Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/162

140 also, what they call that species of serpent that, drawing in the same outward air which Jerome Lobo breathed, could so far pervert its quality as with it to kill at the distance of four yards. Surely such a serpent, if he had no other characteristic in the world, would be described by a naturalist as the serpent with the foul stomach.—I never saw a poisonous serpent in Abyssinia whose belly is not white; so this one being speckled, brown, black, and yellow, will be a direction when any such is found, and serve as a warning not to come near him, at least within the distance of four yards.

continues, "that this danger was not to be much regarded in comparison of another his negligence brought him into. As he was picking up a skin that lay upon the ground, he was stung by a serpent that left its sting in his finger; he picked out an extraneous substance about the bigness of an hair, which he imagined was the sting. This slight wound he took little notice of, till his arm grew inflamed all over; his blood was infected; he fell into convulsions, which were interpreted as the signs of inevitable death." (Chap. xii. p. 125.)

, with all submission to Jerome Lobo, the first serpent had brought him within a near view of death; the second did no more, for it did not kill him; how comes it that he says the first danger was nothing in comparison to the second? The first would have certainly killed him, by blowing upon his back, if he had been nearer than 12 feet. The other had nearly killed him by a sting. Death was the end of them both. I cannot see the difference between the two dangers.