286 THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xi 
instantly disappeared. Piggott attended to the wonnded 
man. 
In riding in the neighbourhood, through the tall dry 
grass, which would often rattle in the wind, I was 
amused to find that, if I suddenly heard the sound, I 
was apt to stand alertly on guard, quite unconsciously 
and instinctively, because it suggested the presence of a 
rattlesnake. During the years I lived on a ranch in the 
West I was always hearing and killing rattlesnakes, and 
although I knew well that no African snake carries a 
rattle, my subconscious senses always threw me to atten¬ 
tion if there was a sound resembling that made by a 
rattler. Tarlton, by the way, told me an interesting 
anecdote of a white-tailed mongoose and a snake. The 
mongoose was an inmate of the house where he dwelt 
with his brother, and was quite tame. One day they 
brought in a rather small puff-adder, less than two feet 
long, put it on the floor, and showed it to the mongoose. 
Instantly the latter sprang toward the snake, every hair 
in its body and tail on end, and halted five feet away, 
while the snake lay in curves, like the thong of a whip, 
its head turned toward the mongoose. Both were 
motionless for a moment. Then suddenly the mon¬ 
goose seemed to lose all its excitement; its hair 
smoothed down; and it trotted quietly up to the 
snake, seized it by the middle of the back—it always 
devoured its food with savage voracity—and settled 
comfortably down to its meal. Like lightning the 
snake’s head whipped round ; it drove its fangs deep 
into the snout or lip of the mongoose, hung on for a 
moment, and then repeated the blow. The mongoose 
paid not the least attention, but went on munching the 
snake’s body, severed its backbone at once, and then ate 
it all up, head, fangs, poison, $nd everything, and it 
