e monkeys in thousands; leopards; wild pigs as savage as lions;
deer of all sorts and sizes; and creatures the like of which we had
never seen or heard of before--they all came swarming down to the beach
to escape the flames. And--a very curious circumstance I thought it--
they were all so thoroughly terrified that none of them interfered with
the others, or with us, but all stood huddled together by the water's
edge, bleating, squealing, roaring, howling--no, I cannot attempt to
describe it; it is the kind of thing that has to be _seen_ to be
understood.

"Naturally, we all edged away as far as we could from the flames and the
flying sparks, and eventually it began to dawn upon us all--beasts as
well as men--that the extreme north end of the island might possibly be
spared, and we all with one accord set off in that direction. And for a
little while--twenty-four hours, or thereabout--we men did very well;
the creatures all stood huddled together, trembling and making queer
moaning, noises, too terrified to take notice of anybody or anything,
and when we needed food all that was necessary was to lay hold of a
deer, haul him out of the crowd, and cut his throat--and there was all
the food we required.

"But that condition of affairs was of course quite temporary. No sooner
had the fire burned itself out than the creatures recovered their
courage and turned upon each other like--well, like wild beasts. Dirk
and I quickly recognised that the north end of the island was too
perilous a place for us. There was therefore nothing for us but to
escape from our dangerous neighbours while we could, and this could only
be done by bearing away south again, which we did.

"There was no cause for further fear of wild beasts as we pursued our
journey southward; there was not a living thing to be seen anywhere
ashore; even the birds had all vanished. That condition of affairs was
of course all in our favour, so far as it went; but the unfortunate part
of it was that the fruit was also destroyed; so that, while we could now
rest undisturbed at night, our only food consisted of such raw shell-
fish as we could find at the margin of the beach; and we could find no
fresh water wherewith to quench our thirst.

"For two days and nights we were in that predicament, our thirst being
terrible, and the only relief we could obtain--and it was very partial--
was to enter the sea and lie down in it for about ten minutes, allowing
the rippl