SNAKES.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1922, Page 4

SNAKES.

(By a Briton in Nigeria) I 1 have known only one European wlui j liked snakes. He was eccentric in i other ways. j i have known two native snake- j charmers, and of Inem one was bitten j and died. He used to tour around I with a couple of black cobras in a ! calabash, and the end was that one of them killed him. i

Many a time lie gave a show on my verandah when I had people to dinner, and we sat around with the long, hooded horrors writhing all about. I had an idea—whence, goodness know* —that their poison fangs had been drawn, or that the brutes wore

"doped.” Since I learned of the (banner’s death—it was quick and painful—J've bad no more snake shows on my verandah.

The python is the biggest snake we have in N igeria. lie-is not poisonous, but he grows big—twenty feet and more—and, if be <etches you unawares bo is dangerous. He mostly hangs about in swampy places and is a great swimmer, i have seen him in mid-stream, half a mile from the nearer bank, in a strong current, eriljsiug along, bis bead and a toot of neck showing above water. Years ago, travelling in the dry weather through a dried-up swamp, 1 heard a great bobbery at the head of my line of carriers. I pushed my pony into a canter, and presently came to the head of the column, where I found the lad who had been carrying a box containing my sparklet syphon and lime-juice, bis load on the path breaking up a good-sized python info lengths convenient for bis colleagues, who were loaded with my hath, bed, and tent, to carry. - He had spotted the brute coiled in a clump of grass in tbc middle of the road, put bis box down, and gone in with a big knife. T was so struck with his skill and courage that I there and then presented him with five shillings , And we presently came to the Rest House. |

Next Morning, just as it was begin • j liing to glimmer dawn, 1 awakened by a noise like that of a public nice ting conducted in dumb show, in the liest House compound. When it was fully light T got up from my bed i and went outside, not in the best of , tempers, and found some forty or fifty serious people assembled. They ha.d with them a score of dead pythons! ' The evening before word had gone forth that there was come into that Pin ee a lunatie who was paying five shillings each for such things. So eaeh and all had dropped fishing or , farming, or whatever it was, and gone out after python. ■ And once a Vory-Tligh-Officinl (the Chief Justice, no loss) and. I \ser,e dinner guests of a Man and Ins Wife. It

was Sunday evening, and wc sat oil the verandah taking a cocktail before tho food. You have to, in Nigeria. To us outer the Steward, who said, hurriedly, “Snake lib for chop room'’ “A snake in the dining room”), and departed into the night. Host and 1 took each a polo stick from the wall and went into the dining room. It was pretty well filled with 'furniture and lighted by a couple of oil lamps. Sitting tip in the midst was a cobra with flattened head, looking rattier more poisonous than he actually was, if that were possible. I recommend a polo stick to all snake killers. Tt is long, lias a head, and there is a “whip” to it. The battle lasted several minutes; then we went back to the verandah, and had more cocktails, and, later, dinner. Incidentally the snake was 711 Bin in length.