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 



