led for a while, and the rats retreated: we then crept
within the curtains of bamboo cloth, which encircled a rude imitation of
a four-post bedstead, but I kept possession of my shoe. Weary with
watching, I closed my eyes, but was awakened by a tremendous flash of
lightning, immediately followed by awful thunder and a tumultuous rush
of rats. Some of them scrambled up the outside of the curtains; but
arms in hand I sat up, and directed by the noise, I hurled the invaders
to the ground, till at length resistance, and the passing away of the
storm allowed me to sleep in peace.

These were the brown rats which infest every part of the world, but very
much increased in size by their residence in a hot climate.

Besides these brown rats, a bush rat, as it is called, infests the
forests, and is about as large as a young pig. When I first saw this,
and felt myself surrounded as it were, by familiar animals increased to
such magnitude, by multitudes previously unknown to me, and others of
which I had only heard, and yet none of us were devoured, I could not
but feel with tenfold depth the Creator's command, that man should have
the dominion over them all. His own strength alone could never enable
him to walk among them unharmed.

The principal characters which distinguish the rat remain in all
countries, but there are several species. The black rat is that which
first inhabited this island; but it has been nearly driven out by the
brown, which is, without any foundation, termed the Norway rat. It came
from India, Persia, etc., and is said to have appeared in Europe after a
great earthquake in 1727. All are so eminently carnivorous, that they do
not make the least ceremony of devouring each other in times of
scarcity; so that on one occasion, already spoken of, when I and my
companions stood a chance of being starved ourselves, we felt sure that
the violent screams and struggles we heard going on among the rats
behind the planks, arose from the meals which the strong were making
upon their more feeble brethren.

Rats are nocturnal in their habits, and like to live in subterranean, or
mysterious abodes. They are found in islands lying in the midst of the
ocean, till the moment of their discovery to us, supposed not to have
been visited by man, and yet the question still remains unsettled,
whether the differences which exist in rats were caused by locality, or
whether they were so from the beginning. There is now no known spot