383 



BOUEU. 



[CBAP. XXVI. 



One day my boy Ali came home with a stoiy of a 

 big snake. He wiis walking thiougk some liigh grass, 

 and stepped on something which he took for a small 

 fallen tree, but it felt cold and yielding to hia feet, 

 and far to the right and left there was a waving and 

 mstUng of the herbage. He jumped back in afl'right 

 and prepai-ed to shoot, but could not get a good view 

 of the creature, aud it passed away, he said, like a 

 tree being dia^jged along throwgh the grass. As he 

 had seveml times already shot large snakes, wltich he 

 declared were aU as nothing compared with this, I am 

 inclined to believe it must really have been a monster. 

 Such creatures are rather plentifol here, for a man living 

 close by showed me on his tbigh the marks where he had 

 been seized by one close to his house. It was big enough 

 to take the man's thigh in its mouth, and he would pro- 

 bably have been killed and devoured by it had not his 

 cries brought out bis neighhoura, who destroyed it with 

 their choppers. As far as I could make out it was about 

 twenty feet long, but All's was probably much larger. 



It sometimes amuses mc t-o obser\'e bow, a few days after 

 I have taken possession of it, a native hut seems quite 

 a comfortable home, ily house at Way])oti was a bare 

 shed, with a large bamboo platfoim at one side. At one 

 end of this platform, which was elevated about thi-ee feet, I 

 fixed up my mosquito curtain, and partly enclosed it with 

 a lai'ge Scotch plaid, making a comlbrtable little sluepiug 

 apiirtment, I put up a rude table on legs buried in the 

 earthen floor, and had my comfortable mttan-cliair for 

 a seat A line across one corner canied my daily- 

 washed cotton clothing, and on a bamboo shelf was 

 arranged my small stock of crockery and hardware, Boxes 

 were ranged against the thatch walls, and hanging shelves, 

 to preserve my ooUections from ants while drying, were 

 suspended both without and within the house. On my 

 table lay books, penknives, scissors, pliers, and pins, with 

 insect and bird lahels, all of which were unsolved mysteries 

 to the native mind. 



Most of the people here had never seen a pin, and 

 the better informed took a pride in teaching their more 

 ignorant companions tlie poculiarities and uses of that 



