141 



odoriferous plants, resemble the blocks of granite 

 covered with flowers, which the inhabitants of 

 the Alps call gardens or courtils, and which 

 pierce the glaciers of Savoy. In the midst of 

 the cataracts, on shelves difficult of access, the 

 vanilla vegetates. MrBonpland gathered there 

 very aromatic pods of an extraordinary length. 



In a place where we had bathed the day before, 

 at the foot of the rock of Manimi, the Indians 

 killed a serpent seven feet and half long, which 

 we were able to examine at our ease. The Ma- 

 coes called it camudu*. It's back displayed 

 upon a yellow ground transverse bands, partly 

 black, and partly inclining to a brown-green : 

 under the belly the bands were blue, and united 

 in rhomboid spots. It was a fine animal, not 

 venomous, and which, the natives say, attains 

 more than fifteen feet in length. I thought at 

 first, that the camudu was a boa ; but I saw with 

 surprise, that the scales beneath the tail were 

 divided into two rows. It was therefore a viper, 

 coluber ; perhaps a python of the NewContinent: 

 I say perhaps, for great naturalists-}- appear to 

 admit, that all the pythons belong to the an- 

 cient, and all the boas to the New World. As 

 the boa of Pliny J was a serpent of Africa and 



* Camudu, scutis ventralibus 168, subcaudalibus duplici 

 serie dispositis 75. 



{- Cuvier, Regne Animal, vol. ii, p. 66, 69, 71. 



X Was it the coluber elaphis, or the coluber iEsculapii, or 



