I have stopped up the hole, yet the cobra de capello is, no doubt, still in my compound. The bite of this snake is most deadly.

"During the last fortnight I have heard of three persons having been killed by it at Midnapore. Two of them were hunters (perhaps the two men just spoken of), the other was one of the wives of the Rajah. She put her hand into a cupboard to procure something, when a cobra, which had concealed itself there, bit her. When a person is wounded by this venomous reptile he generally expires within an hour. The only possible cure, and that an uncertain one, is to swallow every few minutes a glass of brandy with some eau de vie, or smelling salts, dissolved in it, while a man stands near beating you with a heavy whip; or instead of this, you may be fastened to a carriage and be compelled to run as fast as possible. The object is to keep you awake, for the danger of the bite consists in the heavy lethargy it produces. The remedies applied, however, are sure to bring on a violent fever, which frequently proves fatal. It is curious that I, who dreaded so greatly the reptiles of India, should have been at once sent to the station where they most abound, for there is probably no place in Bengal where serpents and lizards are so plentiful. Our house is infested by numbers of centipedes, which get on the chairs and on the clothes, in a most unpleasant manner. However, we have neither of us yet been bitten.

"I have not seen a scorpion alive. My wife and I were walking in the compound the other day, when we saw a very large snake looking at us

through the hedge of aloes. It was of a light brown, and was, I think, five or six feet long. Birds form a very principal food for snakes, for which they lie in wait after their manner. On the ground, between two bamboo trees, I observed a pair of doves, of a bright reddish purple. They were walking about, whilst out of one of the bamboo trees poked the head of a great snake, who was quietly watching them. I frightened away the doves, as I guessed the long gentleman's intentions. It is of a kind which does not hurt man, of a dirty brown colour, about seven feet long.

"The other day my servants brought me in a venomous snake which they said they had killed in the compound. I took it up by its tail, and carried it into my wife's dressing-room to show it to her. I laid it down on the floor, and soon it began to wriggle away, and raising its head, turned at us. Fortunately there was a stick at hand, and taking it up, I killed the animal with one blow. So great is the dread of them here that no one ever sleeps without a light, lest, stepping out of bed at night, he should place his foot upon some venomous creature; most people keep a long bamboo in every room. We never put on our shoes without first examining well to see that there is nothing alive in them."

At Cuttack, he writes, "I was calling upon the judge of Cuttack the other day, and his wife told me that a few nights before she went up stairs at twelve o'clock, to see her little girl, who had not been quite well. On the floor of the room she saw what she thought was a piece of ribbon, and stooped to pick it up, when a cobra

raised its head, and expanded its hood, and hissed at her in anger. She called the servants with their bamboos, and they soon killed it, but it was a great mercy she had not touched it.

I

"The other evening the Mhator came to ask me for the key to unlock the fowl-house door, as one of the hens was loose. I told him to bring a light, and then went across the compound. The padlock with which the door is fastened passed through a chain and eye at the top of the door. I raised my hand to unlock it, when the mhator, who had the lantern, called out, 'Sahib, sahib, samp!' (Sir, sir, a snake!) looked, and on the very chain which I was on the point of touching, was a snake. I immediately called the men to bring bamboos, and they soon killed it. On examining it we found it to be one of that sort whose bite is always fatal, so that the person bitten never lives more than half-an-hour, and there would be no time for the doctor to come. How thankful I should be to God for my escape! I suspect that the snake was the cobra manilla, but am not sure. It was about two feet and-a-half long, small head, back dark green, or nearly black, with all the way along it transverse yellow stripes."

Some months after Mr. Acland writes, "We had a sad loss the night before last. I have already mentioned our beautiful little antelope, which used to come and lie at my feet while I was writing. The other night I heard him give a faint scream, and hastened to see what was the matter; he had been bitten by a cobra, and was dead in ten minutes. Poor little fellow !

I

could have cried-my wife did. I have seen many, but never knew one so tame before. I doubt whether any of the servants had dry eyes as its body was thrown into the river. The bite of the cobra causes the body to swell to a frightful size.

"The other day my wife was walking in the garden when a large cobra glided past her; she called some of the men, who soon killed it, but it was too large to put into a bottle. A gentleman happening to call just then, asked me whether I had seen the poison. I said 'no;' he took the head between his fingers and squeezed in such a way as to open the mouth. In the upper jaw were two very large white fangs, corresponding, as it were, to our eye-teeth. As he squeezed with more force, a tiny drop of perfectly transparent, colourless fluid, issued through the point of each fang-these were drops of venom that pass into the wound. The gentleman who showed me this was a medical man, and he said that he would not for a lac of rupees have the half of one of these drops get into a cut in his finger."-Collected from "Manners and customs of India."

THE KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY.

THE most important kingdom of Western Africa is Dahomey, infamous for being the great mart of the slave trade. The King of Dahomey is the chief provider of slaves to the slave ships which trade on that coast. And the one business and

occupation of his people is to make war upon their peaceful neighbours, for the sake of making them prisoners, taking them to the coast and selling them.

Though to the last degree barbarous and cruel, this king and his people are not quite what we mean by savages. They understand some of the arts of civilized life. They cultivate the soil ; they have highways, and towns, and markets; they possess gold, and silver, and gay clothing; they live in ease and plenty, in a magnificently beautiful and fertile country.

They seem to have naturally good understandings, they are strong and well-formed, and are brave and fearless. But their religion and cus toms are horribly cruel. They are the scourge of that part of the world, and so strange in their wickedness, that the first accounts of them seemed rather like some old fabulous legend, than anything real and actual in our own times. For instance, there are old classical stories of amazons, that is, women living by themselves, and fighting like men, and the King of Dahomey has an army of amazons; women who give up all the habits and feelings of their sex, and rival, and sometimes surpass the men in exploits of courage and atrocious cruelty. An amazon

would be ashamed to return from war without a prisoner or a human head in her hand; she would scorn to shrink from the commission of any deed of terror or blood. The king's body. guard is an amazon regiment, and often when the battle seemed going against him, it is his 5000 amazons that have rallied the army and