th no longer brought the hot sands of the
Desert; but instead of them came the south-east, bringing clouds of
locusts, musquitoes, and gnats. We could no longer spend our twilights
at the cottage, it was so filled with these insects. We fled every
morning to escape their stings, and did not return home till overcome
with sleep. One night, on entering the hut, after a long day's work at
the cotton-field, we perceived an animal stealing among the bushes at a
soft slow pace; but having heard us, it leaped a very high hedge, and
disappeared. From its agility, we discovered it to be a tiger-cat,
which had been prowling about our poultry-yard, in the hope of catching
some chickens, of which these animals are very fond. The same night, my
sister and myself were awoke with a hollow noise which we heard near our
bed. Our thoughts instantly returned to the tiger-cat; we believed that
it was it we heard, and, springing up, we awoke my father. Being all
three armed, we began by looking under my bed, as the noise seemed to
proceed from the bottom of a large hole, deep under ground. We were then
convinced it was caused by a serpent, but found it impossible to get at
it. The song of this reptile so frightened us that we could sleep no
longer; however, we soon became accustomed to its invisible music, for
at short intervals we heard it all the night. Some time after the
discovery of the den of this reptile songster, my sister, going to feed
five or six pigeons which she had in a little hut, perceived a large
serpent, who seemed to have a wing on each side of his mouth. She
instantly called my father, who quickly ran to her with his gun, but the
wings which the creature seemed to have, had already disappeared. As his
belly was prodigiously swelled, my father made the negroes open it, and,
to our great surprise, found four of the pigeons of our dove-cote. The
serpent was nearly nine feet in length, and about nine inches in
circumference in the middle. After it was skinned, we gave it to the
negroes, who regaled themselves upon it. This was not the one, however,
which we had heard during the night, for in the evening on which it was
killed, we heard the whistlings of its companions. We then resolved to
look for a more comfortable place to plant our cottage, and to abandon
the rising ground to the serpents, and the woods to the tigers. We chose
a spot on the south side of our island, pretty near to the banks of the
river.

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