in the cupboard, watching, stick in hand, for the first rodent that should be caught in the act of sliding down the leg-supports on which this piece of furniture stood. I had not long to wait. Out came rat No. 1, and met his death on the spot. Chuckling over my success, I stood expectant of No. 2; but in place of him, came a brown snake about twenty-four inches long, close to my bare feet. This was much more than I bargained for. My stick was down on him in a second; but, unluckily, so was the _tel-buttee_, held in the other hand; and the brown snake and I were together in total darkness, a most unpleasant predicament for both of us. I knew nothing of the habits of this or any other specimen of the snake family, so that, as a matter of course, a bite, to be followed by death in fifteen minutes, seemed to me quite inevitable! And I did, on the spur of the moment, about the very worst thing I could have done under the circumstances, that is, groped for the door at all hazards, and shouted for a light. It was five minutes before this could be obtained; the sleeping Hindu will stand a lot of waking, and is some time collecting his wits from the realms of slumber; and the snake was gone. We found a hole in the corner of the room, through which the experienced eyes of my servants at once discovered he had made his exit. But as this only led into an inner wall dividing the rooms, I had the discomfort of knowing that he shared my bungalow, and would certainly come again some other day. And so he did—or one like him—three days later, and was squeezed to death in the hinges of the door, and in broad daylight.