138 THE RIFLE AND HOUND IN CEYLON, chap. v\ 



of passing colours. On losing his hide he tore away 

 from the stakes ; and although his head was shivered 

 to atoms, and he had lost three feet of his length of 

 neck by the ball having cut through this part, which 

 separated in tearing off the skin, still he lashed out 

 and writhed in frightful convulsions, which continued 

 until I left him, bearing as my trophy his scaly hide. 

 These boas will kill deer, and by crushing them into 

 a sort of sausage they are enabled by degrees to swallow 

 them. There are many of these reptiles in Ceylon ; 

 but they are seldom seen, as they generally wander 

 forth at night. There are marvellous stories of their 

 size, and my men assured me that they had seen 

 much larger than the snake now mentioned ; to me he 

 appeared a horrible monster. 



I do not know anything so disgusting as a snake. 

 There is an instinctive feeling that the arch enemy is 

 personified when these wretches glide by you, and 

 the blood chills with horror. I took the dried skin of 

 this fellow to England ; it measures twelve feet in its 

 dry state, minus the piece that was broken from his 

 neck, making him the length before mentioned of 

 fifteen feet. 



I have often been astonished that comparatively so 

 few accidents happen in Ceylon from snake-bites ; 

 their immense number and the close nature of the 

 country making it a dangerous risk to the naked feet 

 of the natives. I was once lying upon a sofa in a 



