12 WANDERINGS IN 



there the effects of his poison will be long re- 



FIRST 

 JOURNEY. 



membered. 



The Camoudi snake has been killed from thirty 

 to forty feet long ; though not venomous, his size 

 renders him destructive to the passing animals. 

 The Spaniards in the Oroonoque positively affirm 

 that he grows to the length of seventy or eighty 

 feet, and that he will destroy the strongest and 

 largest bull. His name seems to confirm this ; 

 there he is called "matatoro," which literally means 

 " bull-killer." Thus he may be ranked amongst 

 the deadly snakes ; for it comes nearly to the same 

 thing in the end, whether the victim dies by poison 

 from the fangs, which corrupts his blood and makes 

 it stink horribly, or whether his body be crushed 

 to mummy, and swallowed by this hideous beast. 



The whipsnake of a beautiful changing green, 

 and the coral with alternate broad traverse bars 

 of black and red, glide from bush to bush, and 

 may be handled with safety ; they are harmless 

 little creatures. 



The Labarri snake is speckled, of a dirty brown 

 colour, and can scarcely be distinguished from the 

 ground or stump on which he is coiled up ; he 

 grows to the length of about eight feet, and his 

 bite often proves fatal in a few minutes. 



Unrivalled in his display of every lovely colour 

 of the rainbow, and unmatched in the effects of 

 his deadly poison, the counacouchi glides un- 

 daunted on, sole monarch of these forests ; he 



