We never wearied watching the fireflies as in countless multitudes they would spread themselves over the branches of their favorite trees, and alternately, with the utmost regularity and exactness, all at once give out their diamond spark or hide their light in darkness.
We were often serenaded at evening as we sat on our veranda by grasshoppers and crickets, while immense frogs would sing the bass in the grand chorus.
Beautiful, harmless little lizards, about a finger long, ready for their evening meal of mosquitoes and other insects, make their appearance on our walls and ceilings as soon as the lamps are lighted. I have often counted between twenty and thirty of them out at once. There is another lizard, almost as large as a young kitten, which also comes out on our walls for his evening meal, having hid through the day behind our mirrors or pictures. It is quite harmless, but with its loud outcry of tookaah! tookaah! it often startles new-comers from their midnight slumbers.
There are crocodiles in great numbers in the rivers and creeks of Siam. In one day’s boatride on the Upper Menam, Dr. House once counted one hundred and seventy, varying in size from three to fifteen feet.
Let me tell one or two true stories of crocodiles. When we were once visiting the mission-station at Petchaburee a crocodile seized a young girl twelve years old and devoured her, leaving only an arm in the boat. The governor, wishing to destroy the monster, ordered a search to be made for it, and invited us to see the captures which his men made and brought to our landing. Three huge fellows, averaging twelve feet each, lay securely pinioned on the bottom of their boat, but neither of them proved to be the one sought for.
HUNTING THE CROCODILE.
In the strange providence of God, whose kingdom ruleth over all, one of these terrible creatures once became the means of salvation to a Chinese fisherman in Siam, and through him of founding in a distant and important town a native church which now has many Chinese communicants. He was wading in the shallows at the head of the Gulf of Siam, collecting shellfish, when what he supposed was a log drifting toward him proved to be a huge crocodile, which attacked him fiercely, biting off his hand, so that it only hung by the tendons of the wrist. At his cries for help his comrades came and drove the creature away. Mortification set in, which would have ended in death had he not sought the missionary physician in Bangkok. My husband amputated the arm, the stump healed kindly, and when, at the end of the month, he left the mission hospital to return home, his gratitude and trust in those whose Christian kindness and care had saved his life led him to say that their God, of whom they had told him, should henceforth be his God. From that time he gave up the worship of idols and refused to work on the Christian Sabbath. As he spoke only the dialect used by the brethren of the American Baptist mission, who are laboring among the Chinese of Siam, he was referred to them for further instruction, and was soon baptized. He invited the missionaries and native assistant to make his house at Bangplasoi a preaching-station. Some of his relatives and others were converted, a mission-chapel was built (largely with his assistance), and now there are there several hundred Chinese converts from heathenism, and Bangplasoi is an important mission-station among the Chinese.
Elephants.