shudders at the thought of taming the snakes. Her spontaneous handling of the serpentine creature is noted in the lines, “She had no quarrel with the snakes. They kept down the rats and the frogs.” The narrator’s hint at the importance of the ecological food chain in the lines cannot be overlooked. We find the narrator referring to a large group of animals portraying the exotic reserve of the highlands. We note the mention of not only snakes but also that of black scorpions, rats, frogs, hyaena, elephants