La 
SNAKES BY NIGHT. 99 
one might have almost thought a band of music was 
playing in the neighborhood. 
At length I wrapped myself well in my blanket 
and went to sleep. But lo! in the middle of thénight ~ 
I was awakened by the cackling of one of the fowls, 
_ which was tied by the leg to a stick we had put on 
the ground. I popped my head out of my musqui- 
to-net, when I beheld by the glow of the fire an enor- 
mous python (or snake), a tremendous big fellow, who 
had just come out of the water and was about to gobble 
up one of the two fowls, and would have swallowed 
both of them if it had had time to do so. No others 
were aroused by the noise the fowls made, so I quietly 
took my gun that laid alongside of me, and sent two 
loads into the python, which settled him. 
My men jumped up in alarm, seized their guns, and 
looked as warlike as possible. They thought we were 
' attacked unawares by some Oroungou fellows, and set 
up a wild yell of defiance, which was responded to by a 
most hearty laugh on my part. In the mean time the 
- defeated boa had moved about in the midst of us and 
sent all the fellows off, just as they were asking, ‘‘ Who 
has been killed by that gun?” and I shouted in sa 
“This enormous snake.” 
My two Apingi fellows’ eyes brightened as ih 
thought of the good food they were going to have, and 
_said— Ah! ah! if we had only known we should have 
brought a cooking-pot of our own; we would have had 
such nice snake-broth all the time!” This snake meas- 
ured almost sixteen feet in length, and would have kept 
the fellows in broth for a long while. pe 
We went to sleep again, leaving the two Apingis- 
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