Such Creatures Are
Rather Plentiful Here, For A Man Living Close By Showed Me On His
Thigh The Marks Where He Bad Been Seized By One Close To His
House.
It was big enough to take the man's thigh in its mouth,
and he would probably have been killed and devoured by it had not
his cries brought out his neighbours, who destroyed it with their
choppers.
As far as I could make out it was about twenty feet
long, but Ali's was probably much larger.
It sometimes amuses me to observe how, a few days after I have
taken possession of it, a native hut seems quite a comfortable
home. My house at Waypoti was a bare shed, with a large bamboo
platform at one side. At one end of this platform, which was
elevated about three feet, I fixed up my mosquito curtain, and
partly enclosed it with a large Scotch plaid, making a
comfortable little sleeping apartment. I put up a rude table on
legs buried in the earthen floor, and had my comfortable rattan-
chair for a seat. A line across one corner carried my daily-
washed cotton clothing, and on a bamboo shelf was arranged my
small stock of crockery and hardware: Boxes were ranged against
the thatch walls, and hanging shelves, to preserve my collections
from ants while drying, were suspended both without and within
the house. On my table lay books, penknives, scissors, pliers,
and pins, with insect and bird labels, all of which were unsolved
mysteries to the native mind.
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