Page:The land of fetish.pdf/108

 stretched shallow pools of muddy water, in which the hideous mangrove stretched out its distorted limbs, while the mangrove fish leaped off the roots of the trees and skipped away across the surface of the water at our approach. Suddenly my foot slipped from under me, and I slid along for some distance, only to be brought up violently against a mangrove stump. I rubbed my knee, and anathematised the mud sotto voce. I had hardly moved two paces further when the ground seemed to be cut away from under my feet, and I fell into the arms of my guide. He said—

"You will have to be careful where you tread here."

I replied:—"So it seems."

"Yes, there are a lot of them about this morning."

I asked him what he meant, and he answered by placing a foot on a brown object in the mud and skating along over it. I examined this object, and saw a flattened leech. The swamp was full of these things: thousands of them clustered round the roots of the mangroves, millions lay in the mud covered by the shallow water, and hundreds of them were taking a morning walk over the path. I saw a canoe-man detach one from his ankle and another from the calf of his log, so I took the hint and tucked my trousers into my boots. There were enough leeches here