Sept. gO, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



183 



"Me? Dronk! Oh bah gosh! Ah'll ant never got di-onk 

 nialaf tarn fore, nor afty ward, nor dis tam, bah gosh! 

 Ah was tire, an' sah, Ah was nat'rally seek!" 



"Wal," said Sam, "it '11 be better for youi" health not to 

 hev no more secb fits o' sickness." 



Then, hdled hj tlie incessant, monotonous ChorVis of 

 the toads and frogs, they went to sleei). 



TRAVELS IN BOON GAH ARRAHBIGGEE 



FROM THE DIARY OF JOSEPH GOATEE. 



EDITiSD BY r. H. TEMPLE BELLEW. 



(Continued.) 



ONE day when paddling up a narrow tributary to the 

 lake,' our attention was suddenly called to a loud 

 sniacknig and splashing 

 some distance off. Steer- 

 ing the canoe noiselessly 

 in that direction, we 

 discovered a large apeci- 

 raen of the fist iish Avith 

 his hand-like tail grasp- 

 ing the root of a tree 

 by the water's edge, and 

 tln-ashiii2,' the baiik and 

 water all around him 

 with great violence. He 

 was defending himself 

 against the attack of 

 nearly a dozen large 

 water rats that surround- 

 ed him, showing their 

 long white teeth and 

 glittering eyes as they >- 

 flew at him with the 

 most determined feroc- 

 ity. The body of one 

 dead rat with its white 

 belly turned upward 

 floated past us as we 

 watched, and the corpses 

 of two others lay on the 

 bank. Several were 

 wounded and moved 

 about with difficulty, 

 still they continued to 

 aid their fellows in the 

 attack. Their chief ob- 

 ject seemed to be to get 

 at the grasping fin, and 

 so make their fishy op- 

 ponent let go Ms hold, 

 though they not infre- 

 quently sprang for his 

 gill fins, when, however, 

 they were thrashed off 

 as 'soon as they made 

 a lodgment. One big 

 fellow I noticed particu- 

 larly, who was evi- 

 dently the leader of the 

 attacking party, dis • 

 played marked daring 

 and energy. Several 

 times he succeeded in 

 getting a hold on the 

 gill fins, only to be vio- 

 lently shaken off again. 

 The battle was long ana 

 sanguinary, but after 

 watching it for over 

 twenty minutes I began 

 to notice signs of weak- 

 ness on the part of the 

 huge eel. His blows 



w^ere not so rapid nor vigorous as at first, while the rats 

 fought on with scarcely any abatement of energy, per- 

 haps for the reason that every now and then, when ex- 

 hausted, two or three of them wovdd withdraw from the | up. 

 field of battle and rest in the 

 long grass, and then return to 

 the conflict with renewed energy. 

 Just after one of these resting 

 spells, I noticed the captain rat 

 crawl stealthily romid to a good 

 position whence, after watching 

 motionlessly for some seconds, he 

 made a sudden sjiring and fast- 

 ened his white teeth in the throat 

 of the fist fish. This time he was 

 not shaken off so quickly as be- 

 fore but held his grip for a suf- 

 ficient length of time to enable 

 his companions to make an as- 

 sault on the grasping tail of the 

 fish. It was only for an instant, 

 however, for the eel coiling itself 

 uj), sent the poor rodent flying 

 in the air fidly 12ft. off. Then 

 the others were quickly scat- 

 tered from their hold on the 

 tail, which, being well pi-otected 

 with armored i^lates, offered but 

 a poor hold for even the sharp 

 teeth of the rats. Little daunted, 

 however, by this repulse, the 

 band of rodents collected together 

 and seemed to hold a brief coun- 

 cel of war. 



What then followed truly 

 caused me astonishment. The 

 great body of the attacking 

 force, leaving two or three of 

 their number to harrass the 

 enemy, retired into the under- 

 brush, and remained concealed 

 for some little time. Presently I 

 saw them returning, dragging 

 with them sprays of a pecu- 

 liarly tortuous and thorny shi-ub, to each shrub 

 there being detailed two or three of the rats. These 

 branches they dragged up as close as they could to 

 one side of the eel near the tad, while a body of fighters 

 kept him engaged on the other. Then under the cover of 

 this abbatis, they advanced on the vidnerable point of 

 their foe, at the same time a general assault being made 



by the entire force. The comma,nding rat made a vigoi*- 

 ous jimip for the throat of the fish, succeeding, however, 

 only in catcliing one of the fins, but to this he held on 

 long enongli to enable his companions to get at the tail, 

 when he w;is sent off gyrating thiough the air as before. 

 But this time tlic thorny abbatis served as a temporary 

 shield for the assailants, the captain joining their num- 

 bers, and though his eelship sent the twigs flying about 

 right and left, it was too late; the enemy had mutilated 

 two or tlu'ee digits of his fist and he was losing his grip. 

 Never have I seen such fwcj displayed by any living 

 ci-eature as was now exhibited by this slimy monster. 

