212 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



24 hours. Others are black, and others black with stripes, and long ; 

 not a living thing they bite, escapes ; they do no harm when the 

 moon is coming to the full, but when it is on the wane, they get ugly. 



596. There are others half a vara long with two heads, like a coat 

 of arms ; it is true that its bite is not mortal, but whoever steps on 

 the fresh trail left by this snake, is a dead man. There are others 

 which are yellow with black stripes and white spots ; whoever is 

 bitten by them has his flesh drop off in chunks. There are others 

 as thick as one's arm and a vara long ; whoever is bitten by them, 

 is lost. Others are long and slender like a spear ; whomsoever they 

 bite, is paralyzed and dies lamenting his wound but unable to utter 

 a word ; these snakes climb up into the trees and spring down, to bite. 



597. There are other slender green snakes with a poisonous bite ; 

 they move in the grass, and their venom is so powerful that once 

 when a tract was being cleared for planting, one bit a Negro, then a 

 dog, and then an Indian ; the Negro died within 6 hours, the dog 

 in 24 hours and the Indian in 2 days. Other snakes to be found in 

 this country are so poisonous that if they are poked with a stick, 

 the poison climbs the stick and kills the man. If they kill it and 

 daub themselves with its blood, they do not die, but remain invalids. 

 There are others such that if they bite a man in the morning, he 

 vomits blood from his mouth and dies ; but if they bite a man in the 

 afternoon, he does not die but remains an invalid. There are others 

 which have rattles, and are to be commonly found in many parts of 

 the Indies ; they have as many rattles on their tails as they are years 

 old ; these are a sort of viper and their bites are fatal. 



598. There are others very large and black, which will crush and 

 eat a deer ; they killed one of these more than 20 feet long, and in 

 its belly they found 31 young, each a palm long, and they started 

 immediately to wriggle away. The Indians killed them, skinned the 

 snake and then roasted and ate it. Its neck was a palm and a half 

 thick. 



599. In the Province of the Quelenes on the Guatemala highway 

 there are two low mountain ridges full of these snakes described 

 above, to such a degree that the Indians of that district do not dare 

 pass through them. Near these ridges there are some mountains 

 with 10 leagues of uninhabited country, and a river running along 

 them which is full of fish. A considerable number of Indians from 

 the village of Acatapeque had gone over there to fish; they heard a 

 loud hissing, and behold, a creature was approaching them and staring 

 at them with eyes like fire ; frightened, they climbed up into the trees, 

 and when this animal reached the foot of the trees, they saw it was 



