OF SERPENTS. 207 



home. In the warm countries that lie within the tropic, as 

 well as in the cold regions of the north, where the inhabitants 

 are few, the serpents propagate in equal proportion. But of 

 all countries, those regions have them in the greatest abun- 

 dance where the fields are unpeopled and fertile, and where 

 the climate supplies warmth and humidity. All along the 

 swampy banks of the river Niger or Oroonoko, where the sun 

 is hot, the forests thick, and the men but few, the ' serpents 

 cling among the branches of the trees in infinite numbers, 

 and carry on an unceasing war against all other animals in 

 their vicinity. Travellers have assured us, that they have 

 often seen large snakes twining round the trunk of a tall tree, 

 encompassing it like a wreath, and thus rising and descending 

 at pleasure. In these countries, therefore, the serpent is too 

 formidable to become an object of curiosity, for it excites 

 much more violent sensations. 



We are not, therefore, to reject as wholly fabulous, the 

 accounts left us by the ancients of the terrible devastations 

 committed by a single serpent. It is probable, in early times, 

 when the arts were little known, and mankind were but 

 thinly scattered over the earth, that serpents, continuing un- 

 disturbed possessors of the forest, grew to an amazing mag- 

 nitude ; and every other tribe of animals fell before them. 

 It then might have happened, that serpents reigned the 

 tyrants of a district for centuries together. To animals of 

 this kind, grown by time and rapacity to a hundred or a 

 hundred and fifty feet in length, the lion, the tiger, and even 

 the elephant itself, were but feeble opponents. The dreadful 

 monster spread desolation round him ; every creature that 

 had life was devoured, or fled to a distance. That horrible 

 fcetor, which even the commonest and the most harmless 

 snakes are still found to diffuse, might, in these larger ones, 

 become too powerful for any living being to withstand ; and 

 while they preyed without distinction, they might thus also 

 have poisoned the atmosphere around them. In this man- 

 ner, having for ages lived in the hidden and unpeopled forest, 

 and finding, ar their appetites were more powerful, the quan 



