172 THE ADVENTURES OF 



and the snake remained motionless as though exhausted by 

 the exertion. 



" Is it a rattle-snake ?" asked Lucien astonished. 



" No ; it is a common snake that is, a reptile which is 

 not venomous. This one is called by the Indians the Yel- 

 low-snake, and, from ignorance, they are in very great 

 dread of them. It is in the habit of climbing trees with 

 great activity, and hunts birds. The statues of the Aztec 

 god of war, the terrible Huitzilipochtli, to whom thousands 

 of men were offered as living sacrifices, had their foreheads 

 bound with a golden snake, and we have every reason to be- 

 lieve that the reptile which we have just seen is that which 

 the Indians thus honored." 



A little farther on, Lucien fancied that he saw, stretched 

 out upon the grass, a long white snake. Gringalet, much 

 bolder than usual, seized the reptile in his mouth and 

 brought it to us. But it was nothing but a serpent's skin : 

 I then told the child that all reptiles of this kind change 

 their skin twice a year, and they get out of it as if from a 

 sheath. 



We continued our descent, and 1'Encuerado, who had 

 taken the lead, suddenly turned back to us with his head 

 covered with an immense vegetable helmet. I at once re- 

 cognized it to be the flower of a plant I had met with in 

 the neighboring mountains. Nothing could be more splen- 

 did than this blossom, which, before it is full-blown, looks 

 like a duck sitting on the water. In a single morning the 

 enormous corolla opens out and changes into a form resem- 

 bling a helmet surmounted by a crest ; the interior of it, 

 lined with yellow velvet, almost dazzles the eyes. The seed 

 of this creeper, the Indian name of which I forget, is flat, 

 and of a heart-like shape, having depicted on one of its 

 faces a Maltese cross. 



Even Sumichrast for a moment forgot his injuries while 



