SNAKES AND BLOODSUCKERS 



in my own person that it is always well to keep one's head. In Olinda 

 one evening I shpped my bare feet into my slippers and went over 

 to the washstand, when I felt something nibbling my foot. At first 

 I took no notice of it, but when I began to wash myself it spread 

 over all my toes, and on my drawing off my slipper to see what was 

 the matter, a long millipede, as thick as my finger, ran out of it. 

 Had I torn off my slipper in alarm the creature would have bitten 

 me, and a Scolopendra of this species is venomous. 



The last and best insurance against the dangers of snake-bite in 

 Brazil is the Butantan Institute. This Institute is one of the principal 

 sights of Sao Paulo, and is much visited. One takes the "Bond" at 

 the Pra9a da Se, from which all the electric trams start, and rides 

 through streets bordered with low houses and shaded by Grevilleas, 

 privet trees and cedrellos. The tram stops at Pinheiros, a suburb 

 with a dusty market-place surrounded by houses in the course of 

 construction, and the journey is continued in a cab. Now the land- 

 scape grows more beautiful; the meadows beside the road are 

 bounded by hills, and by the wayside the Brazilian ragwort blooms 

 yellow, the Brazilian broom puts forth its triangular shoots, and the 

 vervain uplifts its spires of pretty blue flowers. 



A door opens, and we are in Butantan. A pretty botanical garden 

 covers the gently undulating ground; here are glass-houses and 

 laboratories and a fine herbarium. The Institute itself is a white 

 building with laboratories and a museum in which one can study 

 all the snakes and their enemies. 



But the most singular thing about the Institute is the open space 

 before the entrance. A low wall, behind which is a running stream, 

 surrounds a lawn from which rise domes of Portland cement, which 

 are intended to represent termitaries, for these, in Brazil, are the 

 favourite refuge of the snakes. And before these grey domes the brown 

 venomous snakes are lying, large and small, many of them moving 

 about. The largest venomous snake of Brazil, the Surucucii, 13 feet 

 in length (Plate 31, 17), is rarely to be seen, but here are the 

 Jararaca (16) with the dark horse-shoe markings on its flanks, the 

 Labaria (14), also known as the Jararaca, the finely ornamented 

 Urutii (13), the sharp-snouted Cotiarinha, the Golden Urutu, with 

 handsome boa-like markings, the Lachesis (19), and above all the 

 Rattlesnake or Cascavel (18), its body marked with beaded lozenges. 

 Now one of the officials climbs the wall and crosses the water, and 

 with a hook pulls other snakes out of their dwellings, until at last 

 they are swarming at his feet. He grasps a rattlesnake, lifts it up, 



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