Early one morning a man came to call for some article I had promised.  I at once went to the door, and, it being dark, trod on a serpent.  The moment I felt the cold scaly skin twine round a part of my leg, my latent instinct was roused, and I jumped up higher than I ever did before or hope to do again, shaking the reptile off in the leap.  I probably trod on it near the head, and so prevented it biting me, but did not stop to examine.

Some of the serpents are particularly venomous.  One was killed at Kolobeng of a dark brown, nearly black color, 8 feet 3 inches long.  This species (picakholu) is so copiously supplied with poison that, when a number of dogs attack it, the first bitten dies almost instantaneously, the second in about five minutes, the third in an hour or so, while the fourth may live several hours.  In a cattle-pen it produces great mischief in the same way.  The one we killed at Kolobeng continued to distill clear poison from the fangs for hours after its head was cut off.  This was probably that which passes by the name of the “spitting serpent”, which is believed to be able to eject its poison into the eyes when the wind favors its forcible expiration.  They all require water, and come long distances to the Zouga, and other rivers and pools, in search of it.  We have another dangerous serpent, the puff adder, and several vipers.  One, named by the inhabitants “Noga-put-sane”, or serpent of a kid, utters a cry by night exactly like the bleating of that animal.  I heard one at a spot where no kid could possibly have been.  It is supposed by the natives to lure travelers to itself by this bleating.  Several varieties, when alarmed, emit a peculiar odor, by which the people become aware of their presence in a house.  We have also the cobra (’Naia haje’, Smith) of several colors or varieties.  When annoyed, they raise their heads up about a foot from the ground, and flatten the neck in a threatening manner, darting out the tongue and retracting it with great velocity, while their fixed glassy eyes glare as if in anger.  There are also various species of the genus ‘Dendrophis’, as the ‘Bucephalus viridis’, or green tree-climber.  They climb trees in search of birds and eggs, and are soon discovered by all the birds in the neighborhood collecting and sounding an alarm.* Their fangs are formed not so much for injecting poison on external objects as for keeping in any animal or bird of which they have got hold.  In the case of the ‘Dasypeltis inornatus’ (Smith), the teeth are small, and favorable for the passage of thin-shelled eggs without breaking.  The egg is taken in unbroken till it is within the gullet, or about two inches behind the head.  The gular teeth placed there break the shell without spilling the contents, as would be the case if the front teeth were large.  The shell is then ejected.  Others appear to be harmless, and even edible.  Of the latter sort is the large python, metse pallah, or tari.  The largest specimens of this are about