BRITISH DISBELIEF. 



I have generally found that the most reasonable men 

 are the purely uncultivated and the most highly educated; 

 the intermediate states appear to carry out the saying, 

 that " a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." A very 

 short time ago I met a gentleman who erred much in the 

 same manner as the Boer. I happened to mention the 

 daring and perseverance of a celebrated African hunter, 

 and that his sporting accounts were very interesting, when 

 the gentleman to whom I refer told me that he had no 

 patience with this hunter. His words were to the follow- 

 ing effect : " I am no sportsman, as I never fired off a gun 

 in my life, and therefore I cannot judge of his shooting. 

 But I have read his book, and that story about pulling 

 out h the rock snake carried such an air of untruth 

 about the whole thing that I never wish to hear more 

 about him." I asked why a man should not catch hold 

 of a rock-snake if he liked, and in what was the air of 

 untruth. " Why," he sapiently remarked, " it would have 

 stung him to death at once." I immediately withdrew 

 from the argument, but could not help thinking that this 

 gentleman ought never again to be able to look a rock- 

 snake, or any other or the boa species, in the face. The 

 boa has many faults, but to accuse him of possessing 

 poison, which I presume the gentleman meant when he 

 said " sting," is really too bad. Had this snake's ghost 

 known of the accusation that was brought against his 

 whole species, and possessed one-half the wisdom that is 

 attributed to the serpent, he would have risen, and hissed 

 an angry hiss against so barefaced a libel. A man who 

 enacts the part of a critic ought at least to know 



