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Scalawag on the Web Sectory 22
Page 09
Naturally, when one has before one the prospect of leaving this world at any moment, and one is working under a severe mental strain, one generally thinks deeply of one's beloved parents and relatives. Thus my father, mother and sister were before me all the time in my imagination. Sometimes when I was half-dazed I could see them so vividly that I could almost believe they were so close that I could touch them. I never thought that I should see them again, in reality, although I never actually lost hope of doing so; but I was thinking incessantly of them, and of the anxiety I was causing them, as I had had no possible way of communicating with them for months and months.
All those found in the Northern States are perfectly harmless, the true centipede, whose bite is reputed much more venomous than it really is, being found only in the South. True, some of the centipede group can pinch rather sharply with their beetle-like jaws; and one, our largest and most common species, a brownish red fellow about three inches long and without eyes, can even draw blood if its jaws happen to strike a tender place. When handled it always tries to bite, perhaps out of revenge for the abominably long Latin name given it by its describer. In fact the name is longer than the animal itself--_Sco-lo-po-cryp-tops sex-spi-no-sus_ (Say)--being its cognomen in full. With such a handle attached to it, who can blame it for attempting to bite? Yet, to the scientist up on his Latin, each part of the above name bears a definite and tangible meaning. All the myriapods found in the woods and fields feed upon decaying vegetation, such as leaves, stems of weeds, and rotten wood, and in winter three or four species can usually be found within or beneath every decaying log or stump. One species with very long legs, _Scutigera forceps_ (Raf.), is often found in damp houses or in cellars. It is sometimes called the "wall-sweeper," on account of its rapid ungainly gait, and is even reputed to prey upon cockroaches and other household pests.
Considering the amount of navigation that went through, it was amazing to see how badly lighted that river was--the two lights, such as the one at Buyussu, and the one at Mandy, at the entrance of the bay of Marajo, being no bigger than and not so brilliant as the ordinary street oil-lamp in an English or French village. I understand that all ships navigating the Amazon have to pay a large tax on each journey for the maintenance of the lighthouses on that immense waterway. It is quite criminal that no proper lights are constructed in order to protect the safety of the passengers and the valuable cargoes which go by that important water route.
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