several half-starved wolfish-baking dogs. Instead of rats and mice there are
curious little marsupial animals about the same size, which run about at night
and nibble anything eatable that may be left uncovered. Four or five different
kinds of ants attack everything not isolated by water, and one kind even swims
across that; great spiders lurk in baskets and boxes, or hide in the folds of my
mosquito curtain; centipedes and millepedes are found everywhere. I have
caught them under my pillow and on my bead; while in every box, and under
every hoard which has lain for some days undisturbed, little scorpions are sure to
be found snugly ensconced, with their formidable tails quickly turned up ready
for attack or defence. Such companions seem very alarming and dangerous, but
all combined are not so bad as the irritation of mosquitoes, or of the insect pests
often found at home. These latter are a constant and unceasing source of torment
and disgust, whereas you may live a long time among scorpions, spiders, and
centipedes, ugly and venomous though they are, and get no harm from them.
After living twelve years in the tropics, I have never yet been bitten or stung by
either.
The lean and hungry dogs before mentioned were my greatest enemies, and
kept me constantly on the watch. If my boys left the bird they were skinning for
an instant, it was sure to be carried off. Everything eatable had to be hung up to
the roof, to be out of their reach. Ali had just finished skinning a fine King Bird
of Paradise one day, when he dropped the skin. Before he could stoop to pick it
up, one of this famished race had seized upon it, and he only succeeded in
rescuing it from its fangs after it was torn to tatters. Two skins of the large
Paradisea, which were quite dry and ready to pack away, were incautiously left
on my table for the night, wrapped up in paper. The next morning they were
gone, and only a few scattered feathers indicated their fate. My hanging shelf
was out of their reach; but having stupidly left a box which served as a step, a
full-plumaged Paradise bird was next morning missing; and a dog below the
house was to be seen still mumbling over the fragments, with the fine golden
plumes all trampled in the mud. Every night, as soon as I was in bed, I could
hear them searching about for what they could devour, under my table, and all
about my boxes and baskets, keeping me in a state of suspense till morning, lest
something of value might incautiously have been left within their read. They
would drink the oil of my floating lamp and eat the wick, and upset or break my
crockery if my lazy boys had neglected to wash away even the smell of anything
eatable. Bad, however, as they are here, they were worse in a Dyak's house in
Borneo where I was once staying, for there they gnawed off the tops of my
waterproof boots, ate a large piece out of an old leather game-bag, besides