Calling out "Snake! snake!" at the top of his voice, he seized a stick that was lying on the floor, and proceeded to kill the object of his fright. As he raised the stick his hand was seized by Mr. Walker; the latter smiled and said,
"The snake is perfectly harmless, and one of our pets. Don't kill him."
Fred gave an inquiring look at the face of his host to see if he was in earnest; satisfied that he was, he lowered his arm and took a second look at the snake, who did not seem at all frightened at the presence of strangers.
The reptile was about five feet long, and of an olive-brown color. Mr. Walker said the scientific name for this snake is Pytas muscosus, and there was a snake in India that closely resembled him, and frequently grew to seven feet in length. "We keep them about our houses and other buildings," said he, "as you keep cats in America, and for the same purpose—to kill the rats. They are entirely harmless to us, but a deadly foe to rats; they go around the roofs and ceilings at night, and you will frequently hear a lively struggle going on between a rat and a snake. As the ceilings are often nothing but mats spread over poles, the combatants sometimes fall through, and when this happens in the presence of a person newly arrived in the country it is apt to disturb his nerves."
To show the powers of the snake the gentleman said something to one of the attendants, who immediately went out, and soon returned with a wire trap containing a live rat. The snake was instantly all excitement, and showed the impatience of a terrier to get at his prey. The trap was opened, and the rat released in the middle of the floor; the snake darted upon him with the rapidity of a flash, and in an instant snake and rat were struggling and rolling over each other in deadly conflict. In less than a minute the fight was over, and the snake was the victor.
"The rats are a great annoyance to the coffee-planter," said the gentleman, "and we gladly welcome any means of getting rid of them. We have several varieties, but the worst is the one we call the coffee-rat; he is about four inches long, with stiff, reddish-brown hair, and he makes his nest in the buildings or under the roots of trees. These rats climb the coffee-trees and eat the buds and blossoms, and they enter the houses and eat the berries while they are being cured. They go from one place to another in great swarms, and some plantations have been actually destroyed by them; a thousand have been killed on an estate in twenty-four hours, and sometimes they are so numerous that we offer rewards for killing them. But we never let a reward cover a period of more than a month or two; once it was given for a whole year, and we found that the natives had developed a new industry, and were raising rats in great numbers for the sake of the reward.
"The snakes, the cats, and the Malabar coolies are our best friends in getting rid of the rats; the snakes and the cats kill them for the love of doing so, and the coolies do it for the sake of food. They fry the rats in oil, and pronounce them a great delicacy; and when they have more rats than they can dispose of fresh, they dry them by smoking over a fire, the same as you dry bacon in America."
PLEASURES OF A MORNING WALK.