IMMENSE SNAKE. 
69 
Before we left Dindigul, a circumstance occurred to 
an English officer commanding a small out-station in 
this district., which may be considered not undeserving 
of record. He was early one morning taking his 
customary ramble, before the sun had attained a 
sufficient elevation in the heavens to drink up the 
freshness of the dews which glittered around, when, 
upon passing a small ruined building, his attention 
was suddenly arrested by the appearance of some- 
thing with which his eye did not seem to be at all 
familiar, moving in a deep recess of the ruin. He 
approached it cautiously, fearing, as he could not 
distinguish the object very clearly, that it might be a 
tiger, or some other animal equally dangerous. Upon 
closer inspection, he discovered it to be an immense 
snake, filling with its voluminous folds the whole 
recess. Determined at once upon its destruction, but 
knowing that he could do nothing single-handed 
against a creature at once so active and so powerful, 
he made the best of his way to the guard-house, and 
ordered half a dozen soldiers to the spot, armed with 
their muskets, and having the bayonets fixed. They 
were six strong, determined Englishmen. They made 
no objection to encounter so unusual an enemy ; 
on the contrary, they were pleased at the thought of 
the sport, and, being formed in line, advanced steadily 
to the attack as soon as the word of command was 
given, and simultaneously transfixed the monster with 
their bayonets, firmly pinning it against the wall. 
Being so roughly disturbed from its slumbers, the 
enormous creature uncoiled itself in a few seconds, 
and such was its prodigious strength that, with one 
