fty ever to be caught.

At Pulo Nanas, where we were to lunch, we found the cloth was already
laid on the green grass under the protecting shadow of a huge orange
tree, whose ripe golden fruit offered a dainty dessert. We took our
seats with the "professor" at the head, and were soon discussing the
merits of boiled chicken, fried fish, omelette, oysters, turtle eggs
and sundry fruits and confections with the zest created by seven hours
of active exercise in the open air. Then came the reaction, inclining
every one more to repose than research, and the hours would probably
have been dreamed away barren of adventures, had it not been for our
indomitable professor. We had missed him but a moment, when suddenly
he reappeared, holding at arm's length what seemed in the distance
about a dozen brown, scaly snakes a yard long, all strung together.
Simultaneously the entire company sprang to their feet and started for
a race as this regiment of frightful reptiles was thrust into their
midst by the radiant "dominie," whose face was fairly aglow with
mischief. "Where did they come from? What are you going to do with
them?" exclaimed everybody at once, turning to look at the monsters as
they lay passive and motionless where the professor had thrown them.
"Give them to Saint Patrick, to keep company with those he drove out
of the Emerald Isle; or we'll have them for dinner if you prefer,"
was the laughing response. Reassured by the non-combatant air of the
dreaded reptiles, we ventured a nearer approach, and our astonishment
may readily be imagined when we found not snakes, but simply a cluster
of the pendent blossoms of the rattan tree (_Arundo bambos_), one of
the strangest of all the floral products of the tropics. They hang
from the tree in clusters usually of ten or twelve, each a yard or
more in length, looking like a soldier's aigrettes suspended among the
green leaves, or perhaps still more like a string of chestnut-colored
scales threaded through the centre. Waving to and fro in the summer
breeze, as I afterward saw them, intertwined with the graceful
tendrils of the beautiful passion-flower with its rare feathery
chalice of purple and gold, and flanked on every side by ferns of
exquisite symmetry, reflecting their dainty fringes in the clear
waters, the _tout ensemble_ is one of radiant loveliness, seemingly
too fair to be hidden away among lonely jungles.

Consigning our newly acquired treasure to the keeping of the
com