108 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
forest. According to the Nabob’s account of the mat- 
ter,, as related to him by his friend the Rajah, as the 
latter was passing through the jungle, one of his at- 
tendants came up to him with two immense bones 
which he had picked up at a short distance from his 
master’s tent. Upon examining these bones it oc- 
curred to the royal hunter that from their formation 
they must be part of the spinal structure of some ani- 
mal, and, upon proceeding to the spot where they had 
been found, he was astonished at the sight of a pro- 
digious skeleton. On inspection it proved to be that 
of a monstrous snake which had long been the tyrant 
of the forest. It was nearly perfect, and measured 
the enormous length of ninety-five feet. The whole 
of the backbone had remained precisely as it was when 
the creature expired. The head was not perfect ; the 
lower mandible was in its proper place, but the upper 
had been removed. The attendants brought away 
the jaw and half a dozen of the vertebres, one of 
which the Rajah presented to the Nabob, who had 
converted it into a magnificent morah. It was en- 
closed in a kind of brocade, flowered with gold. The 
covering was so ingeniously fixed, as to be taken off 
at pleasure, and, when replaced, it formed with the 
bone a strong, compact, and elegant footstool. Our 
host assured us upon his veracity as a Mussulman, 
that what he had related might be relied on as a fact ; 
and certainly the back joint, which we saw, fully cor- 
roborated his statement, — it was upwards of fourteen 
inches wide. If the large snake of Ceylon, by his 
extraordinary power of distension, can swallow a 
stag entire, even to the very antlers, surely a snake 
