I
Almost Felt The Redundancy Of Vegetation To Be Oppressive, And The
Redundancy Of Insect And Reptile Life Certainly Was
So; swarms of
living creatures leaped in and out of the water, bigger ones hidden
from view splashed heavily, and
A few blackish, slug-like looking
reptiles, which drew blood, and hung on for an hour or two, attached
themselves to my ankles. I was amused when Captain Walker congratulated
himself on the absence of leeches, for these blood-suckers were at
least their next of kin. I fell down into the water twice from the
submerged ridge that I tried to walk upon, but there is no risk of cold
from a hot bath in a stove.
Then we came to a smothered, reedy, ditch-like stream, in which was an
old "dug-out" half full of water, in which we managed to stow
ourselves, and by careful balancing contrived to keep its edges just
above the water. Our impeded progress down this ditch startled myriads
of whirring, splashing creatures. The ditch opened into a reedy swamp
where hideous pink water buffaloes were wallowing and enjoying
themselves, but on the report of a gun they all plunged into deep water
and swam away, except for their big horns, looking more like
hippopotami than bovine quadrupeds. They are nearly as ugly as a
rhinoceros; all albino animals are ugly, and when these are wet their
hides are a bright salmon pink.
The swamp merged itself into a lotus lake, covered over much of its
extent with thousands of noble leaves and rose-pink blossoms.
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