324 SERPENT -WORSHIP. 



not all belong to the same species. In size, says the French traveller, 

 Dr. Ee'pin, they vary from three to ten feet. Their head is large, 

 flattened, and triangular ; the neck not quite so large as the remain- 

 der of the body ; in these respects resembling the entire host of 

 Ophidia. They vary in colour from a bright yellow to a yellowish- 

 green, according perhaps to their age.' Most of them are marked 

 upon the back, for their whole length, with two brown lines, while a 

 few are irregularly spotted. The long and prehensile tail, and the 

 facility with which some of them climb, would refer them probably 

 to the genus Leptophis of Dumeril and Bibron. At Whydah, these 

 divinities are lodged in a temple shaded by lofty and beautiful trees. 

 This curious edifice is described as a kind of rotunda, from thirty to 

 forty feet in diameter, and from twenty-two to twenty-five feet high. 

 Its walls, constructed of sunburnt clay, are pierced, like those of the 

 Dahomean houses, by two opposite gates, affording free ingress and 

 egress to the deities of the place. The roof, formed of branches 

 curiously interlaced and covered with a layer of dried grass, is con- 

 stantly tapestried with a myriad serpents. Some climb or descend 

 by writhing round the trunks of trees arranged for this purpose along 

 the walls ; others, suspended by the tail, balance themselves indiffer- 

 ently in the air ; others, again, lie coiled up in spiral folds on the 

 ground or among the grasses of the temple roof. They never want 

 for nourishment ; the devout supply them with constant renewals of 

 food, and in such abundance, that the priests, who, moreover, exercise 

 the double profession of sorcerers and doctors, are in no greater peril 

 of starvation than their gods ! 



The spotted serpents of which Dr. Repin speaks may possibly be 

 no other than Pythons, those gigantic Ophidians of the tropical 

 regions of the Old World which are found in Africa, in India, in the 

 Indian Archipelago, and even in Australia. It should be noted, how- 

 ever, that their size generally exceeds that of the largest serpents 

 which Dr. Repin saw at Whydah. Their length is from fifteen to 

 twenty-five feet specimens have been met with measuring thirty 

 and their maximum diameter ranges from ten to twelve inches. 



