MR. ROSEVELT AND THE PYTHON.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 2210, 29 August 1910, Page 7

MR. ROSEVELT AND THE PYTHON.

Mr. Roosevelt records an encounter with a python in the interesting account of his East African hunting trip which appeared in "Scribner's Magazine." "A few yards off coiled up in the long grass under a small tree, was a python. I could not see it distinctly, and using a solid bullet I just missed the backbone, the bullet going through the body about its middle. Immediately the snake lashed at me with its jaws, and then, uncoiling came gliding rapidly in our direction. I do not think it was charging ; I think it was merely trying to escape. "But Judd, who "was utterly unmoved by lion, leopard, or rhino, evidently held this snake in respect, and yelled to me to get out of the way. Accordingly, I jumped back a few feet, and the snake came over the ground where I had stood ; its evil genius then made it halt for a moment and raise its head to a

height of perhaps three feet, and I killed it by 'a shot through the neck. "The porters were much wrought up about the snake, and did not at all like my touching it and taking it up, first by the tail and then by the head. It was only twelve feet long, weighing about forty pounds. "We tied it to a long stick and sent it in by two porters."