THIRD JOURNEY. 



157 



him too suddenly, it is ten to one but that he had 

 retired, in lieu of disputing the path with you. The 

 labarri snake is very poisonous, and I have often 

 approached within two yards of him without fear. I 

 took care to move very softly and gently, without 

 moving my arms, and he always allowed me to have a 

 fine view of him, without showing the least inclination 

 to make a spring at me. He would appear to keep his 

 eye fixed on me, as though suspicious, but that was all. 

 Sometimes I have taken a stick ten feet long, and 

 placed it on the labarri's back. He would then glide 

 away without offering resistance. Eut when I put the 

 end of the stick abruptly to his head, he immediately 

 opened his mouth, flew at it, and bit it. 



One day, wishful to see how the poison 

 live Labarri conies out of the fang of the snake, I caught 

 a labarri alive. He was about eight feet long. 

 I held him by the neck, and my hand was so near his 

 jaw, that he had not room to move his head to bite it. 

 This was the only position I could have held him in 

 with safety and effect. To do so, it only required a little 

 resolution and coolness. I then took a small piece of 

 stick in the other hand, and pressed it against the fang, 

 which is invariably in the upper jaw. Towards the 

 point of the fang, there is a little oblong aperture on 

 the convex side of it. Through this, there is a com- 

 munication down the fang to the root, at which lies a 

 little bag containing the poison. Now, when the point 

 of the fang is pressed, the root of the fang also presses 

 against the bag, and sends up a portion of the poison 

 therein contained. Thus, when I applied a piece of 

 stick to the point of the fang, there came out of the 

 hole a liquor thick and yellow, like strong camomile 



