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When they had covered about half the distance to the raft, a huge boa-constrictor, which they had mistaken for a branch, fell upon Cortlandt, pinioning his arms and bearing him to the ground.
Indeed, he seemed to be crushed out of shape like a buck that has been enveloped in the coils of a boa-constrictor. Brother John told me afterwards that both his arms and nearly all his ribs had been broken in that terrible embrace. Even his spine was dislocated. I have often wondered why the gorilla ran down the line without touching me or the others, to vent his rage upon Jerry.
We re-embarked again, and rowed down to the river-mouth to pick up shells, and drink in the rich roaring trade breeze, after the choking atmosphere of the lagoon; and then rowed up home, tired, and infinitely amused, though neither Manati nor Boa-constrictor had been seen; and then we fell to siesta; during which with Mr.
When the last bit of dessert had been disposed of, and Dicky had gone to sleep in his mother's lap, like an infant boa-constrictor after a hearty meal, the presentation of gifts and reading of poems took place; and Polly had to be on the alert to answer all the nonsensical jokes that were aimed at her.
He held my stare, and presently a sardonic twinkle lit up his eyes. "I'm afraid you disapprove of me?" "Nonsense," I answered promptly; "I don't disapprove of the boa-constrictor; on the contrary, I'm interested in his mental processes." "It's a purely professional interest you take in me?" "Purely." "It's only right that you shouldn't disapprove of me. You have a despicable character."
One morning, in April, 1849, after a night of deluging rain, the lamplighter, on his rounds to extinguish the lamps, woke me up to show me a boa-constrictor he had just killed in the Rua St. Antonio, not far from my door. He had cut it nearly in two with a large knife, as it was making its way down the sandy street.
You saw it in Nature on Jupiter in the case of several creatures, suspecting it in the boa-constrictor and Will-o'-the-wisp and jelly-fish, and have standing illustrations of it in all tailed comets luminosity in the case of large bodies being one manifestation in the rings of this planet, and in the molecular motion and porosity of all gases, liquids, and solids on earth; since what else is it that keeps the molecules apart, heat serving merely to increase its power?
"It seemed as though hereditary fear had seized him, for with a few digs and blows he could have clawed him off. This fight ended by the writhing python getting too close to the boa-constrictor, who happened to be nosing his way across the deck amidships. In the twinkling of an eye, the boa wrapped himself around the python, and the tiger got away.
Then there was the fearful, great boa-constrictor ... which turned out to be a double-jointed, lithe, acrobatic, boy-like girl whom we knew as Jessie ... Jessie, they whispered, was marked for death by consumption, if she didn't look out and stop smoking so many cigarettes ... she was slender and pretty but spoke with an adenoidal thickness of speech.
'Mamma has such strong prejudices, Cecily remarked, as she reluctantly gave up the idea; and I waited to see whether the graceless Tottenham would unmurmuringly take down the Bakewells. How strong must be the sentiment that turns a man into a boa-constrictor without a pang of transmigration! But no, this time he was faithful to the principles of his pre-Cecilian existence.
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