Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/147

Rh consider myself safe until I was entirely free of the forest.

I had occasion to return by the same road in the evening; but on arriving at the wood, I turned into a different path from the one we had taken before; and kept an eager watch on the surrounding trees and bushes. Having almost reached the middle of the wood, I heard a number of voices chanting a wild air, and on turning an angle of the road saw a troop of figures—Indians and Mestizoes—advancing armed with long poles and flexible steel wands, which they flourished in the air as an accompaniment to their song. On their first appearance I thought them robbers and grasped the old leathern purse in my pocket as I would have done the hand of a departing friend; but a nearer approach satisfied me as to their avocation: they were snake-hunters. Their long poles were used for the purpose of starting their prey, and overpowering them when discovered, and the flexible steel rods in their hands were still more characteristic of their vocation, being often used so dexterously as to cause instant death to a serpent of the largest size.

These quaint sportsmen trailed behind them