70 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



had roused the sleeping Death within. The ayahs, who 

 knew a cobra when they saw it, said that it had put out 

 its head with the hood erect, as was only to be expected when 

 it was disturbed by the prying, baby fingers. Our respective 

 husbands, having been told, were soon on the spot. Mine, 

 never at a loss, had milk, a forked stick, and a good knife 

 somewhere at hand, I knew ; the saucer of milk was put 

 down by the hole, and we waited — not long, however — for 

 milk and eggs will entice any snake, and it did this one, 

 which showed enough of itself for its head to be pinned 

 down and chopped clean off. 



Snakes were far too numerous at Calicut for our peace 

 of mind, but especially cobras, protected as they were by 

 native superstition and custom, and these, I need hardly 

 say, were the kind that mattered to us most. 



At one time a reward was offered by the Indian Govern- 

 ment for every cobra's head or venomous snake brought 

 in to the Kutcheri (Government Office) at every station or 

 cantonment throughout all districts generally, which most 

 short-sighted policy only augmented the supply a hundred- 

 fold, for the people took to breeding them, as they did in 

 the case of crocodiles when crocodile eggs were paid for. 

 However, rewards were not often offered on the west coast, 

 where our home mostly was, the people's objection to 

 destroying them being, as I have said, a religious matter 

 and not to be bought off by bribes. This principle holds 

 good all over India. 



In the native quarter of this town there was a temple, in 

 connection with which was a sacred tope, or grove, of the 

 wild fig, the small scarlet berry of which tree, according 

 to a legend many centuries older than Christianity, was the 

 undoing of the mother of all living — Eve, as we Westerns 

 call her. 



Round the great trunk of the largest tree in this grove 

 was a wall or terrace, some five feet high, built up of stone 



