82 THE ADVENTURES OF 



islied, for he tripped up and broke a whole pile of plates. It was 

 not until after this misfortune that he could be persuaded to take 

 off his blue pumps ; and even then he could not bear to part with 

 them altogether, so he hung them round his neck, and kept on 

 waiting at table, as proud as possible with his grand decoration.'' 



This adventure was only too true, and Sumichrast Hstened to 

 it with shouts of laughter. 



" Why did you hang the shoes round your neck instead of 

 putting them away in a comer % " asked Sumichrast of the 

 Indian. 



" I did it to let all the world know that I had bought them, 

 and that they belonged to me," replied I'Encuerado. 



Our encampment was established at the entrance of a fresh 

 glade. L'Encuerado had killed five or six small birds ; we were, 

 therefore, certain of something for dinner. We had scarcely 

 finished our building operations, when Lucien, who had been 

 prowling about, lifting up stones and looking under stubs in 

 order to find insects, loudly called out to me. When I got up to 

 him, I saw at the bottom of a hole a coral-serpent, measuring 

 about a yard in length. The reptile was coiled up, and remained 

 motionless whilst we admired its beautiful red skin, divided at 

 intervals with rings of shining black. L'Encuerado promptly 

 cut a forked stick and pinned the animal down to the ground. 

 The prisoner immediately tried to stand up on endj its jaws 

 distended, and its head assumed a menacing aspect. Gringalet 

 barked at it furiously, without, however, daring to go near. 

 The Indian unsheathed his cutlass — the prospect of an unlooked- 

 for addition to dinner quite delighted him. 



The flesh of the serpent is a well-known Indian dish. Previous 

 to the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, the rattlesnake itself 

 found its place at their highest festivals. Dioscorides* prescribed 

 the flesh of the viper as a tonic, and it formed one of the com- 

 ponent parts of theriaca, the great panacea of our ancestors, which 

 was one of the principal branches of Venetian commerce. In 

 spite of all these precedents, the dish proposed by I'Encuerado 

 was unanimously rejected. 



* A celebrated Greek physician in the first century of the Christian era. 



