No. 39. — 1889.] account of ceylon. 



255- 



There are also other snakes called " rat-catchers,"* which 

 at times, when we slept, crept over us. But they do nobody 

 any harm, and therefore are not killed ; they creep under the 

 roofs, search for the nests of rats and mice, and eat them, as 

 the cats do in our country. The lizards often warned us, 

 as it were, against them, and we oftentimes said to each 

 other : " Those lizards must think that the snakes wish to 

 harm us, or there must be a peculiar antipathy between the 

 snakes and the lizards." For it often happened when we 

 laid us down, as our wont during the great heat at midday, 

 and slept, and a rat-catcher snake was near and crept towards 

 us, that a lizardf would run over the face or on to the neck, 

 and scratch and tickle us till w T e woke and could guard 

 against the snake ; thus showing the love which it, although 

 a lizard, felt towards men. Even if such a snake is only a& 

 thick as a child's finger it can swallow and digest a big rat. 

 In Banda a snake is said to have been killed twenty-eight 

 feet long, and on opening it, a servant girl, or slave, was 

 found inside. 



As I have spoken of snakes, I shall also mention other 

 vermin of the island. It is dangerous to walk near rivers or 

 morasses, on account of the crocodiles, called by the heathen 

 kummele, or ~keyman%, which love to haunt those places, 

 and lay their eggs. Once our steersman Heinrich (generally 

 called " Lucifer") caught a small live crocodile, a span long, 

 and kept it in a jar of fresh water. I found this jar on board 

 at a time when I was very thirsty, and not knowing that the 

 reptile was inside, I took a deep draught out of it. The 

 draught, thank God, did me no harm, but all who heard of it 

 were very much alarmed ; a few days afterwards, however, 



* Ptyas mucosus (Linn.). 



^'JSemidactylusmaculatus, or Peripia peronii, both geckos commonly 

 found in houses. 



J Sin. Mmbula. (On kaiman, see Hohstm-Johson.s. v. "Cayman.") There 

 are two species in Ceylon. See Tennent, Nat. Hist., pp. 282-89. 



