crawling slowly over the thatch. The noise soon ceased,
and I thought no more about it and went to bed soon
afterwards. The next afternoon just before dinner, being
rather tired with my day’s work, I was lying on the
couch with a book in my hand, when gazing upwards I
saw a large mass of something overhead which I had not
noticed before. Looking more carefully I could see yellow
and black marks, and thought it must be a tortoise-shell
put up there out of the way between the ridge-pole and
the roof. Continuing to gaze, it suddenly resolved itself
into a large snake, compactly coiled up in a kind of knot;
and I could detect his head and his bright eyes in the
very centre of the folds. The noise of the evening before
was now explained. A python had climbed up one of the
posts of the house, and had made his way under the thatch
within a yard of my head, and taken up a comfortable
position in the roof—and I had slept soundly all night
directly under him.
I called to my two boys who were skinning birds below
and said, “ Here’s a big snake in the r o o f b u t as soon
as I had shown it to them they rushed out of the house
and begged me to come out directly. Finding they
were too much afraid to do anything, we called some of
the labourers in the plantation, and soon had half a
dozen men ip consultation outside. One of these, a native
of Bouru, where there are a great many snakes, said he