THE STATION 155 



eighteen inches in length, and in colour the very 

 brightest emerald green. It was so extremely pretty 

 that I wished to catch it ; but before we could make 

 arrangements for doing so the snake took alarm. It 

 darted into a clump of grass, and was lost to view. 

 The servants declared that it was a snake of the most 

 deadly kind ; possibly it may have been, but then the 

 natives say the same of nearly every snake. 



One snake, however, they do admit to be harmless. 

 This is the "daman."' It is a snake most peculiar in 

 appearance : it seems to have no eyes nor any mouth, 

 and excepting that its skin is covered with scales, it 

 almost exactly resembles a gigantic worm. The natives 

 declare that it possesses two mouths, one at each 

 extremity of its body, and also that it has the faculty 

 of moving backwards and forwards with equal facility. 



The " gerait," or, as it is termed by Europeans, the 

 " whip " snake, is really deadly, even more so, it is said, 

 than the cobra. It derives its English designation from 

 its extreme slenderness, which gives it very much the 

 appearance of the thong of a whip. I only once saw a 

 gerait, but when and where I do not recollect. 



Those who have merely beheld snakes in confinement 

 can form no idea of the rapidity with which they can 

 move when at liberty and in their native haunts. I will 

 give an example. I was once descending a broad, bare 

 track that led down to a river ; on each side of the 

 track there were bushes and tall, coarse grass. Suddenly 

 a large snake shot out from the grass on my left ; it 

 crossed the track with the rapidity, so it seemed to me, 

 of a horse at full gallop. It moved so rapidly that 



