

>6 



SNAKES. 



ever been found in a torpid state, digesting its 

 food. Men have sometimes been caught by thern^ 

 but if the person so situated can draw his knife, 

 his escape is very possible, though he will pro- 

 bably receive several wounds. The opinion is 

 general in the country that the person who re- 

 ceives the bite of one of these snakes, has nothing 

 farther to fear from that of any other snake, of. 

 whatever description. 



One of the negroes whom I had hired with the 

 plantation of Jaguaribe, had one leg much 

 thicker than the other. This was occasioned, as 

 he told me, by the bite of a rattle-snake ; he 

 said, that he had been cured from the bites of 

 snakes by a Curador de cobras or Mandingueiro, 

 and had therefore not died ; but that " as the 

 moon was strong*," he had not escaped receiv- 

 ing some injury from the bite. He had 

 frequently violent pains in his limbs, at the 

 full and change of the moon particularly, and 

 sometimes the wound opened, and remained in 

 this state for weeks together ; but if he was care- 

 ful in not exposing it to the early dews of the 

 morning, it would again heal without any medi- 

 cinal applications being made use of. 



The most beautiful reptile which I saw was the 

 cobra de coral, or coral snake or worm. It is 

 about two feet in length, and of the thickness of 



* " Como a lua era forte," 



