Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
"It's only a noisy puff-adder," said Shiela, who had retreated very close against Hamil, "but, oh, I don't love them even when they are harmless." And rather thoughtfully she disengaged herself from the sheltering arm of that all too sympathetic young man, and went forward, shivering a little as the hiss of the enraged adder broke out from the uncongenial mud where he had unwillingly landed.
The old witch-doctor looked at the animal, also at the hideous puff-adder that had been dragged along the ground in the fork of the stick. "It will be hard, Little Flower," he said, "seeing that the goat is bitten in the neck and this snake is very poisonous. Still for your sake I will try, although I fear that it may prove but a waste of good medicine."
Straining my eyes, but moving not an inch, I at length clearly distinguished a huge puff-adder, the most deadly snake in the colony, whose bite would have sent me to the other world in an hour or two. I watched him in silent horror: his head was from me so much the worse; for this snake, unlike any other, always rises and strikes back. He did not move; he was asleep.
The anaconda, however, who is the biggest of the constrictors, won't let go for pinching; in this case the best thing is not to let him get hold of you at all. Tobacco-juice will kill a puff-adder.
Every breath, every heartbeat was pregnant with contingencies of life and death. Groveling, they slipped forward, dim, moving shadows in a world of brown obscurity. At any moment, one might lay a hand on a sleeping puff-adder or a scorpion. But even that had been fore-reckoned. All three of them had thought of such contingencies and weighed them.
The policeman fumbled with the lock, threw back the lid, and simultaneously gave vent to a terrific yell, as he flung himself violently backwards. For from the open box rose the writhing forms of half a dozen big cobras, their hoods flattened and arched, vicious and ready to strike, whilst over one of the corners came gliding the broad flattened head and bloated body of a huge puff-adder.
Why should not the graceful and deadly cobra, the horrid cerastes, the huge throttling python, and even more, the loathly puff-adder, undistinguishable from the gravel among which he lay coiled, till he leaped furiously and unswerving, as if shot from a bow, upon his prey why should not they too be kindred to that evil power who had been, in the holiest and most ancient books, personified by the name of the Serpent?
After leaving the Mission-house we made our way, comparatively unmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai call 'Donyo Egere', or the 'speckled mountain', on account of the black patches of rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where the sides are too precipitous to allow of the snow lying on them; then on past the lonely lake Baringo, where one of our two remaining Askari, having unfortunately trodden on a puff-adder, died of snake-bite, in spite of all our efforts to save him.
"We shot a large puff-adder, to prevent it from killing men; you may see it lying dead on the beach." With great courage, our Mokadamo waded to within thirty yards of the bank, and spoke with much earnestness, assuring them that we were a peaceable party, and had not come for war, but to see the river.
Being, like all these cold-blooded creatures, very fond of warmth, it often comes at night to fires made by herdsmen or travellers; and so it happened that a traveller in South Africa, sleeping soundly one night beside the fire, wrapped in his cloak, was awakened by a weight on his chest, and found to his horror that a puff-adder had coiled itself up inside his shirt.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking