What a horrid sight! They were of all colors and sizes: some were small and slender, others short and thick. One peculiar kind struck me at once as one that I had never seen before. It swam not far from our canoe, and appeared to be of a bright orange-yellow color. I am sure it was a very venomous one, one whose bite would kill a man in less than five minutes, for the head was very triangular. Then came a large black one with a yellow stripe on the belly; it appeared to me to be ten feet long; the black shone as if it had been oiled. This fellow I also knew to be very poisonous; so when he raised his head above the water I sent a load of small shot into it, literally crushing it to pieces. Then we went immediately at him, and with a few strokes of the paddles we finished him up. I was going to make off, when two of the slaves who were of our party said we must put it in our canoe, and that they should eat the fellow in the evening. This created a great laugh from my Commi boys, and after making sure that the loathsome creature was dead we fished him out of the water. There was at first a jumping about of the men which I was afraid would upset the canoe, in which case we would have been in a pretty fix, swimming about in a stream filled with snakes. At last order was restored; the snake was cut into several pieces, which continued to move and almost appeared like several separate snakes. The pieces were put in a basket, and the eyes of my Apingis began to shine with delight, and it made their mouths water, they said, to think of the nice meal they were going to have in the evening.
IN THE CREEK OF SNAKES.
IN THE CREEK OF SERPENTS.
Just at this moment I spied one of these black snakes trying to get into our canoe by the bow. I made a tremendous leap, as if I had been bitten by a scorpion, the sight was so sudden. I took my gun, loaded with small shot—the best load to kill serpents with—and fired, cutting the saucy fellow in two; then we paddled on, leaving master snake to take care of himself, knowing that his case had been settled.
I really believe all the snakes of the country had come to bathe in this creek on that day, and I did not wonder at it, it was so hot and sultry. I had often met with snakes in the river before, but never in such great numbers and of so many different species. In little more than one hour and a half I must have seen two hundred of them. I had never seen such a sight before and never have since.
Snakes are nasty things! I do not like them at all. They will never be my pets. But there is a country in the Bight of Benin where snakes can not be killed, under penalty of death.
The sun began to go down, and as we paddled along we looked for a dry place on the shore where we might spend the night. The snakes had disappeared, and none were to be seen in the water. Of that circumstance I was very glad.
To find a dry place was not an easy matter, for the land was low, swampy, and overflowed. The prospect of sleeping in the canoe and of being eaten up by musquitoes was not very cheering to my spirits. But the men knew a place where all the year round there was a dry spot, and where they often stopped when fishing; but we must pull very hard in order to reach there before dark. As none of us wished to sleep in the canoe, the fellows paddled as hard as they could, and by half-past five o’clock we reached the place.
It was sunset at six o’clock, so that we had plenty of time to fix our camp.