SNAKES AND CROCODILES 



III 



until noon of my third day that I stumbled across 

 one. With Molino I was picking my way up the 

 dry bed of a rocky run, machete in one hand, 

 camera and notebook in the other. I chanced 



Fig. 46. Tht ^.< 



to slash away a great hanging leaf, and there I 

 saw a fairly large snake, six feet or more long, in 

 the shade. 



Instinctively I drew back long enough to see 

 that he was not poisonous. A bushmaster would 

 have shown briUiant black blotches on a reddish 

 yellow background. This snake had a plain dark 

 skin with a bluish sheen. Molino pushed forward 

 and struck him a smart blow^on the head with 

 his machete, but the snake was not even stunned. 

 He crawled slowly but surely out of sight under 

 an overhanging rock. 



