n upper
room to make my toilette, I heard a pattering of little feet close to
me, and turning my head I saw between the floor and the shrunken door of
the next apartment, a whole army of rats on a peregrination, and giving
such an idea of number, that, uninitiated as I then was (it being on my
first journey to Africa), I was perfectly appalled, and most thankful
that I returned that night to sleep in my safer cabin on board ship.
This, however, was but the beginning; and, in the next vessel which I
entered, they were so numerous, that the next time she returned to port,
she was sunk for a time, as the only means of getting rid of them.
Between these creatures and the cockroaches, I thought my poor child and
myself must be devoured.

There is a facility given to the human mind to accommodate itself to all
circumstances, for which perhaps we are not sufficiently thankful; and
it never was more strongly manifested than in my own case, for both fear
and apprehension vanished with habit, and I became fearless of those
animated creatures which at first seemed to be the bane of my existence.
When living in Cape Coast Castle, I used to see the rats come in troops
past my door, walking over my black boys as they lay there, and who only
turned themselves over to present the other sides of their faces and
bodies, when the rats returned--and thought it a good joke. The
fiercest encounter which I ever had with them was during one of those
terrific storms, which are more furious between the tropics than
elsewhere. I was then, however, under the Equator, in a native hut, and
heard an exceeding rustling and movement all around me. To my terror, I
perceived that these proceeded from a number of rats running up and down
the sides of the room in which I was to pass the night, and who shortly
began to run over me; they being disturbed by the torrents of rain which
were then falling. The only weapon I could find was a shoe, and curling
myself into a large armchair, taken out of a French vessel, and covered
with blue satin damask, I sat prepared for my enemies, whom I dreaded
much more than the lightning, which was flashing across the iron bars
laid upon the floor. I felt that the silk of my place of refuge was some
sort of protection against this; but my own arm could alone save me from
my four-footed foes. Presently my husband came in, and saluted me with a
shout of laughter, which, however, abated when he saw my antagonists.
The storm lul