288 A Sportswoman in India 



an hour. It has been known to fast for a year 

 and eleven months, taking no harm from so doing. 

 And last of all, one little puncture, from the fang 

 of some of the species, in the healthiest man, and 

 nothing in this world can save him. 



My only wonder is that more natives do not die of 

 snake-bite, considering how little they are protected ; 

 a boot and a gaiter has saved many a European. 

 My sister-in-law was walking quickly round her 

 verandah one evening ; she went forward in the 

 twilight to meet her husband, and suddenly felt 

 her ankle wrapped round in the folds of a snake, 

 across which she had, without seeing it, walked. She 

 was a woman of some presence of mind, and she 

 instantly trod with all her weight upon what she felt 

 to be part of the snake under her foot. As luck 

 would have it, that part was the head of a cobra ! 

 She killed it ; whereas, had it been its tail, she 

 would have been a dead woman. 



It is more the exception than otherwise to meet 

 with snakes in the verandahs and rooms of bungalows, 

 but every now and then it occurs, as many tales have 

 testified. A cobra will come in in search of food : 

 of such things as rats and mice, or of kittens (at 

 an early stage), they are fond. Your chicken-house 

 will attract them, with its eggs and young chickens. 

 The pipe which carries off waste water from your 

 bath-room makes a capital way into a bungalow ; 

 and finding himself inside, the cobra instinctively 

 hides in some hole, a fissure in the walls being a 



