EATS AS FOOD LIZARDS. 
283 
Eipon Falls, but the women refused to cook them. 
I tasted both a bit of the tail and shoulder; the former 
had been dried to a stick, and the latter was tough 
and tasteless. All had been caught in the Nile, and 
were eaten by the male population alone. 
On my asking some of our Seedees, four in succes- 
sion, if they had eaten rats, all pleaded guilty, saying, 
" We have eaten every living thing except hippopo- 
tamus, dogs, snakes, and cats. Eats were better food 
than beef, tasting sweetly, like tender chickens, and 
frogs were also very excellent! But now that they 
had become Mussulmans, they had given up living 
upon these animals." None had ever eaten human 
flesh, but they stated that when a person in their 
country of Uhiao dies from having been bewitched, 
the wizard eats part of the body to complete his in- 
cantation. In our huts the number of rats and lizards 
living on friendly terms together was immense. Every 
house had two or three traps, but these did not keep 
them down, or prevent their annoying fowls, in con- 
sequence of which the latter could not hatch on the 
ground, and were suspended, like flower-pots, from the 
ceiling in a tray made from the leaf of the plantain. 
Lizards fed upon cockroaches and other insects, and 
much enjoyed picking the bone of a fowl. There 
were two species ; the largest was dark, covered with 
bright spots, with a white fish-like belly; the other 
and more handsome one had a bright stripe down 
either side, from the arch of the eye to the tail. Eats 
fed like rabbits on grass, or flour when they could get 
it. Whenever we camped near swamps the musquitoes 
were in myriads, working their way even through 
bed-curtains of net. 
