Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/402

340 preventive of the decomposition of stagnant water, that if fishes be put into a small quantity of water, in which they would otherwise perish in the course of a few days they may be preserved alive for a long time, by covering its surface with these singular plants, every one of which occupies a space of about nine square inches.

These marshes are haunted by the enormous serpent known by the name of boa constrictor. One of these snakes came regularly every five or six days, and stole one of the fowls from a hen-coop belonging to a publican in the neighbourhood of Fort Anké, with whom we were allowed to take our meals. This publican was a very severe master; for, whenever he missed one of his fowls he always taxed an old slave, who had the care of his hen-coop, with dishonesty; and for every one that disappeared, he ordered fifty strokes of a ratan to be inflicted without mercy upon the unfortunate wretch; but one day the thief having swallowed a very large hen, found himself so stuffed with his meal, that he could not get out of the coop by the hole through which he had entered; and the slave revenged himself for the chastisement he had received by cutting the animal in pieces. The fowl, which was taken out of his stomach, had been swallowed down head-foremost, and had as yet undergone no change in