184 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



of evidence. My first step was to write to Mr. C. R. Saunders, 

 C.M.G., who is Civil Commissioner in Zululand, and who has a 

 great reputation as a keen sportsman and observer of nature. It 

 goes without saying that he speaks Kafir fluently, and has that 

 intimate knowledge of the people without which no European 

 can hope to acquire accurate information. Here is an extract 

 from his letter in reply to mine : — 



" To come to the main point of your letter — the question of the 

 Ndblondhlo. I am afraid I cannot throw much light on this, as all 

 the information I have been able to gather is not much more than you 

 possess. Some twenty years ago, and later, every native we met pro- 

 fessed to know of the Ndblondhlo, and they were in those times most 

 empbatic as to its being a distinct species, and the most deadly snake 

 known. They all declared it was not a Black Mamba, but much 

 larger, and with a feather on its head ; that it often killed people 

 herding cattle, which it would then drive away by whistling to them. 

 The belief as to the existence of such a reptile was most universal 

 both amongst the Zulus and the Natal Kafirs about the time men- 

 tioned, and, as almost every man, woman, and child in those days 

 knew the Black Mamba well, it is difficult to convince oneself that the 

 existence of the Ndblondhlo as a distinct variety or species at one time 

 is a myth. At the same time, if it did exist in olden times, I fancy it 

 must have become extinct, as one seldom or ever bears the name men- 

 tioned now, and the majority of the present generation of natives know 

 nothing about it. 



" I know almost every inch of Zululand, and a good deal of Swazi- 

 land, Portuguese territory, and tbe greater part of Natal ; but in all 

 my travels, although they have extended to parts where Black Mambas 

 are very numerous and attain to a very large size, particularly on the 

 Libombo Mountains, I have not come across anything which I could 

 describe with any certainty as distinct from the ordinary Black Mamba. 

 Tbe nearest approach to anything of the sort was one I shot myself 

 many years ago — about 1 874 — near the Tongaat Biver, in Natal. It 

 was the largest I ever saw, measuring sixteen feet in length, and 

 tbough I then thought, and still have no valid reason to alter tbat 

 opinion, that it was only a very old Black Mamba, most of the natives 

 who saw it declared it was an Ndhlondhlo, the existence of which was fully 

 believed in at that time. Every detail in connection with my encount- 

 ering it is still vividly impressed on my mind, although I was only a 

 youngster at tbe time, and to a certain extent corroborated the stones 

 the natives told of tbe Ndhlondhlo. I was walking along the edge of a 



