It seemed that a large snake had entered one of the huts, and was making himself thoroughly at home. He had seized a chicken, and was leisurely engaged in devouring it. The Doctor was about to shoot his snakeship, when the owner of the hut begged him not to do so. All he desired was to have the creature leave the premises, and he would not consent that he should be harmed. Mohammed came up while the Doctor was wondering at the native's concern for the welfare of the serpent. He explained that the people regard the snake as a sort of ghost or spirit, and if it should be harmed by them in any way it would be sure to bring about a calamity. "If you had shot the snake," said the Arab, "it would have been necessary to move the village immediately, to evade the vengeance of the ghost." Jackals howled around the camp during the night, but their music did not interfere with the sleep of our friends. They were up and off in good time in the morning, and soon entered upon a plain five or six miles wide, with a few calabash-trees scattered over the level expanse. On the edge of the plain was a tembé, a building of a kind peculiar to this part of Africa, and only rarely met with in the regions north of the equator. Cameron thus describes the first one he saw: [Illustration: AN AFRICAN TEMBÉ.] "The tembé is formed simply of walls running parallel, subdivided by partitions, and having a roof nearly flat, sloping only slightly to the front. It is usually built to form a square, inside which the cattle are penned at night. It is about the most comfortless form of habitation that the brain of man ever devised; and as the huts are shared by the fowls and goats they are filthy in the extreme, and swarm with insect life." The boys entered the tembé only for a few moments, as the caravan was not allowed to halt, and they did not wish to be left in the rear. Besides, there was very little to be seen in the place, and the inhabitants had nothing to sell except a few eggs, which were quickly bought. Frank discovered a strange-looking skin hanging to one of the inner walls of the tembé, and called the attention of his companions to it. The Doctor regarded it carefully, and then said it was the skin of a soko. As soon as they were on the road again Fred referred to the soko, and asked if they were in the region inhabited by that animal. "I think he is occasionally found here," was the reply, "but his proper habitat is on the other side of Lake Tanganyika. At any rate he was seen there frequently by Livingstone, Stanley, and Cameron, and the Arabs say that sokos are sometimes killed in the neighborhood of the Victoria N'yanza." "Dr. Livingstone has given the fullest account of this denizen of the African forest, and when we get into camp I advise you to look it up in his 'Last Journals.'" Fred followed the Doctor's advice, and from the book in question he read as follows: