AMUSING NARRATIVE. 
133 
Chap. IX.—B. S.] 
seemed to have made it a point to come and have a 
look at her. To say nothing of insects too numerous 
to mention, no sooner was the place quiet than the rats 
began rustling in the palm thatch, and causing hits of 
rubbish to fall in her face. Then the cats began their 
hunt ; then two cows entered the building, trying to 
pick up whatever stray leaves of Indian corn might he 
left on the floor; then the dogs harked furiously, and she 
thought robbers or wild Indians were about to attack 
the house and murder her and all the other inmates. 
That alarm passed off, she was about to close her eyes 
when a new kind of noise arrested her attention, and 
she beheld with terror close to her head an ugly lizard, 
all covered with scales, and nigh six feet long. At last 
sleep began to demand its right, and, in spite of all the 
surrounding horrors, she began to close her eyes; hut 
at that moment two fighting cocks which shared the 
same roof with her began to crow. She endeavoured 
to drive them away, but found that they were thought 
so precious by their owner as to have been chained 
up. Of course, sleep was now altogether out of the 
question, and she almost welcomed the joyous notes of 
the chanticleers as announcing dawn of day, and de¬ 
livery out of the dreadful place she found herself in. 
The next, and the next day she had to go through 
similar ordeals, till at last she found herself at the 
head-quarters of some of the richest gold mines in the 
world, of which, hoAvever, she could as yet see but 
little evidence. She would not go over those dreadful 
roads again for £100. Did I ever sec such roads? 
They were nothing but a broad streak of mud, so soft 
