THE BUSH-MASTEE, 267 



to retreat with shuddering precipitancy, Darwin, speaking 

 of a sort of viper which he found at Bahia Blanca, says : 

 " The expression of this snake's face was hideous and 

 fierce ; the pupil consisted of a vertical slit in a mottled 

 and coppery iris ; the jaws were broad at the base, and 

 the nose terminated in a triangular projection. I do not 

 think I ever saw anything more ugly, excepting, perhaps, 

 some of the vampyre bats." 



Many of the snakes of South America are highly 

 venomous. One of these is called, from its prowess and 

 power, the bush-master. Frightful accidents occur in the 

 forests of Guiana by this terrible species. Sullivan * gives 

 us the following : his host, a few days before, had sent 

 a negro to open some sluices on his estate ; but, as he did 

 not return, the master, thinking he had run away, sent 

 another negro to look after him ; this negro went to the 

 place directed, and found the man quite dead, and swoUen 

 up to a hideous size. He was bitten in two places, and 

 death must have been instantaneous, as he was not more 

 than three feet from the sluice. They supposed that it 

 must have been a bush-master that had killed him. The 

 couni-couchi, or bush-master, is the most dreaded of aU 

 the South American snakes, and, as his name implies, he 

 roams absolute master of the forest They will not fly 

 from man, like aU other snakes, but will even pursue and 

 attack him. They are fat, clumsy-looking snakes, about 

 four feet long, and nearly as thick as a man's arm ; their 

 mouth is unnaturally large, and their fangs are from one 



* Rambles in America, p. 406. 



