268 THE TERRIBLE. 



to three inches in length. They strike with immense 

 force ; and a gentleman who had examined a man after 

 having been struck in the thigh and died, told the narrator 

 that the wound was as if two four-inch nails had been 

 driven into the flesh. As the poison oozes out from the 

 extremity of the fang, any hope of being cured after a bite 

 is small, as it is evident that no external application could 

 have any immediate effect on a poison deposited an inch 

 and a half or two inches below the surface ; the instan- 

 taneousness of the death depends upon whether any large 

 artery is wounded or not. 



The same traveller records the following shocking story 

 about a very deadly snake, called the manoota, that infests 

 the borders of the Lake of Valencia, in Venezuela : — 



"An American we met related an anecdote of this 

 snake, which, if true, was very frightful. He had gone 

 in a canoe one night with a father and son, intending to 

 shoot deer next morning on one of the islands in the 

 lake. When they reached the island, the son, notwith- 

 standing the repeated warnings of his father, jumped] 

 out; but he had no sooner done so, than he gave an; 

 agonised yell, and fell back ; the father immediately , 

 sprung out, but was also struck by the snake, but not so 

 severely. They got the young man into the boat, but he< 

 swelled to a horrible size, and, bleeding at eyes, nose, and] 

 mouth, died in less than half-an-hour. Our friend and] 

 the father now set out on their return to Valencia with ; 

 the dead body. A storm had in the meantime arisen, 

 and they were in the greatest danger of being capsized. 



