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 huntef 
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 curved 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 
