THE SERPENT. 



425 



of dark brown on the forehead; which, when 

 viewed frontwise, looks like a pair of spec- 

 tacles; but behind, like the head of a cat. 

 The eyes are fierce, and full of fire ; the head 



met with any of much more than half that size. The 

 cobra has been known to spring at a man on horseback, 

 and to dart himself with snch force as to overshoot his 

 aim. The puff-adder, on the other hand, is a heavy and 

 sluggish animal, very thick in proportion to its length, 

 and incapable, when attacked in front, of projecting 

 itself upon its enemy. To make amends, however, it 

 possesses the faculty of throwing itself backward with 

 perilous and unexpected effect ; but its disposition is 

 inert, and unless accidentally trod upon or otherwise 

 provoked, it will seldom attack mankind. The berg- 

 adder, though much smaller in size than either of the 

 preceding, is generally considered not less deadly, and it 

 is the more dangerous from its being less easily discov- 

 ered and avoided. 



" During a residence of six years in the interior of the 

 Cape Colony, and in the course of various journeys 

 through the interior (extending to upwards of three thou- 

 sand miles), I have met with a considerable number of 

 snakes; yet I do not recollect of ever being exposed, 

 except in one instance, to any imminent hazard ofbeing 

 bit by any of them. On the occasion referred to I was 

 superintending some Hottentots, whom I had employed 

 to clear away a patch of thicket from a spot selected for 

 cultivation, when one of the men, suddenly recoiling 

 with signs of great alarm, exclaimed, that there was a 

 cobra-capello in the bush. Not being at that time 

 fully aware of the dangerous character of this species of 

 snake, I approached to look at him. The Hottentots 

 called out to me to take care, for he was going to spring. 

 Before they had well spoken, or I had caught a view of 

 the reptile, I heard him hiss fiercely, and then dart him- 

 self towards me amidst the underwood. At the same 

 instant, instinctively springing backward to avoid him, 

 I fell over a steep bank into the dry stony bed of a tor. 

 rent ; by which I suffered some severe bruises, but for- 

 tunately escaped the more formidable danger to which I 

 had too incautiously exposed myself. The Hottentots 

 then assailed the snake with sticks and stones, and forced 

 him (though not before he had made another spring and 

 missed one of them still more narrowly then myself) to 

 take refuge up a mimosa tree. Here he became a safe 

 and easy mark to their missiles, and was speedily beaten 

 down, with a broken back, and consequently rendered 

 incapable of farther mischief. The Hottentots having 

 cut off his head, carefully buried it in the ground, a prac- 

 tice which they never omit on such occasions, and which 

 arises from their apprehension of some one incautiously 

 treading on the head of the dead snake, and sustaining 

 injury from its fangs ; for they believe that the deathful 

 virus, far from being extinguished with life, retains its 

 fatal energy for weeks, and even months afterwards. 

 This snake measured nearly six feet in length, and was 

 the largest cobra I have met with. 



" My little Hottentot corporal, Piet (or Peter) Span- 

 dilly, who assisted in killing this cobra, had a still 

 narrower escape from a small but venomous snake, of 

 which I have forgotten the colonial appellation. Piet 

 and his men (six soldiers of the Cape Corps, placed at 

 that time under my direction for the protection of our 

 remote settlement against the Caffres) slept in a tent 

 adjoining to mine, pitched in a grove of mimosas on the 

 brink of the Bavian's river ; and one morning when he 

 rose from his couch of dry grass, Piet felt some living 

 creature moving about his thigh in the inside of his 

 leathern trousers. Thinking it was only one of the 

 harmless, lizards which swarm in every part of South 

 Africa, he did not at first much mind it, but came out 

 to the open air, laughing, and shaking his limb to dis- 



VOL. II. 



is small, and the nose flat, though covered 

 with very large scales, of a yellowish ash- 

 colour ; the skin is white, and the large tumour 

 on the neck is flat, and covered with oblong, 



lodge the vermin. But when a black wriggling snake 

 came tumbling down about his naked ancles, poor Span- 

 dilly, uttering a cry of horror, kicked the reptile off, 

 springing at the same moment nearly his own height 

 from the ground ; and, though he had in reality sus- 

 tained no injury, could scarcely for some time be per- 

 suaded that he was not 'a gone man.' 



"It is, in fact, from apprehensions of danger, or the 

 instinct of self-defence, far more than from any peculiar 

 fierceness or innate malignity, that the serpent race ever 

 assail man or any of the larger animals. They turn, 

 of course, against the foot that tramples or the hand that 

 threatens them ; but happily nature has not armed them, 

 in addition to their formidable powers of destruction, 

 with the disposition of exerting these powers from 

 motives of mere wanton cruelty, or for purposes uncon- 

 nected with their own subsistence or security. Were it 

 otherwise, countries like the Cape would be altogether 

 uninhabitable. As it is, the annoyance experienced 

 from the numerous poisonous snakes is not such as, on 

 the whole, to affect in any considerable degree the 

 comfort of those accustomed to them. 



"Conversing on this subject one day with my friend 

 Captain Harding, who had been for many years a resi- 

 dent and magistrate in the interior, I inquired whether 

 he had ever, in the course of his campaigns on the Caffre 

 and Bushman frontiers, and when necessarily obliged to 

 sleep in the desert or jungle in the open air, suffered 

 injury or incurred danger from serpents he replied, 

 that the only occasion he recollected of incurring any 

 great hazard of this sort, was the following: 



" ' Being upon a military expedition across the fron- 

 tier, ' said he, ' I had slept oiie night, as usual, wrapt 

 in my cloak, beneath a tree. On awaking at daybreak, 

 the first object I perceived on raising my head from the 

 saddle, which served for my pillow, was the tail of an 

 enormous puff-adder lying across my breast, the head 

 of the reptile being muffled under the folds of the cloak 

 close to my body, whether it had betaken itself, appa- 

 rently for warmth, during the dullness of the night. 

 There was extreme hazard that if I alarmed it by 

 moving, it might bite me in a vital part ; seizing it 

 therefore softly by the tail, I pulled it out with a sudden 

 jerk, and threw it violently to a distance. By this means 

 I escaped without injury: but had I happened to have 

 unwittingly offended this uninvited bedfellow before I 

 was aware of his presence, I might in all probability 

 have fatally atoned for my heedlessness.' 



"It is not very unusual for snakes of various sorts to be 

 found in the houses at the Cape, nor does it, in ordinary 

 cases, excite any violent alarm when such inmates are 

 discovered. They make their way both through the 

 roofs and under the walls, in search of food and shelter, 

 and especially in pursuit of mice, which many of them 

 chiefly subsist upon. During my residence in the in- 

 terior, however, I recollect only two instances of their 

 being found in my own cabin. On one of these occa- 

 sions I had sent a servant girl (a bare-legged Hottentot) 

 to bring me some article from a neighbouring hut. It 

 was after night-fall ; and on returning with it, she cried 

 out before entering the cabin 'Oh, Mynheer; Mynheer! 

 what shall I do ? A snake has twined itself round my 

 ancles, and if I open the door he will come into the 

 house.' * Never mind,' I replied, ' open the door, 

 and let him come if he dare.' She obeyed, and in 

 glided the snake, luckily without having harmed the 

 poor girl. I stood prepared, and instantly smote him 

 dead ; and afterwards found him to- be one of the very 

 venomous sort called Nachtskmg. 



SH 



