33-i TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



sapi utung^ thougli none of them have ever seen sucli 

 a dreadful combat. The controleur states to me that 

 v^hen he was stationed at Bachian, near the southern 

 end of Gilolo, he was once out hunting deer, at a 

 place called Patola, with a large party of natives. 

 They had succeeded in starting up several, and he 

 himself saw one of them pass under a tree and at the 

 same instant a great snake came down from one of 

 the lower limbs and caught the flying deer with his 

 jaws. Unfolding his tail from the limb, he instantly 

 wound round his victim, crushing its bones as if they 

 were straw. An alarm was given, and the natives 

 gathered with their spears and killed the gi^eat rep- 

 tile on the spot. It was not as large round as this 

 one, but longer. Many of our men tell me that they 

 once assisted in killing a larger snake than this at 

 the bathing-place back of Kema. It had seized a 

 hog, whose squealing soon gave all the inhabitants a 

 warning of what had happened. They also say (and 

 this remarkable story has since been repeated to me 

 by several other persons at Kema) that a few years ago 

 a native boy went out as usual to work in his ladang, 

 or garden, some distance from the village. At night 

 he did not return, and the next morning a native 

 chanced to pass the garden and saw one of these 

 great monsters trying to swallow the boy head first, 

 having already crushed the bones of its victim. He 

 at once returned to the village, and a large party 

 of natives went out and found the snake and its 

 prey exactly as had been reported, and immediately 

 killed it with such weapons as they had, and gave 

 the body of their young friend a decent burial. 



