In Journeyings Often. oii

ones they could mouth, and had managed to carry them one
by one betiveen the outer and inner lining of the wooden
house straight up from the foundations to the attic. There
must have been two hundredweight there spread out to dry
in readiness for a hard winter.

“T pitied the rats, and more so when as I awoke I found
ene dead in a trap. In his agony he had dragged the trap
close to my bed, and so seemed to appeal for justice against
his murderer. They are the bravest lttle animals I know.
They are absolutely fearless. At the next village, where
J slept in another deserted house, they swarmed ; and though
T kept a lantern burning all night, they vainly attempted
to get on a table on which my breakfast was spread over-
night so as to have no delay next morning. That night I
wished all rats were trapped. I had been teaching a school-
room full of Indians for three hours up to 11.30 p.m., and
then came the rats. Before daylight I was again in my canoe,
and I have not forgiven them. But they are surpassed in
wanton cruelty by mosquitoes. They keep their victim in
a fever, but by their blood-letting prevent it from reaching
a dangerous height, only to preserve him alive for further
sport. I know from experience that they are to be reckoned
among the enemies to the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts. Perhaps you smile and think them feeble
folk. They have made me black in the face. I have shut
up my tent with swarms of these plagues, like such as
worried Pharaoh. Then I have hghted a fire and produced
the most, disgusting of smoke nuisances, until my eyes filled
with tears that made channels down my sooty face. I have
then lain down and seen these monsters cling to the tent
until asphyxiated and then drop off dying, and I gloating
over this wholesale destruction. Some few revive, but they
are then tamer than an Enelish egnat. 5

“When travelling o.. the rivers a mid-day halt is called
by the captain of the canoe, who can tell the time by God’s
great clock. ‘Look out for drift wood,’ is his order to the
Indian in the bow, who, as soon as he sees some on the bank,

SFT eae oA Nite sede

BP ae io Sree

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