Jerome speaks of “a dragon of wonderful magnitude, which the Dalmatians in their native language call boas, because they are so large that they can swallow oxen.” Hence it should seem, that the boa-snake may have given birth to the fiction of dragons.[140]
[140] Fosbroke’s British Monachism.
Varia.
PIOUS DIRECTION POST.
Under this title, in a west-country paper of the present year, (1827) there is the following statement:—
On the highway near Bicton, in Devonshire, the seat of the right hon. lord Rolle, in the centre of four cross roads, is a directing post with the following inscriptions, by an attention to which the traveller learns the condition of the roads over which he has to pass, and at the same time is furnished with food for meditation:—
To Woodbury, Topsham, Exeter.—Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.