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anything but tea. One day they like grapes and sweet potatoes. The next day they turn up their noses at anything except bananas. The big brown boy from Siantar refuses to drink anything, but seizes his drinking pan the moment it is put in the cage and angrily turns it upside down. The black and white ones that live together, the two who were so ill in Siam, are doing well now. The big white one was drinking milk this afternoon, delicately dipping the back of its wrist into the drinking pan, and licking milk off its fur. Little black boy, too lazy to come down off his shelf and get his own supply, would grab the other gibbons hand and try to lick the milk off that. Roemah Sakit, our camp pet, has a cold and is off his feed entirely. 

August 27 - 28

We lost a crate of pythons, fourteen medium sized ones, - all dead and thrown overboard. The little mouse deer are dropping off, too, which is a real blow. One of our Chieng Mai gibbons died today of pneumonia. 

I brought a small black gibbon up to our room, with the hopes of cheering it up enough to induce it to eat. It seems not to be ill, but for days has refused all food. By rubbing a little milk on its hand I got a few drops of liquid into it. It ate one mouthful of banana, and then went on a hunger strike again. In the afternoon I offered it tea, which it ate with relish, but it can't live on such a diet. It is a sweet little monkey, affectionate, interesting in its new surroundings, and very tame. I put it in a basket, and put the basket on the floor. It kept climbing out, and trying to roost on top of the mirror, or perched on a chair back. After I set the basket on a chair, it cuddled down quite peacefully and went to sleep. 

[[strikethrough]] Augu [[/strikethrough]] Some of the officers, and half the crew, are down with a form of dysentery, which the captain blames on Karachi water. After so many cases developed, he ordered the water to be boiled. So far, none of us have any trouble. 

The Komodo dragons, which have been doing well up to now, today refused to eat. Jennier asked kind of hopelessly, "How long have they been in the dark?" The answer was, "Since July 25" - so what can you expect? This traveling menagerie, without proper accomodations, is simply hellish. The Company should never have agreed to take us on a ship so little fitted to the purpose for which we are using it. 

The weather calmed down in the afternoon, and the night was beautiful - mild and serene. All the stars were out, and the water had thousands of little phosphorent marine animals, that looked like reflections in the black water of the stars in the sky, or like some sort of marine fire-fly. 

August 29 - 

The little black gibbon is still alive, but still refuses to eat. While I was working down in Number 5, part of the hatch was opened up, and I rejoiced in the sunlight and air, that so seldom get into that part of the ship. When I came up on