THE SERPENT IN LITERATURE 189 
West; and the constricting anacondas, with the 
greatest of them all, the giant Camudi, “mother 
of the waters”; also the bull snake and the black 
snake, and that brilliant deadly harlequin, the 
coral snake. These all are in the New World, and 
I should then go to the Old in quest of blue sea- 
snakes and wonderful viridescent tree-snakes, and 
many historic serpents—the ticpolonga, the hooded 
cobras, and their king and slayer, the awful 
hamadryad. 
A. beautiful dream all this, like that of the 
poor little pale-faced quill-driver at his desk, 
summing up columns of figures, who falls to think- 
ing what his life would be with ten thousand a 
year. All the thorny and stony and sandy wilder- 
ness, the dark Amazonian and Arawhimi forests, 
the mighty rivers to be ascended three thousand 
miles from the sea to their source, the great moun- 
tain-chains to be passed, Alps and Andes, and 
Himalayas and the Mountains of the Moon, the 
entire globe to be explored in quest of serpents, 
from the hot tropical jungles and malarious marshes 
to the desolate windy roof of the world—all would 
have to be sought in the British Museum and one 
or two other dim stuffy libraries, where a man sits 
in a chair all day and all the year round with a 
pile of books before him. 
Alas! in such conditions, without the necessary 
precious personal knowledge so much desired, “ The 
Book of the Serpent”? would never be written. 
So I said and repeated, yet still went on with the 
