But at last a new missionary arrived in the shape of a gray cat, and we welcomed her with a lavish entertainment of sport and feast, delicately adapted to the instinct and the palate of her feline ladyship. All that night there was wild riot in the pantry where we had put her. In the morning that cat was the shape of a beer-barrel; and, besides, there lay on the pantry floor nine dead rats. When I slept in native houses I always wore socks at night. The natives declare that the rats attack them during sleep, especially their feet. And they say that the rat blows upon the wound that it makes so that the sleeper will not feel it. From this belief there is a current proverb which they apply to a flatterer, or to one who, while using smooth words, would inflict an injury: “He blows upon the wound that he makes.” The natives are perhaps more afraid of snakes than anything else, and with good reason. Africa is the home of deadly snakes. Most of them are nocturnal, and as the white man stays within doors at night, he may be in Africa many months before he realizes how abundant they are. Whenever it was necessary to go out at night, I always carried a long staff which I pushed along the path ahead of me. One of our schoolboys at Gaboon, one night about eight o’clock, was walking down towards the beach in the middle of a wide road, when he stepped on a small snake. It bit him, and in about half an hour he died in great agony. At Batanga a woman one night, stepping out of her door, placed her foot on a snake that was coiled upon the door-step. She was bitten and died immediately. Sometimes they get into the thatch roofs of the houses, and between the bamboo walls; but this rarely happens in the better houses in which the white man lives. One of our missionary ladies at Benito, while she was sick in bed with fever, found a snake coiled under her pillow. The natives upon being bitten by a snake immediately cauterize the wound with a red-hot iron; or, when that is not procurable, they will cut out a piece of the flesh around it, often cutting off a finger or a toe to save a life. They seem to have the idea that all snakes are deadly, and if one ask, in regard to a particular snake, whether it is poisonous, the certain response will be an exclamation of astonishment at his ignorance. They solemnly declare in regard to many varieties that they will spring at a man and go straight through his body. This is a strange delusion, considering their usual accuracy of observation and knowledge in regard to animals. It is probably accounted for by the superstitions that attach to snakes. In many African tribes the snake is sacred. In those tribes they are frequently used by the priests as an ordeal in discovering criminals. The people are ranged about the priest, who is a snake-charmer. He passes around bringing the snake into contact with each person. The person whom it bites is adjudged guilty.