ELEPHANTS DRINKING.
"When he has seized anything with his proboscis, his next effort is to carry it to his mouth. This he does by bending his trunk, just as a man bends his finger; and when he has it properly bent he thrusts the article between his jaws, and has it all safe and secure. He drinks by drawing the trunk full of water, and then thrusting it to his mouth; it is sometimes thought that he draws water through the trunk directly into his stomach, but such is not the case. He breathes through the trunk, but he cannot take food or drink through it, as it only communicates with his lungs. Here is the way he supplies himself.
"There used to be a question among the boys at school, 'Why do white sheep eat more hay than black ones?' The answer was, 'Because there are more of them.' That may be all right for sheep; but if you apply the question to elephants, you are obliged to reverse it, as there are very few white elephants, and any number of black ones."
By the time the above account was finished it was after eleven o'clock. Labor was suspended, and the boys went to bed. In the morning they had a short time to spare before breakfast, and Fred thought he would write a description of his sleeping-room and its peculiarities, and send it along with the story of the visit to the palace. So he took pen and paper, and wrote as follows:
FRED'S TORMENTOR.
"The weather is so warm here that we don't need any bed-clothing, and consequently they don't give us any; we have hard beds with harder pillows, and they are much better than any soft beds and pillows could possibly be. A sheet to lie on is spread over the bed, and all the covering we need is the pajamas, or sleeping suits that everybody wears here. Mosquitoes are abundant, and of all sizes; and so they cover the beds with a netting of very fine mesh to keep out the smallest of these troublesome pests. The nets not only keep out the mosquitoes but they keep in the heat, and for this reason we suffer a great deal from the high temperature. I get up several times in the night, and go and sit on the balcony, just to get a little cool; every time I wake I am in a profuse perspiration, and it is largely caused by the closeness of the air under the mosquito netting.
"When we first came here we were disturbed frequently by the gecko, a lizard that climbs around the walls and partitions of the houses, and goes wherever he pleases. He is five or six inches long, and not pretty to look at, and he makes a noise like some one calling out 'Gecko!' It is from his call that he gets his name, and until we got used to it we were waked by it. It isn't pleasant to see these lizards climbing around your room; but everybody says they are perfectly harmless, and they eat up a great many insects. There is a smaller lizard that eats mosquitoes, or anything else he can manage, and it is very funny to see him at work. Frank and I watched one the other evening for half an hour, and saw him do a great deal of good. He is just the color of the boards where he clings, or very nearly so, and therefore he is not easily seen. When a mosquito passed within half an inch of his nose he darted out his long flexible tongue with the rapidity of lightning, and caught his prize on the end of it. The mosquito disappeared like a flash, and then the lizard watched for another, and took him in the same way.