before he could reach land daylight appeared, and the adventurer 

 was turned to stone where he was. 



As to the days when mosquitos were as big as fowls, it is said 

 there was a king of the mosquitos — a Eaja Nyamok — who used peri- 

 odically to devour all the maidens of the land ; at last he had eaten 

 them nearly all up, and for some time could not find one. But 

 after some trouble, he found an old woman at home who had the 

 daughter he was looking for, but the daughter was not in the 

 house when he went there, and on his asking her mother, she told 

 him the maiden was out in the field, so he went out after her, and 

 found her, but she was burning some rubbish, and the smoke 

 interfered unpleasantly with his approach, so he asked her to 

 desist from her disagreeable occupation, but she, having a shrewd 

 idea of the object of his visit, declined ; and so it was that the way 

 of keeping off mosquitos was discovered, and thenceforward, no 

 doubt, they declined in the scale of creation. 



D. P. A. H. 



