NOTES ON SNAKES IN EAST AFBICA 
835 
made as comfortable as possible in a netted cage 12 feet long, 
with a stream of water running through, and a tank sunk in 
the middle. However, it was not content, and absconded in the 
night, having found a weak spot or broken strand in the wire 
through which it forced its way. A broad track led past the 
tent door and down through the camp amongst the marquees ; 
one old native admitted having seen it about midnight, but 
* thought it was a Swahili,’ so hurried into bed. This idea, 
that the souls of certain distinguished people enter into the 
bodies of big snakes, is not an uncommon belief amongst the 
natives. 
On September 18 about 8 a.m. there were cries of ‘ Nyoka,’ 
and presently a boy came running to say that a big snake had 
been seen near the Askari village 120 yards from here. As the 
snake stick had been broken the previous evening, it was 
quite ten minutes later before the writer reached the spot 
where the snake had been seen, just behind the village in thick 
bush not more than 200 yards from the cage from which it had 
escaped six days before. Under the brushwood I immediately 
recognised my escaped python, as it lay half-concealed beneath 
a fallen tree. 
A native woman was hopping about like a restless sparrow 
on the trunk of the tree and shouting information to three of 
her sisters, who had withdrawn to what they considered a 
reasonable distance thirty feet away. All were armed with 
pangas, with which they had been chopping off the branches 
of this tree when they had discovered the snake. Despite the 
fact that the woman was shrieking information about him back 
to the village, the reptile never moved, not even when a boy 
lifted off the brambles and thornbush immediately above him. 
The first movement was when the writer tried to seize its 
neck, when he gave a lunge with open jaws, not necessarily 
with the intention of seizing, but rather to intimidate, after 
the fashion of a dog showing his teeth. Almost simultaneously 
he commenced sliding backwards, but this was circumvented 
by the writer’s boot being placed lightly on his neck, which 
was then grasped with both hands. For a few moments a 
tug of war ensued, and considerable strength had to be used 
to get it clear before the beast could be crowded into a sack. 
