and their Mode oj procuring Food. 665 



I was in the act of apologising for appearing barefoot, and in 

 a check shirt, alleging, by way of excuse, that we w T ere now 

 in the forest, when a negro came running up from the swamp, 

 and informed us that a large snake had just seized a tame 

 Muscovy duck. My lance, which was an old bayonet on the 

 end of a long stick, being luckily in a corner of the room, I 

 laid hold of it in passing, and immediately ran down to the 

 morass. The president and his son followed; and I think 

 that Mr. Edmonstone and his late lamented brother joined 

 them. As the scene of action was within a few yards of the 

 ground on which they stood, they had a full view of all that 

 passed, from the commencement of the fray up to its final 

 close. A number of trees had been felled in the swamp, and 

 the snake had retreated among them. I walked on their 

 boles, and stepped from branch to branch, every now and 

 then getting an imperfect sight of the snake. Sometimes I 

 headed him, and sometimes I was behind him, as he rose and 

 sank, and lurked in the muddy water. During all this time, 

 he never once attempted to spring at me, because I took care 

 to manoeuvre in a way not to alarm him. At last, having 

 observed a favourable opportunity, I made a thrust at him 

 with the lance ; but I did it in a bungling manner, for I only 

 gave him a slight wound. I had no sooner done this, than 

 he instantly sprang at my left buttock, seized the Russia 

 sheeting trousers with his teeth, and coiled his tail round my 

 right arm. All this was the work of a moment. Thus ac- 

 coutred, I made my way out of the swamp, while the ser- 

 pent kept his hold of my arm and trousers with the tenacity 

 of a bulldog. 



As many travellers are now going up and down the world in 

 quest of zoological adventures, I could wish to persuade them 

 that they run no manner of risk in being seized ferociously 

 by an American racer snake (see p. 541.), provided they be 

 not the aggressors : neither need they fear of being called to 

 an account for intruding upon the amours of the rattlesnake 

 (see Jameson's Journal for June, 1827); which amours, by 

 the way, are never consummated in the manner there de- 

 scribed. The racer's exploits must evidently have been invented 

 long ago, by some anxious old grandmother, in the back w r oods 

 of the United States, to deter her grandchildren from straying 

 into the wilds. The account of the rattlesnake's amours is 

 an idle fabrication as old as the hills. When I was a lad, it 

 was said, how that, in the plains of Cayenne, quantities of 

 snakes were to be seen knotted together, and how that, on 

 the approach of man, they would immediately dissolve com- 

 pany, and make the rash intruder pay for his curiosity far 



