THE SERPENT’S STRANGENKESS 159 
the task of looking it down. It was a foolish effort. The 
bronze head and sinewy neck, about which the water 
flowed without a ripple, were as if carved in stone, and the 
cruel unwinking eyes, with the light coming and going in 
them, appeared to glow the brighter the longer I looked. 
Gradually there came over me a sensation of sickening 
fear, which, if I had yielded to it, would have left me 
powerless to move; but with a cry I leapt up, and, seizing 
a fallen willow branch, attacked the reptile with a species 
of fury. . .. Probably the idea of the Icanti originated in 
a similar experience of some native. 
The Icanti, it must be explained, is a powerful 
and malignant being that takes the form of a great 
serpent, and lies at night in some deep dark pool; 
and should a man incautiously approach and look 
down into the water he would be held there by the 
power of the great gleaming eyes, and finally drawn 
down against his will, powerless and speechless, to 
disappear for ever in the black depths. 
Not less strange than this statue-like immobility 
of the serpent, the effect of which is increased and 
made more mysterious by the flickering lJambent 
tongue, suddenly appearing at intervals like light- 
ning playing on the edge of an unmoving cloud, is 
that kind of progressive motion so even and slow 
as to be scarcely perceptible. But on this and 
other points relating to the serpent’s strangeness I 
_have spoken in the preceding chapter. Even in 
our conditions of self-absorption and aloofness— 
the mental habit of regarding nature as something 
outside of ourselves and interesting only to men 
of curious minds—this quality of the serpent is 
yet able to affect us powerfully. How great was 
