form my bed. Having collected as many as I could carry, I took
them to the spot and threw them on the ground. I went back for more,
and having scattered them about and piled up a few for a pillow, was
about to throw myself on this quickly-formed couch when I saw, just
under the stone, what I at first took for a stick, but which then
beginning to move, exhibited itself to me as a monstrous rattlesnake,
with its body coiled up and its head erect, its fierce eyes glittering,
and its forked tongue moving rapidly to and fro as if eager to bite me.
I had disturbed it from its slumbers, and it was naturally excessively
angry. I did not stop to let it bite me, but sprang back several feet
before I recovered my usual coolness. I felt sadly conscious that I was
not like myself, and that my nervous system was very much upset.
Regaining my self-possession pretty quickly, however, I once more
advanced, and settled the creature with a blow of my stick.

The strokes I gave the ground soon roused up several other rattlesnakes,
and I found that a whole brood were collected under the stone. As they
are slow-moving creatures, I was able to kill every one of them before
they could escape. They would have been somewhat unpleasant companions
to me during my nocturnal slumbers. Scarcely had I despatched my
rattle-tailed enemies than, turning over with my foot some smaller
stones near the big one, out wriggled a number of other snakes, black,
brown, and yellow, twisting and turning amid the grass, many making
directly towards me. To be surrounded, even in daylight, by such
creatures would have been especially unpleasant, but in the dusk, when I
could scarcely see them, the sensations I experienced were scarcely
bearable. I felt inclined to shriek out at the top of my voice, but I
restrained myself, and began slashing away right and left with my stick.
Some I killed, but the others being more nimble than the rattlesnakes,
escaped. Still I could not venture to proceed in the dark, nor could I
stay on my legs all night; but I had no fancy to sleep near where I had
killed the snakes. I looked about, therefore, for another suitable
spot, and having selected it, I lashed about in every direction with my
stick, so that any lurking serpent must of necessity be killed or put to
flight. Then I collected more rushes, and taking a suck at a piece of
dry duck for my supper, threw myself at my length on them and tried to
go to sleep. It was no e