THE II YPODERMA TIKOS YRINGOPHOKOI. 



197 



and for the rest it is useful to keep in mind that the whole 

 tribe of slender, whip-like, green, brown, and yellow snakes 

 are as harmless as lambs a month old, notwithstanding 

 anything your butler says to the contrary. Next to his 

 own religion, there is nothing an average native knows less 

 about than nature, and domestic servants are generally 

 below the average. Yet natives in all their ignorance are 

 comparatively free from the European's superstitious anti- 

 pathy to the serpent race. The cobra, indeed, is regarded 

 by natives of the better classes with a kind of veneration. 

 When a Hindoo observes that a large cobra regularly 

 haunts his garden, so far from treating it in a hostile spirit, 

 he will, if piously disposed, propitiate it with an offering 

 of milk. 



Firmly believing myself that all the larger snakes, and 

 cobras especially, do man invaluable service by devouring 

 field-rats, I am unable to tread my feelings underfoot, and 

 let unbridled reason run away with me so completely as to 

 let them off when I meet them. A man who is caught 

 lurking about your premises with a concealed dagger need 

 not talk of his past services to the State. I slay a 

 poisonous snake when and where I find it, and if there is 

 any doubt about its being poisonous, I slay it to settle the 