 His form seemed absolutely to disappear, and in its place 

 nothing but a gi'ay mist filled with bits of leaves and 

 grass was visible, so rapid were his motions. This exer- 

 tion could not last long. In a few seconds he fell with a 



1^ A^JW V^-^°^^tr^ 



thud on the bank, and then drawing his body up like the 

 letter S, made a bold dash for the water. In an instant 

 all the rats were after him, and the game was apparently 

 He could not thrash in the water, and was too much 



disabled to swim with any great rapidity. I could now 

 see very little of what went on under the water save a 

 confused, struggling mass, with occasional pale flashes 

 from the white stomachs of the contestants. Presently 

 the heads of the rodents began to appear one by one 

 above the surface as they swam toward the shore, and 

 shortly after the mangled and blood-stained abdomen of 



the vanquished warrior, like the white ghost of a note of 

 exclamation, came floating toward us. True to the tra- 

 dition that eels never know when they have been killed, 

 this creature made several dissentient struggles as we 

 dragged it into the boat. An autopsy at once revealed 

 the whole cause of this bloody encounter. The monster 

 had desolated the homes and firesides of a whole colony 

 of hard-working and industrious rodents, for in his capa- 

 cious abdomen I found no less than foi-ty-seven young 

 rats, some of them in the earliest stages of infancy, and 

 others in the last state of decomposition. So ended one 

 of the most fiercely contested battles that I ever witnessed. 

 Four dead rats I counted on the bank, and others must 

 have been caiTied away by the stream. 



We have all heard the sagacity of rats made the siibject 

 of wondering admiration, but nothing can surpass the 



instance I have just nar- 

 rated, and which I saw 

 with my own eyes. 

 Surely here was e viden ce 

 of something beyond 

 mere instinct, some pro- 

 cess of reasoning so 

 nearly allied to that 

 which goes on in the 

 hunaan brain as to make 

 it difficult to distinguish 

 between the two. 



Poptee, who had man- 

 ifested more interest in 

 the encounter than any 

 of the rest of the party, 

 to the extent even of 

 nearly upsetting the 

 canoe and pitching us 

 all into the water, craved 

 possession of the dead 

 body, which being given 

 him, he carefully skin- 

 ned and stuffed, and 

 subsequently forwarded 

 to his wife as a trophy 

 of his prowess, or a 

 souvenir of aft'ection, I 

 do not know which. As 

 no one at our encamp- 

 ment seemed to hanker 

 after the flesh of the 

 creature as a part of our 

 menu, we restored it to 

 the lake, minus its over- 

 coat, and satisfied our 

 appetites with roasted 

 marble duck, wadda 

 cakes and baked roots. 

 That night, however, we 

 sufi'ered for our indiscre- 

 tion in not removing the 

 carcass to a gi-eater dis- 

 tance by the snarlings 

 and squabbling of a herd 

 of khypates (a small car- 

 rion-eating animal) over 

 the remains; these in 

 tui-n arousing the ire of 

 our dogs, they took a 

 hand in the fray and 

 made night pretty hide- 

 ous until nearly day 

 dawn. In vain did I 

 drag myself from my 

 cosy cot and call upon 

 the dogs to withdraw 

 from the conflict. In 

 vain did I blow my loud- 

 est and most peremptory 

 whistle, (an insti'ument by the way that we never allowed 

 ourselves to be without in om- explorations) until the 

 muscles around my jaws and ears ached like the rheuma- 

 tism. In vain did I use persuasive expressions and play 

 the old Dickens with the Deca^ 

 logue: the dogs would not be 

 silent. So at last in a moment 

 of desperation I seized one of my 

 double barrel gims and let fly a 

 dose of No. 8 in the direction in 

 which the noise seemed thickest. 

 For a moment there was a dead 

 silence, broken, however, imme- 

 diately by the guttural excla- 

 mation of the cowardly Loptee 

 whose frightened face I covild 

 see by the light of the night fire 

 peering out of an aperture in his 

 tent close by. He thought I had 

 been attacked by some dangerous 

 monster and was defending my 

 life. To the credit, however, of 

 my Wang-brezzy, they came 

 rushing out armed with the poles 

 of their Khi-goorta and followed 

 by the rest of the attendants. 

 Then the valiant Loptee deeming 

 things tolerably safe sallied forth 

 and threatened deeds of dar- 

 ing against any possible foes. 

 He had every virtue had poor 

 Poptee and would, I think, have 

 willingly laid down his life for 

 me could he have done so without 

 going through the process of 

 dying. I bade my warriors make 

 a raid on the noise makers who 

 had renewed their disturbance, 

 but though they did it right 

 manfully they merely multiplied 

 the clamor with no further effect 

 than if they had charged a swai-m 

 of mosquitoes. So I ordered 

 them all to their tents, and wo 

 made the best we coidd of the matter until the next 

 morning. But the most extraordinary part of this little 

 adventm-e was yet to come. I slept late the next day, 

 and on drawing aside the curtain of my tent and looking 

 in the direction of the previous night's fracas, the Avhole 

 bank, trees, reeds and stones seemed covered with snow. 



[TO BE CONTINUED.] 



