442 SNAKES. 



President Rough to the hospitable house of Archibald Edmonstone, 

 Esq., in Hobbabba Creek, which falls into the river Demerara. We 

 had just sat down to breakfast. I was in the act of apologising for 

 appearing barefoot and in a check shirt, alleging, by way of excuse, 

 that we were now in the forest, when a negro came running up from 

 the swamp and informed us that a large snake had just seized a 

 tame Muscovy duck. My lance, which was an old bayonet on the 

 end of a long stick, being luckily in a corner of the room, I laid hold 

 of it in passing, and immediately ran down to the morass. The 

 president and his son followed ; and I think that Mr Edmonstone 

 and his late lamented brother joined them. As the scene of action 

 was within a few yards of the ground on which they stood, they had 

 a full view of all that passed, from the commencement of the fray up 

 to its final close. A number of trees had been felled in the swamp, 

 and the snake had retreated among them. I walked on their boles, 

 and stepped from branch to branch, every now and then getting an 

 imperfect sight of the snake. Sometimes I headed him, and some- 

 times I was behind him, as he rose and sank, and lurked in the 

 muddy water. During all this time, he never once attempted to 

 spring at me, because I took care to manoeuvre in a way not to alarm 

 him. At last, having observed a favourable opportunity, I made a 

 thrust at him with the lance ; but I did it in a bungling manner, for 

 I only gave him a slight wound. I had no sooner done this, than he 

 instantly sprang at my left buttock, seized the Russia sheeting trousers 

 with his teeth, and coiled his tail round my right arm. All this was 

 the work of a moment Thus accoutred, I made my way out of the 

 swamp, while the serpent kept his hold of my arm and trousers with 

 the tenacity of a bull-dog. 



As many travellers are now going up and down the world in quest 

 of zoological adventures, I could wish to persuade them that they 

 run no manner of risk in being seized ferociously by an American 

 racer snake, provided they be not the aggressors : neither need they 

 fear of being called to an account for intruding upon the amours 

 of the rattlesnake (see Jameson's "Journal" for June, 1827), which 

 amours, by the way, are never consummated in the manner there 

 described. The racer's exploits must evidently have been invented 

 long ago, by some anxious old grandmother, in the back woods of 



