252 THE SNAKES OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



put its three hundred odd ribs and scales in motion to effect its 

 escape, he has secured it. If it should succeed in getting into 

 the bush, he follows without a second's delay, plunging headlong 

 in its wake. The very impetuosity of his onslaught is a safeguard, 

 for the snake is usually too bewildered or terrified to think of 

 turning upon him to bite. Swinging his captive round and 

 round by the tail, he opens the mouth of his bag and drops 

 the dizzy reptile therein. Picking up his stick he resumes his 

 quest. 



Spying a Puff Adder or Cobra vanishing into the thick tangled 

 scrub, he springs forward, grabs its tail, and carefully pulling it 

 out gives it a few swings round his body at arm's length, and then 

 bags it. Puff Adders he has a great contempt for. He lays hold 

 of the tail, and without any preliminary swinging drops the reptile 

 into his bag. All the snakes captured during the day's excursion 

 are consigned to the same receptacle. 



The next morning he brings them along to me. " Well, 

 Williams, any luck yesterday ? " " Yes, I got a few." Opening 

 the mouth of the bag, and drawing out a Puff Adder by the tail, 

 or with his finger round its throat, and his thumb pressing its 

 neck just behind the head, he holds it up for inspection, observing, 

 " It's a beauty, isn't it ? " He heeds not my warnings. I 

 continually assure him he will die a miserable death from snake 

 bite one day, away out upon the lonely bush-veld ; but he merely 

 smiles and says that he has got to die some day anyway, so as 

 well from the bite of a snake as sickness or old age. 



Whenever Indian snake charmers visit Port Elizabeth, 

 Williams amuses himself by stepping out from the assembled 

 crowd of onlookers, picks up and examines the dentition of the 

 snakes which the Indian has been charming, and which he has 

 assured the people are highly venomous. Finding the snakes to 

 be of the harmless species, or the fangs removed, he thrusts his 

 finger into the mouths of two or three. 



Indian snake charmers in Port Elizabeth have a bad time when 

 Williams is about, for, somehow, coins do not flow in so readily 

 from the onlookers when they find out the snakes are, after all, 

 quite harmless. 



One evening during a lecture on snakes to farmers, who firmly 

 believed that every snake was venomous, Williams handled a large 

 number of non-venomous Mole Snakes and House Snakes. At 



