LIFE IN UGANDA. 109 amount of shrewdness. Things went on thus quietly for some time, there being hut few incidents to hreak the monotony of the weeks. One somewhat alarming event happened, however, and that was the discovery of a huge python or boa constrictor in my garden. I had a few goats which had been given me as presents by Mtesa and his chiefs, and these were allowed to graze in a waste piece of ground at the bottom of my garden. Two or three of these goats had disappeared since I came to the new house in a most mysterious manner ; they could not well have been stolen, for they disappeared during the day while my men were with them, and at night they were kept in a hut where one of the servants slept. I was greatly puzzled to know what had become of them, till one afternoon, when I was sitting in my verandah reading, one of my servants came rushing up to the house exclaiming that they had found a python ; so I fetched a rifle, and, slipping in a couple of cartridges, went to look for it. At the bottom of the garden I found all my men standing round a clump of bushes in which they said the reptile was lying, and they pointed to an opening where they said I could see it. I looked and looked again, but could perceive nothing but what I thought to be some withered leaves ; at last, however, I saw that these brown and yellow leaves were the markings of the head of an immense snake, and taking careful aim at it, I fired. The