In the backwoods of Thayetmyo district, Burma, in 1886, I was next to the man who was guiding a party of policemen and villagers going, in single file, on the track of robbers in arms, who had been cattle-lifting. Suddenly the guide in front held his hand behind his back as a signal to stop, and I passed on the signal.

The guide began to move forward, on his toes, as noiselessly as a cat, towards something on the ground. His eyes were riveted upon it, 20 or 30 feet in front of him. To the rest of the party it was invisible. The only noise was the flick of a hand on a pony’s neck, removing a horsefly; and even that was stopped, and all was hushed. We seemed to hold our breath, and, though the guide was moving as quick as man could move without a noise, he seemed to be creeping slowly, slowly. He lifted up his arms as he came near his object, and then dived forward, so to speak, not losing his balance, but [108] ]taking a great step and stooping, and recovering himself with equal speed. Then we saw his game. He had caught by the tail a long snake, 5 or 6 feet long, and was whirling it in the air.

It was thrilling to see it writhing in vain resistance to the laws of matter and the tendency called centrifugal. Its wriggling ended after two or three thwacks of its head upon the ground; but, long after it was as limp as a whipcord, he went on twirling it and thwacking it. He reminded me of the Scottish motto, “I mak’ siccar,” or “I make sure.” The legend is that when Bruce had stabbed a traitor at Dumfries and said to a henchman, “I think I have killed him,” the henchman answered, “Think? I mak’ siccar,” and went and finished the killing. Our guide was as resolute as he to make sure; but after a while he held the limp thing at arm’s length, and let it dangle a second or two in front of him, undeniably dead. Then he flung it over his shoulder and walked on in silence.

“Any use?” I cried.

“Curry for us all,” he answered, looking backwards over his shoulder and seeming surprised at the question.

In 1887, a few months later, being on the Pegu Yoma Mountains between Toungoo and [109] ]Thayetmyo, still on the same kind of business, and leading a crowd of hungry men, I remembered this, and shot a python more than 7 yards long and as thick as a man’s thigh. We met each other accidentally, he and I. He had been dozing after dinner, and yawned in the finest old Piccadilly style. I sent an unmannerly bullet into his mouth, which killed him. For two days, at least, his flesh supplied the wherewithal to flavour the rice of more than forty men; but I cannot tell the taste of it. I have eaten silkworms curried. They tasted like shrimps. But if the reader wishes to realise the savour of snakes, let him eat them himself.

XV [110]
THE TUCKTOO

Burma is chiefly remarkable for a lizard that occasionally haunts the trees and houses there. Span-long or more, it has a head big out of all proportion compared with others of the lizard clans, and eyes that sometimes seem to follow you like owl’s eyes, and a loud voice. “Tuck-too!” it cries, “Tuck-too! Tuck-too!” without any variation, except an occasional repetition of the “oo-oo-oo” at the end, like a musician tuning his pipes.

It is considered very lucky to have such a lizard in your house; and as it is said to be fond of baby rats, and rats bring plague, the prejudice may have some foundation in fact. Its principal food is insects—a wholesome appetite too; but its great glory comes from the similarity of its cry, weak in consonants and loud in vowels,

to the Burmese for Quite so. It is a great prophet. They say the rains can be foretold by counting its Quite sos; and if you are about to wed you [111] ]should ask it, “Is she good? Is she bad?” “Quite so, quite so,” says the prophet, impartial as Fate. But perverse, let it stop first; and if your last question to get “Quite so” is the question,—“Is she bad?” you should break off the marriage. They say that marriages have been broken off on this account; and assuredly, in many a village, you can see and hear the children with mock gravity keeping time to the tucktoo and crying in chorus,—“Is she good? Is she bad?”