ABOUT COBRAS.
BY AN OFFICER.
While at home on furlough from India a short time ago, I was much amused at finding a very general impression among my friends that to come across a cobra is an every-day kind of occurrence in India. How erroneous this idea is may be gathered from the fact that not many days ago a brother-officer told me that although he had been about ten years in India, he had never yet seen a cobra in a wild state. His is, it is true, probably an exceptional case; but still it shows that an Englishman may pass a considerable time in India without coming across one of these venomous reptiles. Cobras, however, are met with quite often enough, and sometimes in very curious and uncomfortable places. For instance, a young lady who had just returned from a ball in a small station in Southern India, noticed, as she was on the point of getting into bed, that the pillow looked disarranged; and on taking it up to smooth it out, she discovered a cobra coiled up underneath it. She called out for assistance; and her father coming to the rescue, speedily despatched the obnoxious intruder with a stick. I happened to mention this circumstance to an officer one day, and he informed me that the very same thing had happened to himself soon after his first arrival in the country, and that, in consequence, he never got into bed until he had examined the pillows.
In the year 1873, while quartered at Bellary, on going into the drawing-room of the bungalow, which at that time I shared with a friend, I discovered a cobra curled up on the sofa cushion. I hastened out of the room to fetch a stick; but in doing so, I must, I suppose, have made some noise, as on returning the snake had disappeared. A few evenings later, however, just as my ‘chum’ was leaving the house to go out to dinner, he called out to me that there was a snake crawling up the steps of the veranda in front of the drawing-room. I ran out with a stick, and succeeded in killing the unwelcome visitor. It turned out to be a fairly large cobra, and was in all probability the one which I had seen a few days previously on the sofa. It is, however, in the bathrooms of an Indian bungalow that cobras, when met with within doors, are most frequently encountered, as they come there in pursuit of the frogs which delight to take up their quarters there; for froggy is an article of diet to which the cobra is very partial. An officer of the Madras cavalry, since deceased, told me that when quartered at Arcot, he one day observed in his bathroom, emerging from the waste-water pipe, the head of a cobra, which was holding in his mouth a frog. The pipe was too narrow to admit of the snake’s withdrawing his head unless he released his victim; this, however, from unwillingness to forego his meal, he would not do, and in consequence, paid the penalty for his gluttony with his life.
One day, my wife’s ayah came running into our bedroom saying there was a large snake in the bathroom. Arming myself as usual with a stick, I went into the bathroom just in time to see the snake disappear into the waste-water pipe, which ran under another small room to the back of the house, where the water found its outlet. The servants stationed themselves at the outlet, while I endeavoured to drive the reptile out from the rear, first with my stick, and afterwards by pouring the contents of a kettle of boiling water down the pipe. Both attempts to dislodge the intruder from his position proving ineffectual, I commenced a vigorous assault on him by thrusting a bamboo about five feet long down the pipe, and this time success rewarded my efforts, and the snake, driven from his refuge, was killed by the servants outside. This cobra measured about five feet six inches in length, and was the largest that I have ever seen killed. I may here mention that the ordinary ideas about the size attained by this species of snake are greatly exaggerated. Some years ago, a surgeon-major serving in the Madras presidency, with whom I was acquainted, took a great interest in this matter, and offered a considerable reward to any one who would bring him a cobra six feet in length; but, if my memory serves me right, the reward was never gained, although a very large number of cobras were produced for his inspection.
Once I witnessed a wonderful escape from the almost invariably fatal effects of a cobra bite. I was marching with some native troops in the cold weather, and halted for the night at a place called Maikur, where, instead of having our tents pitched, my wife and I preferred occupying a small bungalow belonging to the department of Public Works, which was situated opposite the encamping-ground. Sitting outside the bungalow after dinner, I had occasion to call my head-servant to give him some orders for the next morning. As he ran up, I saw him kick something off his left foot, and at the same time he called out: ‘Sāmp, sahib, sāmp!’ (‘A snake, sir, a snake.’) There was a bright wood-fire burning close by, and I saw by its light the snake with its hood up. It was immediately killed by some of the camp-followers, and was brought to me, and proved to be a small cobra. On examining my servant’s foot, I found one tiny puncture on the ankle, on which was a single drop of blood. The man was at once taken to the hospital tent, and attended to by the hospital assistant in medical charge of the troops, who applied ammonia and did all that was in his power. I was very anxious about the man; but he awoke me at the hour for marching next morning as if nothing had happened, and for some time apparently experienced no inconvenience. Some weeks later, however, after we had reached our destination, his left leg swelled very much, and he suffered great pain for a considerable time; but he eventually recovered. The snake was seen by eight or ten persons besides myself, and was beyond doubt a cobra; and the only possible explanation of the man’s escape seems to be that the reptile must have bitten something else very shortly before, and so to a great extent exhausted the deadly poison in its fangs.
One of our children had a narrow escape, though of a different kind, when quite a baby. My wife picked him up one day from the floor, where he was lying enjoying himself in baby fashion. She had hardly done so, when a cobra fell from the roof on the very spot on which the little one had been disporting himself the moment before.
On one occasion, a curious native superstition with regard to the subject of these notes came to my notice. A cobra which had been killed in the hut of one of the men was brought up to be shown to me, when a havildar (native sergeant) called my attention to the fact that the end of his tail was blunt, saying in Hindustani: ‘Look, sahib; this is a downright villain; he has bitten some man, and so lost the tip of his tail.’ On my making further inquiries, I was confidently assured that whenever a cobra bites a man, the tip of his tail invariably becomes blunted!