IN WESTERN AFRICA. 
259 
SHENGAY SNAKE, RAT, AND CAT STORY. 
[Written to Sunday-school children.] 
Children usually like stories; so I will give you 
a snake and eat story, with a few rats mixed in. 
The rats were very bad in our rice-store, so I sent 
for a dozen cats to catch them. Tom brought 
home three the first day and put them in the 
store. One refused to stay there, and came over 
to the mission-house. The next morning one of 
the laborers, while sweeping the store, looked 
under the rice-bin, and gave a fearful yell and ran 
out of the store, saying there wafe one ‘^boom, 
boom uker ” (big, big snake) there. Soon a crowd 
gathered, with pitchforks, boat-hooks, hoes, axes, 
and two double-barreled guns. Several shots 
were fired at it. It disgorged three fowls. I 
missed my cats, and began looking for them ; but 
thev were not to be found. The men skinned the 
snake,— they always skin them, — and when they 
cut it there were my two cats. The snake was a 
boa-constrictor, just eleven feet long. People 
who eat them say they are as sweet as pork. 
Rats are also eaten by many of the people. Bats 
are quite a luxury, — not the small bats you have 
in America. These are much larger. Mr. Flick- 
inger has a cap made from bat-skins. 
We have one little boy in the mission by the 
name of Scipio Africanus. He is just forty-five 
inches hii^h. In the Sabbath-school he is in the 
