76 TRAVELS IN 
fixed upon It. The moment the reptile faw 
me It glided away ; but the bufmefs was done. 
•Upon taking up the moufe it expired in my 
hand, without its being poffible for me to dif- 
cover, by the moft attentive examination, what 
had occafioned Its death. 
The Hottentots, whom I confulted upon 
this incident, exprefled no fort of aftonifh- 
ment. Nothing, they faid, was more com- 
xnon ; the ferpent had the faculty of attrading 
and fafcinating fuch animals as It wifhed to 
devour. I had then no faith in fuch power ; 
but fome time after, fpeaking of the circum^ 
ftance in a company of more than twenty per- 
fons, In the number of whom was colonel 
Gordon; a captain of his regiment confirmed 
the account of the Hottentots, and aflured me 
it was an event which happened very fre-^ 
quently. " My teftimony," added he, " ought 
" to have the more weight, as I had once 
** nearly become myfelf a vidim to this fafci^ 
" nation. While in garrifon at Ceylon, and 
amufing myfelf, like you, in hunting in a 
marfh, I was in the courfe of my fport fud- 
*^ denly feized with a convulfive and involun- 
tary trembling, different from any thing I 
^' ha4 
