CHAP. IX.] 
GREAT PUFF ABLER. 
251 
the ground and severed it at one blow with my hunt¬ 
ing-knife, damaging the keen edge of my favourite 
weapon upon the hard rock. It was a puff adder of 
the most extraordinary dimensions. I immediately 
fetched my measuring-tape from the game-bag, in 
which it was always at hand. Although the snake 
was only 5 ft. 4 in. in length, it was slightly above 
15 inches in girth. The tail was, as usual in 
poisonous snakes, extremely blunt, and the head per¬ 
fectly flat, and about 2 \ inches broad, but unfor¬ 
tunately during my short absence to fetch the measure 
the natives had crushed it with a rock. They had 
thus destroyed it as a specimen, and had broken three 
of the teeth, but I counted eight, and secured five 
poison fangs, the two most prominent being near]y 
an inch in length. The poison-fangs of snakes are 
artfully contrived by some diabolical freak of nature 
as pointed tubes, through which the poison is injected 
into the base of the wound inflicted. The extreme 
point of the fang is solid, and is so finely sharp¬ 
ened that beneath a powerful microscope it is 
perfectly smooth, although the point of the finest 
needle is rough. A short distance above the solid 
point of the fang the surface of the tube appears as 
though cut away, like the first cut of a quill in 
forming a pen : through this aperture the poison is 
injected. 
Hardly had I secured the fangs, when a tremendous 
clap of thunder shook the earth and echoed from rock 
to rock among the high mountains, that rose abruptly 
on our left within a mile. Again the lightning flashed, 
and, almost simultaneously, a deafening peal roared 
from the black cloud above us, just as I was kneeling 
over the arch-enemy to skin him. He looked so Sa¬ 
tanic with his flat head, and minute cold grey eye, and 
scaly hide, with the lightning flashing and the thunder 
roaring around him; I felt like St. Dunstan with 
the devil, and skinned him. The natives and also 
my men were horrified, as they would not touch any 
