172 
WANDERINGS IN 
THIRD 
JOURNEY. 
Catches a 
live 
Labarri 
snake. 
me. He would appear to keep his eye fixed on me, 
as though suspicious, but that was all. Sometimes 
I have taken a stick ten feet long, and placed it on 
the labarri’s back. He would then glide away 
without offering resistance. But when I put the 
end of the stick abruptly to his head, he immediately 
opened his mouth, flew at it, and bit it. 
One day, wishful to see how the poison comes out 
of the fang of the snake, I caught a labarri alive. 
He was about eight feet long. I held him by the 
neck, and my hand was so near his jaw, that he had 
not room to move his head to bite it. This was the 
only position I could have held him in with safety 
and effect. To do so, it only required a little reso¬ 
lution and coolness. I then took a small piece of 
stick in the other hand, and pressed it against the 
fang, which is invariably in the upper jaw. Towards 
the point of the fang, there is a little oblong aper¬ 
ture on the convex side of it. Through this, there 
is a communication down the fang to the root, at 
which lies a little bag containing the poison. Now, 
when the point of the fang is pressed, the root of 
the fang also presses against the bag, and sends up 
a portion of the poison therein contained. Thus, 
when I applied a piece of stick to the point of the 
fang, there came out of the hole a liquor thick and 
yellow, like strong camomile tea. This was the 
poison, which is so dreadful in its effects, as to 
render the labarri snake one of the most poisonous 
in the forests of Guiana. I once caught a fine 
labarri, and made it bite itself. I forced the 
