Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/19

8 buck, I approached, and, on looking over the mound, saw the head of a large boa-constrictor lying just out of a hole under the heap; and the buck stood with its head turned on one side, in an awkward position gazing intently on its deadly enemy, and not in the least aware of my vicinity. I retreated cautiously, fearing to break the spell, and wishing to watch the last act in this singular mesmeric drama.

The buck must have remained at least five minutes in this transfixed position, the hair of its back erect, its eye dilated, and its attitude stiff and unnatural. Suddenly I saw it on the ground, the thick black coils of the boa enfolding its body and legs. I fired instantly, and the reptile slowly unwound himself, compelled to succumb to a power more terrible than his own. My gun has one barrel rifled, the other a smooth bore for shot. I had discharged shot only, not being far off, and the body of the snake was nearly severed; yet in the short instant during which he had embraced his prey he had broken every bone of the pretty creature’s body. I measured the snake, and found its length to be eighteen feet nine inches.

The eye of the boa is very peculiar while mesmerising its prey; it almost appears to emit flame. It may be compared to an amethyst or a ruby, or both, with an emerald stuck together, and rapidly revolving in the sun.

Its mouth was closed, or nearly so, and its long tongue darting from side to side, as if in greedy anticipation of the dish of venison which awaited its devouring jaws.

On another occasion I watched a smaller boa, about eight feet long, whilst engaged in the act of swallowing a fowl. It first seized the head, and appeared to swallow with great difficulty, making convulsive efforts, observable from the rings of its tail upwards. After some hard struggles, the head and neck of the fowl disappeared, but the wings being extended, presented rather a serious impediment to further proceedings; and I was curious to see how the snake would get over his difficulties,—for even a juggler would be nonplussed if required to swallow knives and forks crossways,—and I soon found that he was quite equal to the emergency. After a series of painful efforts, tantalising, doubtless, to a hungry boa, the reptile brought his tail to the rescue: extremes met, and, folding the wings together, he at last forced the body of the fowl between his jaws. He now, however, seemed to have got himself in a greater fix than ever. The distension caused his neck to appear only as thick as my thumb, and from the form and setting of his teeth he could not disgorge his Brobdingnag mouthful, and I began to think that his snakeship had really rather more than he knew what to do with.

Not a bit of it. After resting a minute or two, he coiled round his distended jaws, and commenced an ingenious process of compression, beginning at his head and working downwards along the neck and body,—stuffing himself as you would a sausage,—till he had completed this extraordinary manœuvre of deglutition. The whole operation lasted about twenty minutes, and, I must confess, seemed anything but a gratifying mode of appeasing the animal appetite.

I captured this boa, and kept him some time in a cask, and ultimately gave him to a friend who was proceeding to Cape Town.

The skin of the boa, and that also of the inguano (a large water lizard), make beautiful, soft, and very durable slippers. I will send you the next I get.

Peter’s Maritzburg, Port Natal.

 so down went plate and mail with punched holes and shivered net-rings, and stalwart men were stricken through all their fences, the steel arrow-heads striking through every steel guard, ringing like the armourer’s tools on his anvil. And it was not mere skill or mere trick of art that did this; the English archers beat the archers of all other nations, because, with a strong hand and stretched-out arm, they could, like Ulysses, bend the tough yew that none others might handle. It came to them by race, and all tradition rings indigenously of their deeds—

The “cloth-yard shaft,” that was wet to the grey-goose feather in the body of fallow deer or foeman, that struck down “hart of grease,” or helmet of price, was not propelled by cross-bow mechanism of ratchet, or cunning chemistry of Roger Bacon, but by the sixty-pounds’ power muscles of English arms, which alone could draw the hempen cord to the fitting angle. These muscles grew on English soil, and the visible death sheaves that hurtled from them, struck terror into the foe from the distance he could not reach in return. The modern leaden bullet strikes without notice, from amidst the smoke and noise—the ancient arrow flashed its mission as it flew.

Strong arms have descended to our modern race, and should give us the same advantage with the modern weapons. The modern English arm should wield a gun carrying proportionately further and truer than the adversary’s guns, as did the arrows of their ancestors; and the advantages given us by nature, would still keep up our superiority. For men, and not machines, are at the root of man’s power now as ever. The machine only multiplies it—the quality which works the machine governs the final result. We have made many improvements in guns since we agreed first to recognise the defects of “Brown Bess,” which possessed the quality of weight without accuracy; and are slowly winning our way to higher efficiency, stimulated by the progress other nations have been making in order to put themselves in advance of us.

Our Enfield rifle has been designated as “the queen of weapons;” but this now seems to be only partially true. On the trial-ground great results are attained; but on the battle-fields of India, a certain number of shots were found to render it useless till cleaned. All sorts of reasons are given to explain this—inaccuracy of bore, irregular resistance by reason of the bayonet and