SNAKES 
9 
further on another cobra magnificently reared his head some 
three feet from the ground, and calmly looked me in the face. 
Watching him closely, I sidled off, when he disappeared in the 
brushwood and grass. Going now with the greatest care, I 
discovered the hare seated in an ant-bear hole, not dead as I 
expected, but with ears erect, and evidently in fear of something 
more than myself. Catching him by the ears, and drawing him 
out, I was surprised to see the head and body of a python come 
out of the hole as if to see where the hare had got to. This was 
too much for my nerves—three snakes in less than a minute,— 
so I concluded to beat a masterly retreat with all the caution 
warranted by the circumstances, and reached the cart without 
mishap. Hammar, seeing me return with only the hare, and 
evidently pining after the flesh of the koorhan, which was still 
cackling some three hundred yards off, scouted my tale of the 
snakes, and, taking a gun, went off to put me to shame. Hardly 
had he gone fifty yards, when a yell from him caused me to look 
round, and there was Hammar, rigid with fear, with a grey cobra 
standing upright in front of him, looking him in the face. 
Hammar shot the beast, but it is almost needless to add that 
the koorhan cackled on undisturbed by us. We were both 
convinced that it was only owing to the coolness of the early 
air, which greatly retards the activity of serpents, that we both 
escaped being attacked by these abnormally large specimens of 
their class. 
While bathing in the Limpopo, a little further along the river, 
Hammar, who had gone down alone, was terribly startled by 
a troop of baboons, which crawled noiselessly down to the bank 
to watch the unusual spectacle of a naked white man bathing; 
and, evidently surprised by the clearness of his skin, set up 
such a chorus of their fierce resounding ‘ kwa-who kwa-who’s/ 
that Hammar, with the predominant fear of crocodiles still 
in his brain, beat a hasty retreat, not knowing exactly for 
the moment to what cause to attribute the fearful din. 
At the Notuani the expedition nearly suffered a severe 
check, for the cattle, straying along the road, fell in with a 
