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THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

 

people went boldly up to it, cut off its
head, and took both it and the body of
the man on board their boat. The snake
had seized the poor fellow by the right
wrist, where the marks of the fangs were
very distinct ; and the mangled body bore
evident signs of being crushed by the
monster’s twisting itself round the neck,
head, breast, and thigh. The length of
the snake was about thirty feet ; its thick-
ness equal to that of a moderate-sized
man; and on extending its jaws, they
were found wide enough to admit at once
a body the size of a man’s head.”

In the Oriental Annual, we find that a
few years ago, the captain of a country
ship, while passing the Sunderbunds, sent
a boat into one of the creeks to obtain
some fresh fruits, which are cultivated by
the few miserable inhabitants of that in-
hospitable region. Having reached the
shore, the crew moored the boat under a
bank, and left one of their party to take
eare of her. During their absence, the
Lascar who remained in charge of it,
overcome by heat, lay down under the
seats, and fell asleep. ‘While he was in
this state, an enormous boa constrictor
emerged out of the jungle, reached the
boat, had already coiled its huge body
round the sleeper, and was in the act of
crushing him to death, when his com-
panions fortunately returned, and attack-
ing the monster, severed a portion of its
tail, which so disabled it, that it no longer
retained the power of doing mischief.
The snake was then easily despatched,
and was found to measure forty-two feet
and some inches in length.

Even when in a state of bondage, and
enfeebled by confinement and the cold of
our climate, the boa has been known to
exhibit considerable address and power in

seizing its prey. The following anecdote,
related of one lately kept in the tower of
London, shows that a man is scarcely a
match for a very ordinary boa constric-
tor :—“ Some years ago, when the keeper
was offering a fowl to one of these ser-
pents, the animal being almost blind from
the approaching change of its skin, miss-
ing the fowl, it seized upon the keeper's
thumb instead, around which and its own
head, it instantaneously threw two coils,
and then, as if surprised at the unexpected
resistance, cast an additional fold round
his neck, and fixed itself by its tail to one
of the posts of its cage in such a manner
as nearly to throttle him. His own ex-
ertions, however, aided by those of the
under-keepers, at length disengaged him
from his perilous situation; but so deter-
mined was the attack of the snake, that
it could not be compelled to relinquish
its hold, until two of its teeth had been

broken off and left in the thumb.”

The following adventure is narrated
by Mr. Waterton, in his “ Wanderings” in
Demerara and the adjacent parts of South
America :—“I was sitting,” says he, “with
a Horace in my hand, wher. a negro and
his little dog came down the hill in haste,
and I was soon informed that a large
snake had been discovered. I instantly
rose up, and laying hold of the eight-foot
lance which was close by me, ‘ Well then,
said I, ‘we'll go and have a look at the
snake” I was barefoot, with an old hat,
check shirt, and trousers on, and a pair
of braces to keep them up. The negro
had his cutlass, and we ascended the hill;
another negro, armed with a cutlass, joit-
ed us, judging from our pace that there
was something to do. The little dog
came along with us; and when we had
got about half a mile in the forest, the