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"Undaunted by my adventures, and urged on by the monotony of nothing but tough goat on the sideboard, I started before the break of next morning in pursuit of game, and was soon to be seen crawling on hands and knees after antelope, I am afraid unmindful of puff-adders and pitfalls.
A dozen species are known in Brazil, the biggest one being identical with the Guiana bushmaster, and the most common one, the jararaca, being identical, or practically identical with the fer-de-lance. The snakes of this genus, like the rattlesnakes and the Old World vipers and puff-adders, possess long poison-fangs which strike through clothes or any other human garment except stout leather.
Bessie looked through the open kitchen door at the lights and shadows that chased each other across the swelling bosom of the hill behind the house. "It certainly is very fine," she said; "are you going far?" "No, only round the plantation." "There are so many puff-adders down there, and I hate snakes," suggested Bessie, by way of finding another excuse for not coming.
"Oh, I'll look after the puff-adders come along." "Well," she said at last, as she slowly unrolled her sleeves, which had been tucked up during the cake-making, and hid her beautiful white arms, "I will come, not because I want to come, but because you have over-persuaded me.
Dear Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without my coming back in memory to to-day. May we walk back together? I am a mass of ants, and mosquito-bitten to a degree, but I don't think I ever enjoyed myself so much. No, Lord Beauvayse, the path is narrow, and I have a perfect dread of puff-adders.
Then I would jump into the river and allow myself to be carried down by the torrent. All one had to do was to keep well in the middle of the stream and avoid contact with occasional uprooted trees. Once or twice I found myself, when thus swimming, unpleasantly close to puff-adders and other snakes which had been washed by the flood out of their hiding-places in the holes piercing the river-banks.
Together, crawling on their bellies like dusty puff-adders of the Sahara itself, the three companions in arms American, French, Arab slid out of the shallow trench, and in the gloom were lost to sight of the beleaguered Flying Legion. Their mission of death, death to the Beni Harb or to themselves, had begun. In utter silence, moving only a foot at a time, the trio of man-hunters advanced.
She nibbled bannock, sparsely margarined, and sipped her sugarless, milkless tea, sitting on a little bushy knoll, warranted free from puff-adders and tarantulas. Saxham answered stiffly: "Many people here seem to be under the same impression." "Don't you share it? Don't you think her sweet?" "I have seen young ladies who were less deserving of the adjective."
It was surrounded by a ditch and a low sod wall, whereon Bessie seated herself, remarking that she would wait there till he had looked at the trees, as she was afraid of the puff-adders, whereof a large and thriving family were known to live in this plantation.
John assented, observing that the puff-adders were brutes, and that he must have some pigs turned in to destroy them, which the pigs effect by munching them up, apparently without unpleasant consequences to themselves. Then he departed on his errand, wending his way gingerly through the feathery black wattles. It did not take long, and he saw no puff-adders.
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