SOME QUEER SNAKE STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 36, 10 February 1906, Page 14

SOME QUEER SNAKE STORIES.

COBRAS USED AS INSTRUMENTS OF MURDER. BT HENRY STAGE. Despite the. fact that snakes are so common in India, Europeans do not see much of them unless their duties call them out into tie wilder districts. Like most wild things, they are desperately anxious to avoir! human beings, and with good reason, since a white man always kills a snake at sight. And so. after 20 yeare passed in India, an Englishman may recall the discovery, on two or three occasions, of a snake within his house, into which it has crept for shelter from the rain: he has. perhaps, a dozen times come across oae coiled up beside a pathway, and there his experience of them ends. Yet be must constantly have been close to them; a family of cobras, perhaps, has inhabited his compound, unknown to him; and there may have been snakes in the very thatch of his bungalow. The official reports for a recent year gave the number of deaths from snake-bite throughout India as. 23.000. No doubt in the remoter districts natives often report ihe deaths of their relatives as having been due to siuLke-bite in order to avoid the troublesome inquiries which they detest; and all evidence having been carefully destroyed, it is impossible to arrive at the | truth. Occasionally, too, a reported death from this cause is in reality a case of murder. But after making all deductions, the ! number of persons killed every year by snakes is enormous. This is caused partly by the fanatical dislike which the ordinary native has for killing, or even interfering with, any wild creature, and partly by the common habit of going about with feet and legs bare. I have myself seen a native"soldier walk boldly Into a patch of grass iv my componnd to drive out a cobra which had been seen to glide into it. The fact that his legs were bare to the knee did not cause hLm the slightest hesitation. Fortunately, he did not meet the snake. It is commonly reported, though with what truth I do not know, that natives sometimes adopt a particularly diabolical and ingenious method of getting rid of an . enemy, in such wise that the death shall be | correctly attributed to snake-bite. A smaf cobra, or a kaiait—a snake quite as venomous—is caught uninjured, and a piece of string Is fastened to its tail. The string is then run through the hollow stem of a bamboo just large enough to contain the body of the snake, and by it the creature is dragged, tail first, Ir.side the cane. Great care is taken uot to injure the reptile in any way. Armed with this abominable weapon, the murdewr waits for a suitable opportunity for using it Nothing is easier than to ap preach the hut of his intended victim when he is asleep, and creeping through the open doorway to bring the end of the bamboo into contact with some part of his body. The snake, enraged and terrified by the treatment which it has received, bites as soon as its head touches the man. If the victim Is sleeping soundly, he is probably not even awakened by the slight puncture of the cobra's nefdle-likc fangs. lie passes insensibly into death. The nest day his body is discovered, with all the unmistakable symptoms of snake poisoning; and save through an accident it Is not even suspected that a crime has been committed. The murderer, having liberated the snake and destroyed the hamboo, is perfectly safe. Even if suspicion falls upon him. it is impossible to prove his guilt. Snake stories, more or less incredible, abouud. The following, which was told to mc on such authority that I am forced to believe it is a faiF specimen:—A cobra was discovered in the compound or garden surrounding an officer's bnngalow, and the entire male portion of the household turned out to destroy it. The snake was driven from one hiding-place to another, and at | last it took refuge iv a narrow culvert. All sorts of expedients were tried to drive it out. Shots were fired through the pipe, and bundles of burning grass were thrust into it without effect. Finally, the culvert was dug up, and the snake was found and killed. It was a large and handsome one. and therefore the skin was taken off and hung upon a nail driven into the wall of the verandah out6ide the bungalow. The next morning the owner of the house was astonished by finding ou the ground beneath It a second cobra skin! The natives one and all declared that the mate of the dead snake had come along duriug the night and shed its skin there throngh grief at its loss. The explanation being considered incredible, it was supposed that someone bad indulged in a rather pointless practical joke, though the circumstances of the case made it difficult to r;ee how this could have been possible. But, whatever might be the true explanatlo i, there were tho two skins. Another story, which, however. Is not really a snake story at all, relates that a lady awoke one morning, and. looking round the room, was terrified at seeing a snake coiled upon the back of a chair. She was newly from Eugland. and had lived In dread of some such incident, anil her terror was so extreme that for a time she lay motionless Ln the bed, scarcely daring to breathe. But presently she plucked up a little spirit and looked round for some way of escape. Unfortunately there was only one door, and the chair stood close beside it: and not for all the wealth of the Indies would she have attempted to run the gauntlet. In this predicament she could do nothing but cry out for help. Soon she heard someone coming, and she almost fainted wth terror when her husband entered, and, seeing nothing wrong, picked up the chair, which stood in his way. She was with difficulty brought back from the y.rge of hysterics when the supposed snake was shown to her. and proved to be nothing more dangerous than one of her stockings carelessly thrown over the back of the chair.