In Afric’s Forest and Jungle 
absent negro postmaster, I was forced to take up 
my residence in the original mud hut of the 
American Baptist Mission. In this house I learned 
more of the fauna of this part of the coast in 
two years than I could now learn in many years 
if I were occupying the elegant brick residence 
which is now the home of the Baptist missionary. 
The house was a good illustration of the kind of 
houses occupied by pioneer missionaries in this 
part of Africa. The ceiling was like that of na¬ 
tive houses—palm poles covered with mats and 
with earth. The floor was made of boards from 
split logs. The walls were of adobe and the 
windows were holes in the walls closed by shut¬ 
ters made of split boards. The house had be¬ 
come old and the ceiling was either gone in some 
of the rooms or had been replaced by loose palm 
poles through which the lizards roosting up there 
frequently fell into the sleeping-room at night 
and got up a great “rumpus.” One night I 
heard something fall, and not hearing the usual 
scuffling which followed such a mishap to one 
of my saurian pets, 1 lighted a candle and inves¬ 
tigated. I found that it was a species of centi¬ 
pede. The legs were large and far apart; it was 
about a foot long and had a long, sharp spike at 
the end of its tail. When I pinned it to the wall 
276 
