A STRANGE MALADY 107 



Flow far occasional bouts of brandy-drinking 

 at the Copper Mines has been responsible for 

 this peculiarity, I cannot say. 



Some months previously I had played — to a 

 great extent unwittingly — a cruel trick on him. 

 I had heard of Piet's being afraid of snakes, 

 but had no idea that his dread of them was so 

 intense. One day when he was saddling 

 Prince I laid a recently-killed snake across 

 the saddle. The creature was practically 

 dead, but was still squirming slightly — as 

 snakes are apt to do for a considerable time 

 after they have been rendered harmless, no mat- 

 ter how badly they may have been mangled. 



Piet's head, as he tightened the girth, was 

 under the uplifted saddle-flap. When he 

 dropped the latter and found the snake close 

 to his face he sprang into the air and fled, 

 bounding sideways and every now and then 

 striking his thigh diagonally with the palm of 

 his right hand. It was a most peculiar and 

 uncanny manifestation. I did not see Piet for 

 three days afterwards. Then he emerged from 

 the veld, red-eyed and starving, but once more 

 in his (comparatively) right mind. That night, 

 as his cries grew fainter in the distance, we 

 concluded that we should see no more of him 

 during the trip. 



