Page:Following the Equator (Mark Twain).djvu/653

Rh The chameleon in the hotel court. He is fat and indolent and contemplative; but is business-like and capable when a fly comes about–reaches out a tongue like a teaspoon and takes him in. He gums his tongue first. He is always pious, in his looks. And pious and thankful both, when Providence or one of us sends him a fly. He has a froggy head, and a back like a new grave–for shape; and hands like a bird's toes that have been frostbitten. But his eyes are his exhibition feature. A couplen of skinny cones project from the sides of his head, with a wee shiny bead of an eye set in the apex of each; and these cones turn bodily like pivot-guns and point every-which-way, and they are independent of each other; each has its own exclusive machinery. When I am behind him and C. in front of him, he whirls one eye rearwards and the other forwards–which gives him a most Congressional expression (one eye on the constituency and one on the swag); and then if something happens above and below him he shoots out one eye upward like a telescope and the other downward—and this changes his expression, but does not improve it.

Natives must not be out after the curfew bell without a pass. In Natal there are ten blacks to one white.

Sturdy plump creatures are the women. They comb their wool up to a peak and keep it in position by stiffening it with