In all my wanderings I only met one idiot or demented person.

He had been struck by a falling tree, and was worshipped as a demi-god! When the rats had passed by, we watched them enter a large creek and swim across, after which they disappeared in the direction of some ranges which were not very far away.

They never seemed to break their ranks; even when swimming, one beheld the same level brownish mass on the surface of the water.

Yamba told me that this migration of rats was not at all uncommon, but that the creatures rarely moved about in such vast armies as the one that had just passed.
I also learned that isolated parties of migrating rats were responsible for the horrible deaths of many native children, who had, perhaps, been left behind in camp by their parents, who had gone in search of water.
Up to this time we had always found food plentiful.

On our southward journey a particularly pleasant and convenient article of diet turned up (or fell down) in the form of the _maru_, as it is called, which collects on the leaves of trees during the night.