208 



THE SNAKE. 



I was a lad, it was said, how that, in the plains of 

 Cayenne, quantities of snakes were to be seen 

 knotted together, and how that, on the approach of 

 man, they would immediately dissolve company, and 

 make the rash intruder pay for his curiosity far more 

 severely than Diana of old made Actaeon pay for 

 an ill-timed peep. She merely changed the hunter 

 into a stag : they chased the man, and barbarously 

 stung him to death. 



When a man is ranging the forest, and sees a 

 serpent gliding towards him (which is a very rare 

 occurrence), he has only to take off in a side direc- 

 tion, and he may be perfectly assured that it will 

 not follow him. Should the man, however, stand 

 still, and should the snake be one of those overgrown 

 monsters capable of making a meal of a man, in 

 these cases, the snake would pursue its course ; and, 

 when it got sufficiently near to the place where the 

 man was standing, would raise the fore part of its 

 body in a retiring attitude, and then dart at him 

 and seize him. A man may pass within a yard of 

 rattlesnakes with safety, provided he goes quietly ; 

 but should he irritate a rattlesnake, or tread in- 

 cautiously upon it, he would infallibly receive a 

 wound from its fang ; though, by the by, with the 

 point of that fang carved downwards, not upwards. 

 Should I ever be chased by a snake, I should really 

 be inclined to suspect that it was some slippery 

 emissary of Beelzebub : for I will forfeit my ears, 

 if any of old Dame Nature's snakes are ever seen 

 to chase either man or beast. They know better 



