i6a TRAVELS IN 
the faculty which they have of darting for- 
wards renders them more dangerous, I dis- 
charged my piece, upon which one of them fell 
down dead, while the other entered its hole. 
Having feized the one which remained, I 
found that it was five feet three inches in 
•length, and nine inches in circumference in 
the thickeft part: befides an infinite. number 
of very fmall teeth, hardly perceptible, with 
which its mouth was armed, it had on each 
fide of the upper jaw, as high as the noftrils, 
a hook five lines long, playing upon its jointj> 
and which it could extend in the fame man- 
ner as a cat or a tiger extends its ciaws. One 
of thefe my Hottentots broke ; and, as I was 
very fond of hearing them difcourfe upon 
natural hiftory, becaufe, perhaps, I found 
inore truth in the rude reafoning of habit 
and experience than in the ingenious fpecu- 
lations of our literati, I afeed them feveral 
queftions concerning my ferpent, which they 
anfwered in a much more fatisfaftory man- 
ner than I expected. They did not fail to 
point out to me, among other Angularities, 
that this hollow tooth was the condudor 
which conveyed the poifon into the wound 
that it made. Such is, if I miftake not, the 
nature 
