CURIOUS CREATURES. 289 



straine the Butter through a cloth, and the remainder 

 beate in a morter, and straine it againe, and mixe them 

 together, then put them into water to coole, and so 

 reserve it in silver or golden boxes, that which is not 

 evaporated, for the older, the better it is, and so much 

 the better it will be, if you can keepe it fortie years. 

 Let the sicke patient, who is troubled eyther with the 

 Goute, or the Palsie, but annoynt himselfe often against 

 the fire with this unguent, and, without doubt, he shall 

 be freed, especially if it be the Goute." 



Of serpents in general, I shall have little to say, 

 except those few of which the descriptions are the most 

 outre. And first let us have out the "Boas," which 

 cannot mean that enormous serpent the Boa-Constrictor, 

 which enfolds oxen, deer, &c., crushing their bones in its 

 all-powerful fold, and which sometimes reaches the length 

 of thirty or five-and-thirty feet long enough, in all 

 conscience, for a respectable serpent. But Topsell begins 

 his account of " The Boas " far more magnificently : 



" It was well knowne among all the Romans, that 

 when Regulus was Governour, or Generall, in the Punick 

 warres, there was a Serpent (neere the river Bagrade) 

 killed with slings and stones, even as a Towne or little 

 Cittie is over-come, which Serpent was an hundred and 

 twenty foote in length ; whose skinne and cheeke bones, 

 were reserved in a Temple at Rome, untill the Numantine 

 warre. 



"And this History is more easie to be beleeved, be- 

 cause of the Boas Serpent bred in Italy at this day : for 

 we read in Solmus, that when Claudius was Emperour, 

 there was one of them slaine in the Vatican at Rome, in 

 whose belly was found an Infant swallowed whole, and 

 not a bone thereof broken. . . . 



