SNAKE-CHAEMERS 239 



" I was vaccinated," writes Colonel Serpa Pinto, " at Inham- 

 bane (on the East Coast of Africa), among the Vatuas. These 

 people extract the poison of a snake which is known in Portuguese 

 as the Alcatifa {i.e., carpet), and is so called on account of the 

 variegated colour of its skin, which resembles a carpet. I am not 

 acquainted with the means employed in order to obtain the poison, 

 which is mixed with vegetable substances, and forms with the 

 latter a dark brown viscid paste. 



" Two parallel incisions, 5 millimetres in length, are made in 

 the skin, and into these is introduced the paste containing the 

 poison. These incisions are made on the arms, near the junction 

 of the radius and ulna with the carpal bones, on the back of the 

 hand, on the back, on the shoulder-blades, and on the feet, near 

 the great toes. After the operation the natives exact an oath that 

 the vaccinated one will never kill a poisonous snake, because they 

 say that henceforth the snake is his intimate friend, and they throw 

 upon him an Alcatifa snake, which does not bite him. 



" After undergoing this operation my whole body was swollen 

 up for a week, and I underwent every possible kind of suffering. 



"I have never been bitten by any snake, and cannot vouch for 

 the infallibility of this remedy. The Vatuas do so, however, and 

 they never kill a snake. 



"A short time after having been vaccinated, I was stung, when 

 in the Seychelle Islands, by a scorpion, which did me no harm. 

 Ten years later, at the time of my journey across Africa, I was 

 stung b}' another scorpion w^iich hurt me dreadfully, and for a 

 week I thought that I was going to die or lose my arm." 



Mystification and superstitious ideas play, as we see, a very 

 great part in this preventive treatment, which is undergone by the 

 natives of certain countries and snake-catchers or charmers. But 

 it is not very surprising that, thanks to successive and repeated 

 inoculations, a man can succeed in acquiring sufficient immunity 

 to preserve himself from snake-bites. 



In ancient times it was even pretended that it was possible for 



