84 A COLLECTING TRIP 
some day in the woods if we do not forget how. I 
asked him if he would take me out and show me a 
wild cobra at some place to which we could ride 
easily. He said yes. We started off the following 
morning at half past six, but he evidently did not 
know just where to go, for he kept asking people 
along the wayside whether any of them had seen a 
eobra. He was very keen to find one, for no cobra, 
no backshish. Finally we bargained with an old 
hay cutter to take us to a cobra which lived near his 
village, for which services of the hay cutter we agreed 
to pay the sum of sixteen cents. He was really very 
glad to have us go, for a man of thirty, a Bramin 
by the way, and a boy of thirteen had been killed by 
this snake recently. They said it had lived near the 
village for fifty years. Their count of time, however, 
is notoriously inaceurate. We walked back from the 
road over a grassless sunbaked plain, as flat as a bil- 
liard table and after about half an hour’s going we 
eame to a small hole where it was quite evident from 
the marks about it that a snake had recently been. We 
had the old chap bring his mattock, a small kind of 
bog hoe, with which all shoveling and digging is 
done in India. Soon the professional snake man was 
at work at the hole. It was not very deep and ended 
in a round chamber as large as a ten quart pail in 
which the snake was curled up. As he absolutely de- 
clined to come out, I cut a stick with a hook at the 
end and hooked him out to clear ground. He made 
one short rush to escape, but saw he could not and 
so he stood up like a statue, while I took, so I hope, 
eood photographs of him, Rosamond keeping his 
mind occupied with a parasol. Then I shot him 
