ADVENTURE WITH A SALAMANDER . 
171 
regarding toads. The Salamander there suffers an equally evil lepntation with the toad, as 
may be seen by the following graphic and spirited letter : — 
44 Returning homeward a few evenings ago from a country walk in the environs of D , 
I discovered in my path a strange-looking reptile, which, after regarding me steadfastly for a 
few moments, walked slowly to the side of the road, and commenced very deliberately clamber- 
ing up the wall. Never having seen a similar animal, I was rather doubtful as to its proper- 
ties ; but, reassured by its tranquil demeanor, I put my pocket-handkerchief over it, and it 
suffered itself to be taken up without resistance, and was thus carried to my domicile. On 
arriving chez moi , I opened the basket to show my captive to the servants (French), when, to 
my surprise and consternation, they set up such a screaming and hullabaloo, that I thought 
they would have gone into fits. 
44 4 Oh ! la , la, la, la, la! — Oil! la, la, la, la, la /’ and then a succession of screams, in' 
altissimo, which woke up the children, and brought out the neighbors to see what could be the 
matter. 
44 4 Oh, monsieur a rapport'e un sourd ! ’ 
44 4 Un sourd !' 1 cried one. 
“ £ Un sotted ! ’ echoed another. 
44 4 UN S-O-U-R-D ! ! ! 7 cried they all in chorus; and then followed a succession of 
shrieks. 
“When they calmed down into a mild sample of hysterics, they began to explain that 
I had brought home the most venomous animal in creation. 
4 4 4 Oh ! lemlain bete ! ’ cried Phyllis. 
44 4 Oh ! le mediant ! ’ chimed in Abigail ; 4 he kills everybody that comes near him ; I have 
known fifty people die of his bite, and no remedy in the world can save them. As soon as 
they are bitten they gonflent, gonflent , and keep on swelling till they burst, and are dead in a 
quarter of an hour.’ 
“ Here I transferred my curiosity from the basket to a glass jar, and put a saucer on the 
top to keep it safe. 
44 4 Oh ! Monsieur, don’t leave him so ; if he put himself in a rage, nothing can hold him. 
He has got such force, that he can jump up to the ceiling ; and wherever he fastens himself he 
sticks like death.’ 
4 4 4 Ah ! it’s all true,’ cried my landlady, joining the circle of gapers. 4 Oh ! la, la ! Ca me 
fait peur; ga me fait tr-r-r-r-embler ! ’ 
4 4 4 Once I saw a man in a hay-cart try to kill one, and the bete jumped right off the ground 
at a bound and fasten itself on the man’ s face, when he stood on the hay-cart, and nothing 
could detach it till the man fell dead.’ 
4 4 4 Ah! Rest Men wrai ,’ cried Abigail ; 4 they ought to have fetched a mirror and held it up 
to the bete, and then it would have left the man and jumped at its image. ’ 
44 The end of all this commotion was that, while I went to inquire of a scientific friend 
whether there was any truth in these tissue of betises , the whole household was in an uproar, 
tout en emoi, and they sent for a commissionaire and an ostler with a spade and mattock, 
and threw out my poor bete into the road, and foully murdered it, chopping it into a dozen 
pieces by the light of a stable lantern ; and then they declared final they could sleep in 
peace ! — les miserables ! 
44 But there were sundry misgivings as to my fate, and as with the Apostle, 4 they looked 
when I should have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly; and next morning the maids 
came stealthily and peeped into my room to see whether I' was alive or dead, and were 
not a little surprised that I was not even gonfle, or any the worse for my rencontre 
with a sourd. 
4 4 And so it turned out that my poor little bete that had caused such a disturbance was 
nothing more nor less than a Salamander— a poor, inoffensive, harmless reptile, declared on 
competent authority to be no ways venomous ; but whose unfortunate appearance and some- 
what Santanic livery have exposed it to obloquy and persecution.” 
