CURIOUS BELIEF ABOUT SNAKES. 335 



would be a sad disaster, as I do not think I have another 

 bullock that would treck as an after-ox. 



During this part of the journey I saw more snakes 

 than had been observed anywhere else. They were all 

 of the same species the ordinary puff-adder, bloated, 

 horrible -looking, dirty -coloured reptiles, running in 

 length from three to five feet. They are so much like 

 the sand in colour that it is difficult to avoid treading 

 on them, and their bite is said to be certain death. One 

 the driver killed with his whip -stick was almost five feet 

 long. It is certainly fortunate that nature has made 

 them so sluggish. 



There is a curious belief among the people here in 

 reference to this reptile the reader must accept it for 

 what it is worth namely, that the female only produces 

 one brood, and in giving birth to them dies, as the 

 young, having attained a sufficient age to enter the 

 world, eat their way out to it through their parent's 

 body. The driver of one of the Diamond-fields' coaches, 

 a most intelligent coloured man, told me the same yarn. 

 I asked him if he believed it. " Yes/' he replied, " for 

 I have seen it." He further went on to state that he 

 heard a snake crying from the great pain it was enduring ; 

 he went to the spot, and found a female puff-adder being 

 delivered in the novel manner mentioned. 



The story current in some parts of the country at 

 home, that adders, when they think their young in 

 danger, swallow them, is certainly as strange and as 

 worthy of belief as the other. 



At last we reached the looked-for camping-ground. 

 Our guide gave a wild shrill yell, and as with the fol- 

 lowers of Eoderick Dhu, each rock, bush, or bunch of 

 reeds produced a Massara bushman. 



