NOTES 



SNAKE stories are proverbially an ' uncommercial risk ' for 

 those who value a reputation for truthfulness. Hailstorms 

 are scarcely less disastrous ; hence these notes ! 



MAMBA. This is believed to be the largest and swiftest of 

 the deadly snakes, and one of the most wantonly vicious. The 

 late Dr. Colenso (Bishop of Zululand) in his Zulu dictionary 

 describes them as attaining a length of twelve feet, and capable 

 of chasing a man on horseback. The writer has seen several 

 of this length, and has heard of measurements up to fourteen 

 feet (which, however, were not sufficiently verified) ; he has 

 also often heard stories of men on horseback being chased by 

 black mambas, but has never met the man himself, nor suc- 

 ceeded in eliciting the important facts as to pace and distance. 

 However that may be, the movements of a mamba, even on 

 open ground, are, as the writer has several times observed, so 

 incredibly swift as to leave no other impression on the mind 

 than that of having witnessed a magical disappearance. How 

 often and how far they * travel on their tails,' whether it is a 

 continuous movement or merely a momentary uprising to 

 command a view, and what length or what proportion of the 

 body is on the ground for support or propulsion, the writer 

 has no means of knowing : during the Zulu war an Imperial 

 officer was bitten by a marnba while on horseback and died 

 immediately. 



HAILSTORMS, Bad hailstorms occur every year in South 

 467 



