Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 4, 2025
While walking through the forest in the daytime, especially along gloomy ravines, one is almost sure to startle bats from their sleeping-places; and at night they are often seen in great numbers flitting about the trees on the shady margins of narrow channels. I captured altogether, without giving especial attention to bats, sixteen different species at Ega. The Vampire Bat.
And so warm was the night as to render the payment of a lodging fee superfluous; and the more so since in the neighbourhood of the cemetery, where an advanced guard of young pines had pushed forward to the cemetery wall and littered the sandy ground, with a carpet of red, dry cones, there were sleeping-places prepared in advance.
"And day by day we passed in the snow the sleeping-places of the two ghosts Passuk and I and we knew we would be glad for such ere we made Salt Water. Then we came to the Indian, like another ghost, with his face set toward Pelly. They had not whacked up fair, the man and the boy, he said, and he had had no flour for three days. Each night he boiled pieces of his moccasins in a cup, and ate them.
Still further up, the hills are covered with dark, moss-grown gravestones, bearing curious characters engraven upon them, and marking the sleeping-places of bygone generations. The unbroken quiet of this city of the dead contrasts vividly with the hum of busy life which comes up to us from the town with its population of a hundred thousand souls.
Numbers of other articles are brought for sale to these sleeping-places. The native smiths there carry on their trade. I bought ten very good table-knives, made of country iron, for twopence each. Labor is extremely cheap, for I was assured that even carpenters, masons, smiths, etc., might be hired for fourpence a day, and agriculturists would gladly work for half that sum.*
None of us can forget the horrors of the night." Heavy rain fell and the dugouts became wet and filthy. "Our sleeping-places were full of water. We had to try and bail out the trenches with cooking-dishes. I lay down in the water with G-. We were to have worked on dugouts, but not a soul could do any more. Only a few sections got coffee. Mine got nothing at all.
"All berths and available sleeping-places are occupied. The clown, trapeze performers, bareback riders, and various acrobatic artists are compelled to sleep on deck. This is but little inconvenience in such warm weather. They are stretched and curled in different shapes on benches along the outer railings. "It is about two o'clock in the morning, and a storm is coming.
The natives sent to our sleeping-places generous presents of the finest white meal, and fat capons to give it a relish, great pots of beer to comfort our hearts, together with pumpkins, beans, and tobacco, so that we "should sleep neither hungry nor thirsty." In travelling from the Kafue to the Zungwe we frequently passed several villages in the course of a day's march.
From much experience Colonel Erskine was an adept at travelling with what he termed "a light camp." He took with him a portable office-desk, a bookcase with a small reference library, and two portable arm-chairs. All these were carried in addition to our baggage and bedding on coolies' heads, for our sleeping-places were seldom more than fifteen miles apart.
The last reserve tumbled from their sleeping-places in various stages of deshabille, all talking excitedly. The women had too much sense to move a great deal, although the alarm might be a signal for anything. A few of them got up, too, and came out into the open; but the majority stayed where they were.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking