196 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



that if it had bitten you, or even given you a blow with 

 its tail, you would have died within two hours. Even after 

 it is dead you are not safe unless you take the precaution 

 to pound its head into a jelly. This prevents it reviving 

 during the night and coming and coiling itself up in your 

 bosom. 



Besides the cobra, there is only one poisonous kind of 

 snake at all common here, and that is a prettily-marked 

 little reptile called Echis carinata, about a foot in length, 

 with a most cantankerous temper and an abusive tongue. 

 There are two others to be met with sometimes, the chain- 

 viper (Daboia clegans), which is in appearance and temper 

 just an enlarged edition of Echis, and a slender inoffensive 

 species, with whitish rings on a dark ground, which also 

 must be content to go by its scientific name of Bungarus 

 arcuatus, for want of another. There are names in plenty, 

 such as carpet-snake, whip-snake, krait, fooisa ; but they 

 are applied promiscuously to any sort of snake, real or 

 imaginary, and are therefore of no use. The fact is that 

 in real life, as distinguished from romance, snakes are so 

 seldom seen that no one who does not make a study of 

 them can know one from another. Still, you may easily 

 learn to recognise a cobra or an Echis when you see it, 



