urpose. As I was slowly walking
through the grass, something just in advance of me moved and the grass
shook. I stepped back, preparing for a shot, as I expected a buck to
spring up. Instead of a duiker, I saw the broad head of a black snake,
of a most poisonous species, rise up little more than a yard from me,
and draw his head back as though about to strike. I felt a
disinclination to raise the gun to my shoulder to fire at him, thinking
that he might then spring at me, so taking a quick aim from the hip, I
fired, and nearly blew his head off. He tumbled over, and, with one
twist, expired. I approached carefully, and found him to be a very
large black snake, about seven feet long, and nearly as thick as my arm.
I took him home, and on dissection saw that his poison-fangs were three
quarters of an inch long, and the bag above them was full of poison. A
bite from this fellow would have settled my account with this world in
about three hours.

It is a very difficult thing to recommend a care for a poisonous
snake's-bite. One of the most simple and classic is to suck the part.
When a person is alone, this is of course only possible if he is bitten
in the hands, arms, or low down in the legs. Cutting out the bitten
part is considered the best remedy, but this requires a tolerable amount
of nerve and determination. Some say that running about most
perseveringly will keep off the stupor that generally follows the
reception of this powerful poison into the blood. Happily, having no
personal experience in snake-bites, I cannot speak with certainty about
their cure.

I am under the impression that the poisonous snakes are much troubled,
at certain seasons of the year, by the poison-bladder becoming
surcharged, and that thus, being anxious to rid themselves of this
poison by biting something soft, and thereby pressing it out, they
naturally seize the first thing which their instinct tells them will not
injure their poisonous fangs. Two instances that occurred at Natal
appear to bear out this theory. A Hottentot was crossing the Mooi river
drift, another man following a short distance in the rear. The last man
saw a snake dart out from some rocks, seize the first Hottentot by the
leg, and glide back again; the bitten man died within a very short time
of receiving the bite. There is at the present time a man in the Royal
Arsenal at Woolwich, who, when far up the country with his master, and
walking near the waggon